Essays

“The hopelessness of the situation is highlighted by the inability of the policemen to protect themselves let alone anyone else. In Bama, Borno state, over twenty policemen were killed and as if that was not bad enough, two days later 27 policemen were murdered and another 13 captured by a cultist group, Ombatse in Nasarawa state, who they had been sent to arrest. A couple of weeks before that incident, 12 policemen had been killed in Bayelsa state and there had been a violent showdown in Baga between the security agencies and the Boko Haram which resulted in the death of hundreds of innocent citizens. All of this happened in the space of six weeks! If the policemen cannot even protect themselves, what hope do civilians have?“

With each passing day, one finds reason to question whether or not Nigeria is on the brink of a civil war and in need of a declaration of a state of emergency in the whole country, not just a few states. The number of violent deaths recorded weekly is far in excess of what is expected in a peace situation with neither earth quakes nor other natural disasters. The tidal wave of uncertainty rises higher with every announcement of insurgency and there is an uneasy feeling of an impending implosion. As we approach the next election we are constantly reminded of the American prediction that Nigeria will not exist as a country by 2015 and we seem to be marching rapidly towards the fulfilment of that ominous prophecy.

As General Buhari pointed out in his speech during the recent CPC convention, the country is sinking into a state of anarchy which I dare say he contributed to with his careless utterances. The hopelessness of the situation is highlighted by the inability of the policemen to protect themselves let alone anyone else. In Bama, Borno state, over twenty policemen were killed and as if that was not bad enough, two days later 27 policemen were murdered and another 13 captured by a cultist group, Ombatse in Nasarawa state, who they had been sent to arrest. A couple of weeks before that incident, 12 policemen had been killed in Bayelsa state and there had been a violent showdown in Baga between the security agencies and the Boko Haram which resulted in the death of hundreds of innocent citizens. All of this happened in the space of six weeks! If the policemen cannot even protect themselves, what hope do civilians have?

Every state in the country is experiencing some breakdown of security or the other. The South East and South South states are kidnap zones, a threat that is also creeping into the South West. Most of the Northern states are beset with insurgency which has continued unabated since the 2011 elections and the change of the National Security Adviser appears to have made scarce difference to the situation. Calls for the Boko Haram to surrender and accept amnesty which in Nigeria basically means getting paid to stop the terrorism have fallen on deaf ears and instead the Boko Haram added insult to injury by offering the president amnesty claiming they have done nothing wrong.

In response the federal government set up yet another committee to look into a solution and possible amnesty terms. The point of developing amnesty terms for a group responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent civilians and security agencies is lost on me more so when they have stated quite clearly that they are not interested in amnesty. The very recent declaration of a state of emergency in three states may be a step in the right direction but only time will tell. What is certainly not clear is what  will happen to the violence that is still continuing in Bauchi, Kano, Plateau, Kaduna and Nasarawa states and how does this address the kidnapping in the South East and the South South or the political unrest unfolding in Rivers state.

Last week the situation was exacerbated by an exchange of irresponsible utterances from selfish political thugs whose sole motive appears to be to destabilize the polity and create a chaotic environment where their services will become indispensable. The current exchange of verbal fire seems to be between two specific ethnic groups, the Ijaws versus the Fulanis and they appear to be drawing us closer every day to the American prediction.  It is not clear at what point these two former allies became sworn enemies but the battle lines are clearly drawn and for now the press seems to be the theatre of war. Will it end in just talk or will this prove to be the catalyst that will finally push us off the edge? Could this be the beginning of the end of the Fourth Republic?

Asari Dokubo, a former militant who boasted a few months ago that he collected huge sums of money from the government which he invested in Benin Republic for the benefit of his several wives and 18 children, threatened the whole country particularly the North with a war in the event that the current president does not win the election in 2015. Calls from the national assembly for his immediate arrest and questioning, enraged him further into recording a video in which he described the Fulanis as ‘destitute parasites’ and stated that they were planning a coup which he said the president was doing nothing about. He ranted and raved about the equally careless utterances of Lawal Kaita and General Buhari who he described as extremely corrupt and then dared the authorities to arrest him. He threatened that Nigeria would cease to exist as a country if he was arrested and called the authorities cowards if they don’t arrest him. Interestingly no attempts were made to even question him let alone arrest him.

Following Asari’s explosive video there was initially a deafening silence from the presidency raising questions as to whether this was indeed the position of all Ijaws (including the president) as Asari had suggested in his video. If Asari was beating the drums of war, he did not have to wait long to find dancers as two days later Ango Abdullahi, a member of the Northern Elders Form responded to his tirade by stating that they (the Northerners)  have received the president’s message sent through his spokesman Asari, and they are ready for the war promised. This was followed by more threats and counter threats by other supporters on both sides heating up the polity even more and then finally the Federal Government broke its silence. In a statement issued by Gulak, (a Northern aide to the president) the government dissociated itself from Asari’s position and denounced him in pretty strong terms.

The government’s response seems to have had very little impact though. Firstly it arrived a tad too late and did not receive the wide exposure that the video did. Secondly it came from two Northerners, Gulak and Bamanga Tukur (PDP chairman) who in reality were not exempt from Asari’s missiles. The only Niger Deltan in or out of government who has openly taken a position against Asari’s tirade is Tam David West who is known to be a strong supporter of Buhari. The damage has been done, the Northerners are simmering in silent rage and unless there is some significant measure of damage control, the result of this deepening enmity will be demonstrated at the polls come 2015 regardless of the threats.

The reasons for the rift between these two former allies, are not difficult to understand. In a nutshell, the Ijaws feel that the Northerners who have ruled the country for decades have usurped their oil, excluding them from participating in the benefits accruing from the oil production despite the fact that their environment was damaged in the process and their people impoverished. The Northerners on the other hand feel cheated out of the presidency after the death of Yarádua truncated the Northern rule just two years into “their turn” (according to the PDP zoning formula), and are determined to regain the presidential seat come 2015. But the Ijaws do not want Jonathan’s term to end in 2015; they have benefitted immensely from this government and they do not want the party to end. They are prepared they say, to fight to the last man if Jonathan is not re-elected; well you can hardly call it an election if people are coerced into returning him to power. With both sides threatening hell fire and brimstone, what does the rest of the country feel?

Most Southerners appear to be sympathetic to the Ijaw position despite their disenchantment with the present government and their disgust with Asari’s crude method of campaign. Years of resentment against the tyranny experienced during the military rule which was largely Northern has taken its toll and any suggestion of another Northern ruler seems to put everyone’s back up. Asari and his supporters are counting on this and in fact invoking it to ensure that the presidency remains in the South South whilst aggressive loud mouths like Kaita and Abdullahi are playing right into his hands by reinforcing in the minds of the Southerners, the reasons why they would prefer to avoid Northern rule. Where will it all end?

History records several factors that led to the end of the second republic including a weak political structure, lack of cooperation between the states and the federal government, uprising in the North between the farmers and police, teacher’s strikes  and the Yan Tatsine (remarkably similar to Boko Haram) riots in Kaduna, Kano and Maidugri. There was also economic uncertainty due to the end of the oil boom, excessive government spending and high levels of corruption. The problems leading to the end of the first republic were similar and eventually led to a civil war which the country has not totally recovered from thirty years later.

The usual ingredients for a military intervention are all present; political unrest and the attendant tension; badly structured political parties with continuous internal wrangling; corruption has reached dizzying heights and the cost of government is unsustainable; violence and security challenges are stifling our economic development and growth regardless of what the statistics say. It’s a dire situation and one does not need to be a prophet of doom to wonder if what we are experiencing are the final death throes of the Fourth Republic!

(This article was written on 18th May, 2013 by Roz Ben-Okagbue).

________________RBO, 2013

The yoruba people of south-western Nigeria are a nationality of approximately 50 million people the vast majority of whom are concentrated primarily within Nigeria but who are also spread throughout the entire world. They constitute probably the largest percentage of Africans that live in the diaspora and they have made their own extraordinary contributions in virtually every field of human endeavour throughout the ages. Descendants of the yoruba and indeed in most cases various ancient derivatives and forms of the yoruba language can be found and are spoken in places like Brazil, Haiti, Cuba,  Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and various other parts of the world. Today first, second and even third generation yorubas have settled down and spread all over the world and are amongst the best and most sought after lawyers, nuclear scientists, doctors, industralists, academics, writers, poets, playwrites, clerics, theologians, artists, film producers, historians and intellectuals throughout the world. Wherever they go they tend to flourish and excel.

This is nothing new and indeed has always been the case. The first Nigerian to be called to the Bar was a yoruba man by the name of Sapara Williams who was called to the English Bar and started practising as a lawyer in 1879. Yet Sapara Williams was not a flash in the pan or a one time wonder. Other yoruba men followed in his footsteps in quick succession and were called to the English Bar shortly after he was. For example after him came Joseph Edgarton Shyngle who was called in 1888, then came Gabriel Hugh Savage who was called in 1891, then came Rotimi Alade who was called in 1892, then came Kitoye Ajasa (whose original name was Edmund Macauly) who was called in 1893, then came Arthur Joseph Eugene Bucknor who was called in 1894 and then came Eric Olaolu Moore who was called in 1903. Ironically Sapara Williams was not the first Nigerian lawyer though he was the first to be called to the English Bar. In those days you did not have to be called to the Bar to practice law and the first Nigerian lawyer that practised without being called to the Bar was a yoruba man by the name of William Henry Savage. He was described as a ''self-taught and practising lawyer'' and he was a registered Notary Public in England as far back as1821.  These were indeed the greats and every single one of them was a yoruba man.

My friend and brother the respected Mr. Akin Ajose-Adeogun, who is a historian by calling and a lawyer by profession, is a man for whom I have tremendous respect. I have often described him as the ''living oracle of Nigerian history'' simply because he has a photographic memory, a knack for detail, first class sources and has read more books on Nigerian history than anyone that I have ever met before in my life. Akin has an extraordinary mind, he is a living genius and I have often urged him to write a book. You can ask him anything about anyone or any event in any part of our country, since or before independence, and he will give you names, dates and the sequence of events immmediately and without any recourse to notes, books or sources. After he has given you the information he will then cite his sources and tell you which books to go and read in order to confirm what he is saying. I have learnt so much from him that I must publically acknowledge the fact that I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. He once told me something that I found very interesting and that reflected the semi god-like status that our earliest lawyers, including some of the names that I mentioned earlier, enjoyed amongst the people. These men were not only reverred but they were also admired by all, including members of the British intelligensia, legal fraternity and elites. Akin told me that many years ago in the mid-80's Sir Adetokunboh Ademola, who himself was one of the legal greats, who was called to the English Bar in 1934, who was the third Nigerian to be appointed as a magistrate in 1938, who was the third Nigerian to be appointed as a High Court judge in 1948  and who was the first Nigerian to be appointed Chief Justice of the Federation in 1958 said the following words to him. He said, ''when you saw the way that the earliest Nigerian lawyers conducted themselves in court and argued their cases you would have been filled with pride and you would have wanted to become a lawyer yourself. Members of the public used to fill the court rooms to the brink and sometimes even the forecourts and passages just to watch these great men perform and enjoy their brilliance and oratory. They spoke the Queens english and they knew the law inside out. It is not like that today''.  This is a resounding testimony from an illustrious Nigerian and it speaks eloquently about where the yoruba, as a people, are coming from and the stock and quality of minds that they are made of.

Yet the dynamism of the yoruba and their innovations and ''firsts'' did not stop there. It went into numerous other spheres of human endeavour quite apart from the law. Permit me to cite just two examples. The first lies within the field of medicine. Dr. Nathaniel King was the first Nigerian to become a medical practitioner. He graduated from Edinburgh University in 1876 and he was a Creole of yoruba origin. Next came Dr. Oguntola Sapara who was the second Nigerian to become a medical practitioner and who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1884. He was followed by Dr. John Randle who graduated from Durham University in 1891, then Dr. Orisadipe Obasa who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1892, then Dr. Akinwande Savage who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1900, then Dr. Curtis Adeniyi-Jones who graduated from Durham University in 1901. Others like Dr. Oyejola who graduated in 1905, Dr. Kubolaje Faderin, Dr. Sesi Akapo and Dr. Magnus Macauly who all graduated in 1912, Dr. Moyses Joao Da Rocha who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1913 and many others followed after that. 

The second example lies within the ranks of the clergy. The first African Anglican Bishop and the first man to translate the Holy Bible and Book of Common Prayer to any African language (outside of Ethiopia) was a yoruba ex-slave who gave his life to Christ, won his freedom and rose up to become one of the greatest and most respected clerics and leaders that the African continent has ever known by the name of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther. Unknown to many his original name was Rev. John Raban but he changed it in his early years. Crowther got his first degree at the famous Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leonne (which at that time was part of Durham University). He was ordained as an Anglican Bishop in 1864 and in that same year he was awarded a Doctrate degree from Oxford University. 

This extraordinary man who was blessed by God with an exceptionally brilliant mind was, as far as I am concerned, one of the greatest Africans that ever lived. He not only translated the Holy Bible and the Book of Common Prayer to yoruba (an extreemly difficult, complicated and painstaking venture which he began in 1843 and which he completed in 1888) but he also codified a number of other christian books and he translated them into the Igbo and Nupe languages. He was literally the pillar and foundation of the Anglican church in west Africa. Throughout his adult life he courageously stood up and fought for the rights and the dignity of the African and he, more than anyone else, was responsible for the spread, influence and power of the christian faith in Nigeria in the late 19th century. He was also the maternal grandfather of the great nationalist Herbert Macauly who, together with Nnamdi Azikiwe, founded the political party known as the NCNC in 1944. Crowther was also the father-in-law of Rev. Thomas Babington Macauly who founded the Christian Missionary Society Grammar School (CMS Grammar School) in 1859 in what was then the Lagos Colony. CMS Grammar School was the epitomy of excellence and a citadel of great learning in those days. It was also the oldest secondry school in Nigeria and the main source of African clergymen and administrartors in the Lagos Colony. It is not surprising that it was the son-in-law of the great Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther that founded such a school and that it was his grandson that founded one the greatest political parties that the African continent has ever known. This is another first for the yoruba.

Yet who are these people and where did they come from? What is their origin and what is their source of strength? What were their migratory patterns over the last 30,000 and more years and how did they end up in Ile-Ife? What is their connection to the Middle East, to the Arabs of Mecca and Medina, to the ancient Egyptians and to the Nubians of the Sudan? What makes them so special and so peculiar all at the same time? What makes their religious set-up so complicated and so profund and what allows each of the great monotheic faiths of christianity and islam together with the traditional religions to flourish and excel amongst the very same people at the same time? Why are the yoruba so accomodating of outsiders and what is responsible for their liberal disposition when it comes to their dealings with people from other cultures, other faiths and other nationalities? Why is it that so many yoruba families have mixed ancestral bloodlines that go back hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of years with so many different nationalities from outside yorubaland including the Brazilians of Bahia, the Haitians of Port Au Prince, the Cubans of Havana, the Trinadadians of Port of Spain, the Creoles of Freetown, the Ga's of Accra and the numerous tribes of Dahomey (Benin Republic) and Togo. Within Nigeria itself the bloodlines of the yoruba are mixed with that of the Edo, the Bini, the Itsekiri, the Ilaje, the Isoko, the Urhobo and other tribes from the old Mid-Western region and with that of the Nupe, the Hausa, the Fulani, the Tapa, the Shuwa Arab and the Kanuri from the north.

What is the cultural and spiritual affinity of the yoruba with the people of the old Northern and old Mid-Western regions of Nigeria and why are the people from those two regions together with those from the South-West collectively referrred to as the ''Sudanese Nigerians''? Some of these questions may never be answered but in the sequel to this essay we will attempt to at least view and analyse the yoruba from a historical perspective and this may explain why they are what they undoubtedly are- ''primus inter pares'', the first amongst equals.

________________FFK, 2013

Prior to 1985 Nigerians were amongst the most literate, intellectually-inclined, respected, well-informed, well-read and well-educated people in the world and this had been so since the mid-1800's. Our education system was once the envy of the British Commonwealth and in terms of academics Nigerians scored firsts wherever they went. However as from 1985 everything changed in our country including our attitude to life, our economic situation, our sense of values, our perception of ourselves and what we stood for and our education system. From that time everything appears to have gone to the dogs and from that point it was just one period of degradation and degenaration to another up until today.

Nothing was more affected by this unfortunate state of affairs than our education system. Post-1985 the whole education system in our country simply broke down. The result of this was predictable, swift and startling as an attitude of disdain and derision for anything that lay in the realm of education and particularly in the realm of the arts, like literature and history, were treated with disdain and contempt by our people. Simply put no-one was interested.  As far as most Nigerians were concerned it paid better to be a tomatoe puree importer and dealer or a sugar trader than it did to be a scholar or a professional. The result of this shameful attitude was devastating on our pysche as a people and on our culture. We just degenerated in every conceivable way and post-1985 we became a nation of traders and ceased to be a nation of scholars.

The result of all this was as follows. I would conceede that there are some exceptions to the rule but one of the weaknesses of the average Nigerian today is that, generally speaking, he does not read widely, he does not do much research, he knows little about literature and the arts and he knows nothing about his own history or the history of his country. Worse still because he does not have the discipline to do his reserach and to read widely he is prepared to accept oral folk-lore and self-serving revisionist folk tales as historical fact and to literally swear by them. No group of people that I am aware of in the world today suffer more from this strange affliction and this willful attempt to ignore or to distort their own history as much Nigerians. To make matters worse the average Nigerian honsetly believes that history does not matter and that the fact that history is not taught in Nigerian schools is no big deal. Is it any wonder that we are in  a mess? They say that those that do not know or do not learn from their own history are bound to repeat its mistakes. And nowhere has this truism found more relevance and veracity as it has in modern-day Nigeria. Some of the consequence of this unfortunate mindset is the fact that the manifestation of crass ignorance and the expression of pure falsehood has taken pride of place and has become commonplace in our country when we talk about our past. Few Nigerians know who they are, where they are coming from, how their nation came about and who our heroes of the past, our great nationalists and our founding fathers actually were. Great names like Sapara Williams, Herbert Macauly, Adeyemo Alakija, Ajayi Crowther, Akinwale Akinsanya, Ernest Ikoli, Charles Onyeama, Bode Thomas, H.O. Davis, Adegoke Adelabu, Eyo Ita, Inua Wada, Mohammadu Ribadu, Joseph Tarka, Aminu Kano, Ayo Rosiji, Isa Williams, Louis Ojukwu, Alfred Rewane, Festus Okotie Eboh, S.O.Gbadamosi, S.G. Ikokwu and so many others have little relevance or meaning to most young Nigerians today. They just don't know who these great men were or what they did for our country. What a tragedy. 

Yet nowhere has the confusion of our people been made more manifest when it comes to our history than on the vexed question of who successfully moved Nigeria's motion for independence. There has been so much misunderstanding and disinformation about who actually moved that motion and I believe that it is time to to set the record straight and bring this matter to closure. In order to do so successfully we must be guided by facts and historical records and not by emotion, sentiment or political considerations. The moment we allow our recollection of events or our knowledge of history to be guided or beclouded by such perennial considerations we are finished as a people.  

The truth is that almost 90 per cent of Nigerians have been brought up to believe that the motion for Nigeria 's independence was successfully moved by Chief Anthony Enahoro, a man that is undoubtedly one of our most revered nationalists and founding fathers. Though nothing can be taken away from Enahoro in terms of his monumental contributions in our quest for independence (I would argue that he kicked off the process for that struggle with his gallant efforts in 1953) the fact remains that he was not the man that successfully moved the motion for Nigeria 's independence.

Another group of Nigerians believe that Chief S.L. Akintola, another great nationalist and elder statesman and the former Premier of the old Western Region, was responsible for the successful movement of the motion for Nigeria 's independence. Again though there is no doubt that Akintola played a major and critical role in the whole process, he was not the one that successfully moved the motion for Nigeria 's independence. 

There is yet another school of thought that says that it was Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the much loved former Prime Minister of blessed memory that was the first to successfully move the motion for Nigeria 's independence. Again this is not historically accurate. Balewa's 1959 motion was not the first successful motion for our independence and neither was it in actual fact a motion for independence at all . It was rather a motion to amend an already existing motion which had already been successfully moved and passed by Parliament and which had been accepted and aquiessed to by the British in 1958.

That successful 1958 motion was moved by none other than my late father of blessed memory, Chief Remilekun Fani-Kayode, the former Deputy Premier of Nigeria 's Western Region. Not only did he play a major role in the movement of the motion for Nigeria 's independence but, as a matter of fact, his was the first successful motion for independence in Parliament that was acceepted by the British and it was actually the one that got us our independence. His motion, which was moved in Parliament on the platform of the Action Group on August 2nd 1958 , was actually the landmark and most significant motion of all when it comes to the issue of our independence.

 

Let us look at the history, the records and the facts. Chief Anthony Enahoro moved a motion for ''self rule'' in the Federal House in 1953 which proposed that we should have our independence in 1956. Unfortunately it was rejected by Parliament and it therefore failed. It also resulted in a walk out by the northern NPC parliamentarians who were of the view that Nigeria was not yet ready for independence. The tensions and acrimony that came from all this and the terrible treatment that was meted out to the northern parliamentarians and leaders that were in the south as a result of the fact that they would not support Enahoro's motion resulted in the infamous Kano riots of 1953. 

 In 1957 Chief S.L. Akintola moved a second motion for independence in Parliament and asked for us to gain our independence from the British in 1959. This motion was passed by the Federal House but the British authorities refused to acquiese to it and consequently it failed. In 1958 my father moved the third motion for Nigeria 's independence in the Federal Parliament and he asked that Nigeria should be given her independence on April 2nd 1960 . The motion was not only passed by Parliament but it was also acquiesed to by the British and was therefore successful. That was indeed a great day and a great achievement for Nigeria .

However in 1959, at the instance of the British Colonial authorities who said that they needed a few more months to put everything in place before leaving our shores, Sir Tafawa Balewa moved a motion for a slight amendment to be made to the original 1958 motion that had been passed and approved to the effect that the date of independence should be shifted from April 2nd to Oct. 1st instead. Sir Tafawa Balewa's motion for amendment was seconded by Chief Raymond Njoku, the Minister of Transport, and it was acquiesed to by the British. That is how we arrived at the date October 1st 1960 for our independence.

The details of all this can be found in Hansard (which are the official record of proceedimgs of Parliament) and they can also be found in what in my view is one of the most detailed, authoritative and well-researched history books that has ever been written when it comes to the politics of the 40's, 50's and 60's in Nigeria titled "Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation" by the respected American historian, Professor Richard L. Sklar. Sklar actually lived in Nigeria throughout much of that period. On page 269 of his book he wrote the following "in July 1958, Barrister Remi Fani-Kayode had the distinction of moving the resolution for independence on April 2nd 1960, which was supported by all the parties in the Federal House of Representatives".

Another excellent book that covers this topic and era very well is titled "Glimpses Into Nigeria 's History" and was written by Professor Sanya Onabamiro, a highly distinguished elder statesman and nationalist in his own right, who was a regional Minister and one of the main political players at the time. On pg.140 of his book and in reference to Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Premier of the Northern Region, Onabamiro wrote: "he was the bridge between the north and the south, between the old and the new, between the fast and the slow. Without such a bridge to swing the votes of the Northern members of the House of Representatives in support of the southern members, there was little hope that the crucial motion on 'independence on April 2nd  1960" moved by an Action Group member of the House of Representatives in July 1958, would receive the unanimous endorsement of all the parties in the House as it did".   Professor Onabamiro was writing about the Fani-Kayode motion of April 2nd 1958 and the "Action Group member" that he was referring to was my father. This is contrary to the assumption of some, including my dear egbon Chief Ladi Akintola (the distinguished son of the late Chief S.L. Akintola) who, in an article titled, "Between Akintola and Enahoro" which was written in 2001, wrote that when Onabamiro wrote this he was writing in reference to the motion that his father had previously moved on the same issue in !957. Ladi Akintola was wrong.  The 1957 motion which Akintola moved had asked for our independence in 1959 and though it was indeed passed by the Federal House it was not accepted or acquiessed to by the British. Consequently, just like the Enahoro motion of 1953, it failed and this is why we did not get our independence in 1959.  

 From the foregoing you can see that the successful movement of the motion for our independence in Parliament was as a result of the collective efforts of a number of prominent and notable people from different parts of the country and from different political parties that worked closely together on this issue over a period of time in the Federal House and that my father was one of those people. As a matter of fact he played a key and critical role in the proceedings. His 1958 motion for independence was highly significant because it was the only successful one and it was the one that actually got us independence in 1960. As I said earlier Tafawa Balewa's motion was not a motion for independence but rather a motion to slightly amend the original one that had already been approved by the House and acquiesed to by the British.

The simple answer to the question as to who moved the motion to Nigeria's independence, in my view, is that Anthony Enahoro, Samuel Ladoke Akintola, Remi Fani-Kayode, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Raymond Njoku, together with their respective political parties (Action Group, NPC and NCNC respectively) all played major and key roles in this exercise and the credit for the successful passing of that motion should go not just to all those who, at different times, moved or attempted to the move the various motions but also to every single member of Parliament that sat on the relevant days and that voted for the various motions to be passed. 

________________ FFK, 2013

Having listened to Mr. David Icke's 7 hour presentation titled "Get Off Your Knees- The Lion Sleeps No More" on youtube for the second time in two weeks, I am convinced that the greatest evil in the world today is what he has rightly labelled as "Rothschild Zionism". 

It is presents the greatest danger to America as a nation, to the Jews themselves, to the Jewish State of Israel, to the Palestinian people, to the Arabs, to every single one of the three great monotheic religious faiths of christianity, islam and judaism, to the entire world and its value system and to humanity itself. Simply put the evil and deceit of these monsters and their pervasive control of the entire world system is beyond human comprehension. 

There are no words in the english language to describe just how inhuman, insensitive, wicked, pervasive, reprehensible and pyschotic they are. May Jesus come soon and may God bring each and every one of these reptilian devil worshippers and servants of satan to heel. Sadly Nigeria now seems to be high up on their agenda of utter destruction with the Boko Haram saga unfolding beautifully. Soon they will offer to "step in", "break us up as a country" and "fix the problem" for us just as they "fixed Mali's problem". 

The irony of it all is that few know that THEY created, nurtured, sponsored and sustained that problem in the first place because it was part of their insidious agenda to control the entire world and bring us a little closer to their publically stated objective of a "one world government" and a "one world army''. 

I urge you to set aside a few hours, to watch this video and to learn about so many things and so many people that are on the world stage today. Icke presents his case in a very convincing and compelling manner. 

Find out about the ''reptilian'' connection of the English monarchy, the activities of George Bush senior in the world of paedophilia and child sacrifice, the activities of the Rothschilds, the role of successive American Presidents, British Prime Mnisters and other world leaders, their links with satanism, the Bohemian Grove, the Illuminati, commerce, secret societies, the media and so much more. These are indeed perilous times. We must learn, we must watch and we must pray.

________________ FFK, 2013

In 1999 when President Olusegun Obasanjo came to power he met 1.5 billion USD in our foreign reserves. Yet by the time he left office in 2007, eight years later, he built up those reserves from 1.5 billion to 67 billion USD. Out of that 67 billion he deducted 20 billion and used it to pay off a large chunk of our foreign debt. That is how we arrived at the figure of 47 billion USD which was left in our foreign reserves in 2007 when Obasanjo left office and handed over power to the incoming administration. Today, four years later, despite very high crude oil prices and record amounts of oil and gas sales, Nigeria still only has approximately 45 billion USD in her foreign reserves. Some have described this as progress. Yet I do not believe that this can be described as progress in any shape or form. Successor governments are meant to build on the legacy of those that came before them. This is especially so when they belong to the same political party. In the case of the Jonathan administration this has clearly not happened given the fact that today we have just a little less in our foreign reserves than we did four years ago.

Let us look at our foreign debt profile. In 1999 when President Obasanjo came to power he inherited a foreign debt of over 30 billion USD from the Abubakar administration. Yet by the time he left power in 2007 he had paid off that debt fully and for the first time in the history of the world, sub-saharan Africa had a country that was completely debt-free. No other African country has ever achieved this. Yet sadly, four years later and under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, our foreign debt has risen from zero to 9 billion USD. Consequently all the admiration and wonderful accolades that we won as a country from the international commmunity for exercising and indulging in financial prudence and good old-fashioned fiscal discipline when Obasanjo was in power have been squandered and lost.

Now let us look at the Excess Crude Account. In 1999 when President Obasanjo came to power there was zero in the Excess Crude Account simply because there was no such thing at the time. He established it and created it specifically for saving some of our foreign exchange ''for a rainy day''. Consequently from zero in 1999 he saved and built it up to 24 billion USD in eight years. This was unprecedented and it was commended by all the international monetry institutions. No-one believed that an African government was capable of saving money in this way. However the concept of ''saving for a rainy day'' did not last for too long after Obasanjo left power. By the end of the second year of President Umaru Yar'adua's tenure of office the Excess Crude Account was completely drained and left with only a paltry one billion USD. This surely has to be a record when it comes to reckless public spending and the squandering of our resources. In fairness to the Jonathan administration they met next to nothing in the Excess Crude Account when he took over as President two years ago and since then he has been trying to build it up again. Yet despite his efforts, as at the last time I checked, we had only 7 billion USD in that account. This figure represents 17 billion USD less than we left in that same account four years ago when President Obasanjo left office.

These are indeed difficult and unpleasant submissions from which I derive no joy but nevertheless true and accurate ones. Facts and figures do not lie and in this case they tell a very disturbing story. It is incumbent on us all to urge our Government to do far better. Yet the last time some of us tried to do this government referred to us, in a throughly disdainful manner, as being ''hypocrites'' and nothing more than ''yesterdays men''. The point was taken. They did not want us to ask any questions, to speak the truth, to assesss their performance, to let the Nigerian people know where they were taking us or to express our deep concerns about the direction in which our country was going. We were even subjected to veiled threats and the most primitive and crude forms of intimidation. Yet it did not work and neither can it ever work because we are talking about the destiny of our country. No-one is intimidated and I for one will never be silent and cannot be silenced as long as there is life and breath in me.

It is to that end that I will take the opportunity of this august gathering to ask the same questions of ''todays men'', in addition to one or two new ones, that I asked just a few weeks ago. And those questions are as follows.

When will our President take President Obasanjo’s advice and finally do something concrete about Boko Haram and our security situation? When will our Government come to terms with the fact that a policy of appeasement and the offering of amnesty to a bunch of murderers, criminals and terrorists that seek to establish an islamic fundamentalist state in northerrn Nigeria and that seek to kill and maim everyone that opposes them in that inglorious endeavour is not only an exercise in futility but that it also sets a dangerous precedent? Does the fact that at least 4,400 Nigerians have been killed by Boko Haram and Ansaru in the last two years under their watch not bother them? Does the fact that according to the BBC and CNN 185 innocent Nigerians were murdered, 2000 buildings burnt to the ground and 10,000 people displaced in Baga town in one day just two days ago give them any cause for concern?

Is this not an eloquent testimony to the fact that the crisis is escalating and that all their calls and offers of amnesty to Boko Haram have fallen on deaf ears and failed? Does the fact that it took our Government two days to even acknowledge that the Baga massacres ever took place and that when they finally did all they said was that they would ''investigate it'' not seem rather insensitive? This was after the Sec. Gen. of the U.N. and numerous other world leaders had not only condemned the massacre but had also expressed their condolences to our President, to the Nigerian people and to those that lost their loved ones. Yet to the best of my knowledge not one word of condolence or regret was offered by our President or our Government. Since when have we degenerated to such a point that when our people are killed in such a brazen manner and in such large numbers we don't even seem to ''give a damn''? Since when have we become a nation of sociopaths that have no feeling and that do not value human life?

4, 400 precious souls cut short and slaughtered like chicken by Boko Haram in the last two years. How can our government sleep well at night with all that innocent blood that has flowed whilst they are at the helm of affairs of our nation? More innocent souls have been killed in the last 2 years by terrorists than at any other time in the history of Nigeria outside the civil war. How does President Jonathan and his ”today’s men” feel about winning such a dubious and dishonorable title? Does he still regard Boko Haram as ”his siblings” who he ”cannot hurt”? Why did the President refuse to visit the good people of the northeast for so long despite the fact that hundreds of people are still being slaughtered there by Boko Haram every day? He did not visit the place until the APC governors took the initiative, did the right thing, went there boldly and paved the way? It was only after that initiative was taken by the opposition that our President woke up from his deep slumber, remembered that he was the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces and saw fit to go to the north-east. Why did he take so long before doing so?

Moving to the issue of corruption and the economy, when will our President and his ”today’s men” answer David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom's, question and tell him what they did with the 100 billion USD that they made from oil sales in the last two years? When will they answer Obi Ezekwesili’s question about how they squandered 67 billion USD of our foreign reserves? When will they answer the question that Nasir El Rufai asked sometime back about how they spent over 350 billion naira on security vote in one year alone? When will they answer the many questions that Pat Utomi and many other distinguished and courageous leaders and ”yesterday’s men” have raised about the trillions of naira that have been supposedly spent on oil subsidy payments in the last two years?

When will they implement the findings and recommendations of the Nuhu Ribadu report on the thievery that has gone on in the oil sector? When will they cultivate the guts and find the courage to respond to a call for a public debate to defend their abysmal record? When will these ”today’s men” stop being so reckless with our money? Why would our ”today’s man” FCT Minister budget 5 billion for the ”rehabilitatioin of prostitues in the Abuja”? Why would he budget 7.5 billion naira for a new ”FCT city gate”? Why would he budget 4 billion naira for some kind of building or centre for the First Lady? Why would the Federal Government of ”todays men” budget 1 billion naira for food in the Villa? Are these the priorities of ”today’s men”? And all this when Nigeria is back in foreign debt to the tune of 9 billion USD and is still borrowing, when local debt has hit almost 50 billion USD, when 40 per cent of Nigerians are unemployed, when graduate unemployment has hit 80 per cent, when 40 per cent of Nigerians do not have access to good food and are described by the U.N.D.P as being ”hungry” and when 70 per cent of Nigerians are living below the poverty line? Is this the vision of ”today’s men”?

If so, may God deliver Nigeria. So much destruction and disaster all wrought in the space of two years and by just one man. That is the legacy of ''todays men''. Yet just as it took one man to take us to these dingy and depressing depths so it will take one man to lift us up again to the heights of glory. It took Adam, who was just one man, to destroy humanity and take away all that God had given unto us so freely. Yet it took just one other man, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, to redeem mankind, to restore us, to reconcile us with God and and to once again grant us our salvation and give us dominion over the earth. One man destroyed and another came down, as God incarnate in the flesh, and restored.

I have come here to tell you today that though one man has virtually destroyed the great legacy that was handed over to him and entrusted to him and his co-pilot 4 years ago in 2007, we should not lose hope because God has already raised and prepared another to take that power back in 2015 in a free and fair democratic election. He has raised another to redeem our fortunes, restore our pride, dignity and self-respect, rebuild our economy, restore law and order and give our beloved homeland and our beautiful people hope for a better tomorrow. No matter how bad things may be today, God has already made a way out and crafted a master plan for restoration, joy, abundance and a good harvest for our future. That is indeed where our hope lies. We leave all to Him and we shall continue to do that which He Himself has asked us to do in His Holy Word by speaking out against injustice, oppression, persecution, corruption and the rampant evil that reigns supreme in our land. We must not remain silent when faced with this evil. We must not remain holed up in our prayer closets and merely continue to hope against hope. We must do more far more than that. We must get involved in the struggle, join hands with all the relevant stakeholders, get involved in politics and work and fight hard within the confines of the constitution and the law to remove those that have visited such evil on our land and sought to blight the future of our nation. And in this struggle fear and indifference has no place because we are eagles, we are kings and we are lions.

I say this because eagles do not hide when they see a storm gathering, lions do not retreat when the enemy threatens and kings do not run when they hear the sound of battle. Rather the eagle flies boldly into the eye of the storm without a trace of fear but with power, majesty, grace and passion. The lion rises and roars with courage and strength as his adversary approaches. The king does not yield one inch of the field to the marauding enemy but rather he gallantly and boldly leads his captains and princes into the most bitter part of the battle.

This surely is our calling and the essence of our lives. The Lord has given us the spirit of the eagle and the lion: the spirit of the warrior and the king. We cannot and will not be intimidated by anything, any circumstance or anyone and least of all by what we see or hear. And why should we be afraid of mere mortals, for what is man? The bible asks,”who art thou o man?” It then answers it's own question by saying “thou art as the grass that withers, thou art as the flower that fadeth........a man that is born of woman, that is today and tomorrow is no more.” Indeed that is all we are before God. His word says it is He alone that has the power to “give life and to kill.” If we die tomorrow it is by His will and if we live tomorrow it is by His grace. His word says it is He alone that is worthy of our fear and of our praise.

We must therefore all humble ourselves before God and know that He alone rules in the affairs of men and determines the destiny of nations. So fear God alone and be the man or woman that He has called you to be; a prince of Heaven, a deliverer of his people, a fearless warrior and a worthy king. And one of the characteristics of a true leader and king is the courage and ability to fearlessly rise up to the occassion and speak out when faced with evil, injustice and oppression. One question that is often asked today is why should we speak out ? Why bother? What difference does it make? And yet Edmund Burke provided the answer to the question when he said that when good men remain silent when they see evil in the land, that is when such evil flourishes. He said that the hottest place in hell is reserved for such "good" yet silent men . This is not only true but it is also deeply profound. That is why it saddens me when some people suggest that we should not talk about our challenges and that we should not speak out and protest against the evil and injustice that thrives in our land today. Imagine what it would have been like if people had adopted that attitude all over the world and throughout world history.

The point is that we must speak out strongly and protest against evil whenever and wherever we see it. That is why we were educated in the first place and that is what being a believer is all about. Protesting against, speaking against and fighting against injustice and evil is the greatest duty that we have to humanity and to one another as human beings. It is a sacred trust and obligation before God. The minute we stop talking, we stop protesting and we stop speaking out against that which is unjust and evil, that is when we are truly lost as a people. That is when we cease to be the men and women that God has ordained us to be. That is when we no longer deserve to be called human beings. That is when we must bow our heads in shame forever.

Today our nation stands at a crossroads and it is left for us to decide which path we choose to take. Do we take the path of despair and dishonour and give up on our country? Or do we rise above it all and latch on to the promises of God for our land and for our people? With biting poverty, mounting hopelessness, a bleeding economy, youth restiveness, unprecedented violence, brazen acts of terror and all manner of vices and evil thriving in the land one wonders how things got so bad.

The foundation for our current situation was laid many years ago and since that time we have seen so much suffering and failure at virtually all levels. We were plagued with leaders who lacked vision, who lacked intellect, who lacked sincerity of purpose and who were antagonistic to those that dared to challenge their visionless and purposeless policies. Our country is currently bedevilled with so much negativity that it is easy to look around and just give up. Yet I say that we must never give up because ”hope springs eternal”. The bible says though the night may be dark yet ”joy comes in the morning”. The wise ones say you cannot have a message without a mess. You cannot have a testimony without a test. You cannot get to the top of the mountain without first going to the bottom of the valley. This is true.

And out of Nigeria’s ”mess” shall surely come her ”message”. Out of Nigeria’s ”test” shall surely come her ”testimony”. We have been to the ”bottom of the valley” and therefore we shall get to the ”top of the mountain”. Our dream for a better Nigeria shall never die and neither can our collective prayers be in vain. I refuse to give up because I know that the God that I serve never fails. He alone rules in the affairs of men. He alone forges the destiny of nations. Out of a deep void and formlessness He ordered the creation of the world. He established it by the power of His word and He gave us dominion over it. In the same way He created Nigeria for His purpose and for His glory and that purpose and glory shall surely be established. It shall come to pass and it will be manifest to the entire world. We shall see it and we shall be established in it as a nation and as a people.

If God can do it for others, He can do it for us too. We can be great and, by the grace of God, we shall be great. This is my dream and this is what I see. And believe me when I tell you that it is prophetic. A Nigeria where every man and woman, regardless of faith, ethnicity, status or political persuasion finds a common cause and relishes in our collective humanity. A Nigeria where the rich have a conscience and the poor have hope. A Nigeria where joy and peace reign supreme and where bombings and killings are a thing of the past. A Nigeria where the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac and the adherents of the two great Abrahamic faiths of Islam and Christianity live together in peace, harmony and mutual respect. A Nigeria where the secularity of the state is respected yet where God is revered and honoured by all.

A Nigeria where the knowledge and fear of the Living God reigns in the hearts and minds of the people. A Nigeria where every man is His brother’s keeper, where leaders show compassion to those that they lead, where justice is done to all and where political persecution has no place. A Nigeria where decency is rewarded, where dissent is tolerated, where non-conformity is encouraged and where equity is enthroned. That is the Nigeria of my dream. A Nigeria where youth unemployment is low and where every individual, no matter how high or low, can aspire to any position and live his or her dream. That is the Nigeria of my dream. A Nigeria where human life and human dignity is sacrosanct and where fairness is the watchword of every soul. That is the Nigeria of my dream.

I have no fears about the future of this great nation because the God that I serve never fails. The bible says the nations are ”as a drop of water before Him”. He sits above the circles of the earth and He counts the earth as His footstool. Yet despite His sheer awesomeness and majesty, with Him lies great compassion and mercy. Once we return to Him, acknowledge Him, honour Him and are led and guided by Him, He will restore us and shower us with His blessings. The Lord awaits us to make the right choice. We either continue to wallow in self-delusion, wickedness, greed, murder, the persecution of perceived enemies, the abuse of power, evil and insensitivity or we desist from our wicked ways and turn to Him. I am persuaded that once we make the right choice our date with destiny, as a people and as a nation, will come far sooner than we can possibly imagine.

In his book titled ”The Wretched of the Earth” Frantz Fanon said the following- ”each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover it’s mission and fulfill it or betray it.” Past generations in Nigeria have not lived up to expectation. This is the bitter truth. Yet there is still hope as long as we have faith. That hope and faith is our blessed assurance and it lives in our minds and hearts. We know that the Lord will fix it. We know that He is ”more than able”. We know that He is a man of war whom none can resist and we know that He restores, redeems and rebuilds even the most broken and wretched walls. Dr. Martin Luther King jnr., after delivering his celebrated and inspiring ”I have a dream” speech, was felled by an assassin’s bullet on April 4 1968. To those that killed him, his dream died with him. Yet they were wrong. They did not know that great dreams, once birthed, never die.

That is why the Word of God said ”if the princes of this world had known they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory”. If those that murdered Jesus had known that He would honour His word and rise up three days later they would not have crucified him. They persecuted Him, they humiliated Him, they beat Him, they tortured Him, they spat on Him and they killed Him yet they could not kill His dream or abort His mission. His dream lived on and became a reality for all mankind to see. It was the same with Martin Luther King. They killed him but his mission had already been achieved and his vision came to pass 45 years after his sacrificial and selfless death when a black man by the name of Barrack Obama was elected President of the United States of America. This is indeed the stuff of which dreams are made. Great things are birthed in great dreams and if you dare to dream nothing is impossible.

I have a dream for Nigeria. I have a dream that one day Nigerians will see themselves as Nigerians before anything else and they will not regard their country and its people as a collection of strange bed-fellows that do not love or trust one another. Yet this dream can only be fulfilled when those amongst us that call ourselves leaders preach, practice and display discipline, temperance, holiness, morality, restraint, tolerance, mercy and the fear of God in the conduct of our affairs. It can only be made manifest when we stand up and fight against evil, tyranny, injustice, indecency, bad governance, the abuse of power , political persecution and sheer wickedness.

Our dream can only be brought to reality when love is the motivating factor in all that we do. The Lord commands us to love our neighbour as we do ourselves. That is the cornerstone and the foundation of our faith and it is in that faith and that resolve that our hope for a better and greater Nigeria lies. I have a dream that Nigeria will be what God wants her to be, a great and powerful nation that is dedicated to the Living God and that will act as a shining example and a beacon of light for all to see.

I assure you that despite the dashed hopes and unbearable suffering of millions of our people over the last 52 years, our dream still lives and the Lord shall not forsake us. Our land and our people may seem blighted, in despair, depressed, repressed and confused. It may appear as if there is no hope for a better tomorrow and that nothing will ever change. It may seem as if the Lord has forgotten us and it may appear that our story is one of recurrent failure and shattered dreams. Yet this is not so. I have come here today to tell you that, despite all we see and hear, it is not over for us as a people and as a nation. I have come here today to tell you that we as a people have a date with destiny. I have come here today to tell you that Nigeria and the Nigerian dream lives on and that it shall be made manifest for all to see in the fullness of time.

I therefore urge you to be strong, to hold your heads up high, to be proud of who and what you are and to stand firm. The vision is for an appointed time. Though it may tarry it shall not prove false. Just hold on. God bless you and God bless Nigeria.

________________ FFK, 2013

On the 20th April 1653 (exactly 360 years ago to the day that I am writing this essay) Oliver Cromwell, who was the Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland and the greatest statesman and revolutionary that England ever knew, stormed the English ''Rump Parliament'' at Westminster and courageously pronounced the following words after which he sacked Parliament and boldly took power. He said-

''It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Republic? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the democracy temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!'' -OLIVER CROMWELL (1599-1658).

Cromwell was undoubtedly one of the greatest and most courageous men that ever lived and he is certainly one of my heroes. Not only was he moved by a compelling and irresistable zeal and thirst for righteousness in high places and by the power of the Holy Spirit but he, like the biblical Jehu, was ready to pay the supreme price and sacrifice his life in order to effect it and bring lasting change toEngland. He abhorred corruption and injustice and his puritan roots and christian fundamentalist background and upbringing caused him to oppose the excesses of the Catholic church in his day and the awesome power and influence of the Catholic Bishops and their Pope. Quite apart from saving her her from the excesses of catholicism and the sheer brutality of the Jesuit Order and the Spanish Inquisition, Cromwell literally and single-handedly also saved England from the tyranny of absolutist monarchs and the evil of corrupt Parliamentarians. He was indeed the father of modern-dayparliamentry and participatory democracy in Great Britain and it was he alone that shattered the myth and demonic philosophy of the ''divine right of kings'' to rule with ''absolute power''. 

Let us carefully consider the words that he spoke and read them once again. Let us imbibe their spirit and feel their power and passion. These are sacred and divinely-inspired words that were spoken 360 years ago to a sitting all-powerful Parliament that had just triumphed in a civil war against the King of England and had chopped off his head. Cromwell, who was a Member of Parliament himself, had led the armies of that Parliament into the field of battle on numerous occassions. He was indeed the Commander of it's army and the main inspiration and motivator for the revoltion and rebellion against the King. Not only did he defeat the Royal Army of King Charles 1st in various battles and win the civil war but he also apprehended the King, arrested him, brought him to justice before the courts of law and had him executed. This was the first time that a King was brought to justice before a Court of Law and executed in the history of England.  All seemed well and the House of Commons ruled until Cromwell noticed how the new-found power of this new Parliament had utterly corrupted it's members. They were drunk with power and they wielded it with impugnity and no sense of decency and restraint. Worse still they were hopelessly corrupt. In time he knew that they would have to go as well. He knew that a new order, which truly imbibed the spirit of justice, accountability, good governance, decency, christian sobriety, restraint and democracy, had to be put in place.  He knew that only he could effect that change and that is precisely what he did by furiously storming Parliament, courageously confronting it's members, speaking those chilling yet insightful words and forcefully taking power from them on this very day (April 20th) 360 years ago. He risked everything, including life, liberty and limb. Yet, without hesitation, he did it all for his beloved England. He was moved and driven by his deeply religious convictions and his puritanical faith. Nothing could stop him and, for him, failure was not an option because He knew that God was with him.  He not only succeeeded beyond his wildest imagination but he also laid a glorious foundation for the future of England and he was probably the greatest reformer that ever ruled that great and sturdy island nation.

I look at Nigeria today and the behaviour of our collective overlords reminds me very much of the behaviour of the pre-Cromwellian ''Rump Parliament'' in England. Can anyone be in any doubt that it istime for us to speak those same words that Oliver Cromwell spoke to the English Pariament on April 20th, 1653 to our own our leaders here in Nigeria. Are those words not more appropiate for our leaders today than at any other time in our history? Yet who will utter them? Who will go forth courageously and speak truth to tyranny in the power of the Lord. When will our God raise our owndeliverer? Where is our own Oliver Cromwell or our own biblical Jehu? When will the Nigerian people say ''enough is enough'' and demand the change that they so desperately crave and yearn? When will they wake up from their accursed slumber and wipe away the faecel mess with which they have been stained, smothered, blinded, deafened and silenced? When will the luciferian spell that hasbeen placed upon them be finally broken? When will they be free of this unwholesome bondage and be rid of their godless fears? When will their shackles be finally broken and when will they see, feel, hear and live again? When, O when, will our people be free and when will they become the pride of Africa that they were destined to be?

Why has fate been so cruel to us and why has our star dimmed and refused to shine brightly? Why do we always take ten steps forward and twenty steps backwards? Why is our case and example one of constant failure, ineptitude, defeat, shame, lack and incompetence? What is wrong with the Federal Republic of Nigeria and what plagues and afflicts the Nigerian people? Since 1960 every single one of our potential deliverers have failed. They have not been allowed to emerge and even when they do emerge they have not been allowed to succceed. They have either been killed, jailed, villified, belittled or destroyed by the system and the neo-colonial conservative forces that have sworn to resist change. Worse still the sheer naivety, nauseating timidity and simple lack of insight and foresight of the ordinary people, who seem to have cultivated an extraordinary capacity to tolerate injustice, incompetence, wickedness and evil in their land, does not help. As a matter of fact it is that attitude and that cowardly and weak mindset that has sustained the disasterous sytem that has held Nigeria captive since 1960. The average Nigerian would rather go to the church or to the mosque to bear his or her mind to the priest or imam and pray about his or her numerous challenges rather than march in the streets and demand a change for the better from their Government and President. Yet it is only in our country that men and women suffer from such a lack of firm resolve and such a sorry and tepid affliction. Karl Marx's view that ''religion is the opium of the masses'' has no greater meaning or significance anywhere in the world than in Nigeria where we all, in a most cowardly manner, hide behind the cleric and imam's ornate robes and refuse to insist on our God-given rights from the government and the state. What a tragedy we have become. We deserve nothing but pity. 

Other nations have been blessed with many Oliver Cromwell's over the centuries and years yet sadly it is not so with us. Ill-fortune is our portion and we are cursed because we enjoy killing and villifying all of our heroes and deliverers whilst others recognise and reverre theirs and grant them the right and opportunity to do that which they were born to do- that is to take their respective nations by the scruff of the neck, to take them from strength to strength and to lead them to glory. A few examples will suffice. The United States of America had George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. France had Marat, Robspiere, Napolean, Jaques De Gaulle and Francois Mitterand. Russia had Lenin, Stalin and Gorbachev. Germany had Count Bismark and Helmut Schmidt. Britain, a truly blessed land, had Cromwell, William Gladstone, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. Italy had Garibaldi. Ghana had Kwame Nkrumah and John Jerry Rawlings. Burkina Faso had Thomas Sankara. South Africa had Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela. Senegal had Leopold Senghor. Kenya had Jomo Kenyatta and Odinga Odinga. The Congo had Patrice Lumuba. Zimbabwe had Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe (yes Mugabe). Israel had Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and Menachim Begin. Chile had Alleyende. Cuba had Fidel Castro. Angola had Dos Santos. Bolivia had Oscar Bolivar. Venezuela had Hugo Chavez. India had Pundit Nehru, Mahatmah Gandhi and Indira Ghandi. Pakistan had Mohammed Ali Jinah and Zuhlfikar Ali Bhutto. Turkey had Kamel Attaturk. Libya had Muammar Ghaddafi (yes Ghaddafi). Egypt had Gammel Nasser. Jordan had King Hussein. Iran had Ayatollah Khomeini. Singapore had Lee Kwan Yew. Malaysia had Dr. Mahatir. The list goes on and on and from continent to continent.

All these names belonged to great and noble men and women who made their mark and created a great legacy for their respective nations and peoples even though some of them were murdered, jailed and cut short whilst doing so. Yet in the end each and every one of them triumphed because they made a difference to their generation and to those that came after them from generation to generation. In the Nigerian context the question is this- when will our great stars emerge and when will Nigeria's time to shine on the world stage come? When will the words of Oliver Cromwell find relevance in our space and when will the Lord answer our prayer and deliver us from the evil that plagues our land. May God bless and redeeme our beloved homeland. May He have mercy upon her, may He defend her, may He deliver her and may He cause His face to shine brightly upon her. One day our time will come. One day Nigeria shall shine.   

________________ FFK, 2013

My maternal grandfather was a great and powerful muslim cleric and scholar by the name of Sheik Nurudeen Sa' Id. He was from Ilesha. He was was also a civil servant and he spent a good deal of his adult life in Lagos. His father, that is my maternal great-grandfather, was a pure yorubaman from Ilesha. However his mother, that is my maternal great-grandmother, was a pure fulani woman from Sokoto.

My grandfather, Sheik Nurudeen Sa' I'd, who was half fulani and half yoruba, got married to my grandmother, Alhaja Abeke Sa' id (nee Williams) who was a pure yoruba woman. She was also known as ''Mama Ofin". She was from Lagos (Isale Eko) and she was the daughter of Alhaji Isa Williams who was a key leader in the muslim community and the richest businessman and trader in the whole of Lagos in his day.

Sheik Nurudeen Sa'id and Alhaja Abeke Sa'id had three children and the youngest of those three was my dear mother, Mrs. Adia Adunni Fani-Kayode (nee Sa'id). She  was born into a muslim family and she practised islam all her life until she met my father, converted to christianity and then they got married.

It is clear from the foregoing that my mother had one quarter fulani blood in her and I have one eigth fulani blood in me. Out of respect to the muslim side of my family, that is the Sa' id's and the Williams', all of my father's children have muslim names as well as christian ones. Mine is Abdulateef. Amazing isn't it? When some say that I am anti-islam and anti-hausa-fulani I just laugh. They know little about me, my heritage, my bloodlines (which, unlike most, I take very seriously), my background or my thought processes.

I am a proud son of Nigeria- a son of the soil-and I have deep ancestral and spiritual roots in at least two of the three great Abrahamic faiths even though I, and my immediate family, are practising Pentecostal christians. I have ife, ijesha, egba, isale eko and fulani blood running through my veins. This is my heritage and I am very proud of each and every one of those blood lines. The fact that I can trace my lineage and my blood lines to Ife, Ilesha, Abeokuta, Lagos and Sokoto emboldens, enriches and strengthens me. The fact that some members of my family are christians and others are muslims excites and enobles me.

I am a true Nigerian and regardless of our numerous challenges in this country I will love and live in Nigeria till the day I die.

________________ FFK, 2013

"Boko Haram has not committed any wrong to deserve amnesty. Surprisingly the Nigerian government is talking about granting us amnesty. What wrong have we done? On the contrary, it is we that should grant you (government) pardon"- Abubakar Shekau, the spokesman and leader of Boko Haram speaking to the French News Agency AFP.

 
Whilst our President is still busy offering amnesty to those who have rejected it and whilst the Nigerian people and intelligensia are involved in a barren and futile debate about the merits and demerits of granting amnesty to terrorists, Boko Haram continues to kill, maim and destroy. It is clear to me that our people are in denial and that our government is deluded, irresponsible and insensitive. As we are busy debating about amnesty or no amnesty for Boko Haram, the Niger Delta terrorist organisation known as MEND have quietly given us notice about their sinister plans for our country. After killing 14 policemen in a ruthless attack just last week they have told us through their spokesman, one Jomo Gbomo, that it is their intention to "start killing muslims and attacking mosques as from 31st may, 2013 in order to protect and save christianity in Nigeria". This was warning and statement of intent was published and reported in the American website magazine called Bloomberg.com on the 14th April 2013. 

 

Yet despite all these troubling signs and signals the Nigerian people and the Nigerian Government, in their usual manner, are still napping and pretending as if all is well. Perhaps we all deserve what is coming. A people that do not even have the guts to courageously demand that their government rise up to the occassion and do their job by protecting the lives and property of its citizens deserve prayer and pity. When Boko Haram and MEND finally face one another in a terrible war of reprisal killings and bombings that is when our people will understand the implications of tolerating a government that is incapable of doing its job and confronting terror with a firm and decisive hand.

 

It is very clear to me that Pastor Tunde Bakare's assertion that President Goodluck Jonathan's destiny is to "bankrupt and balkanise Nigeria" and that he is merely "dancing to the drum beat of his destiny" may will be prophetic. Meanwhile Nigeria continues to bleed and die as many of her citizens are bombed to pieces, maimed and have their throats slit open every day by islamist terrorists who do not know, or care to know, the meaning of peace, restraint, decency or dialogue. President Goodluck Jonathan has handed our country over to a bunch of butchers who have no value for human life. Under his watch our people continue to die and die whilst he sits in the Presidential Villa and drinks champagne.

 

Worst still is the sheer irresponsibility and shameless behaviour of one or two of our northern governers who, instead of attempting to provide more security for their people in their respective domains, are besides themselves trying to either get on the lucrative gravy train known as the Boko Haram Amnesty Commitee or are actually speaking for Boko Haram and explaining their actions. If the latter were not the case how do you explain the illogical and frankly absurd contribution from my old friend Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi state who said that ''the real Boko Haram will accept amnesty'' and that ''it is their criminal and political sect members that are rejecting the offer?'' (Leadership Newspaper, 15th April, 2013). 

  
I have three questions here. Since when has a democratically elected governor of one of the largest and most important states in northern Nigeria and a man that was a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under President Obasanjo's government for almost eight good years become the official spokesman for Boko Haram? How come he appears to know who is who within that terrorist organisation and the attitude and nature of each of it's factions and why does he seek to absolve his preferred faction of the evil that they have collectively visited on the Nigerian people in the last two years? The third question is this- since when has any part or faction of Boko Haram not been criminal and political? I daresay that every part and every faction of this wicked organisation of heartless men and women is not only criminal but they are also political and religious.

 

Boko Haram is an islamist organisation who are dedicated to imposing and establishing an islamic fundamentalist state in northern Nigeria through the use of violence. They also wish to wipe out christianity and true islam in the north and they reject the idea of living in a country where christians can take any position of leadership let alone be President. Yet these are the type of people that Governor Isa Yuguda and a number of other northern leaders is now speaking for and trying to absolve? A vicious group of people that have slaughtered no less than 4,200 Nigerians and non-Nigerians in the last two years and that have burnt down and bombed virtually every church that existed in some commiunities and states in the north? If anyone doubts that they should find out from the catholics what happened to 50 of the 52 churches that they established in Borno state. 

The implication of Yuguda's contribution is that there is a faction of Boko Haram that is wholesome and righteous. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Every single person and group that is a part of or is in any way associated with Boko Haram is evil, is destructive and has blood on their hands. And anyone, no matter how highly placed, reverred or distinguished, that tries to rationalise their actions or absolve them of their murderous ways is equally evil and equally guilty of murder. Nigeria is a country in denial where leaders are always ready, willing and able to rationalise, defend and forgive the actions of beasts. Yet this has not always been so. Remember the public beheading of Gideon Akaluka in Kano in the 90's by an irate mob of islamists for allegedly using a page of the koran as toilet paper and General Sani Abacha's decisive response to such madness?

  
When Abacha was in power he knew exactly how to handle the islamist tendency that plagued Kano in his time, including those that organised and incited the mob to kill Akaluka. He had them killed quietly one after the other until the problem was solved and the plague of islamist terror was abated. One of the leaders of those that killed Akaluka, as a consequence of his royal connections, survived and escaped death only because he was hidden in a Sokoto prison for two years whilst Abacha was told that he had been killed. That individual certainly came bouncing back into the public space and the circles of power and has now reached ''high places'' but that is a story for another day. How I wish that the present leadership of our country could learn a lesson or two from General Sani Abacha's approach to the islamist rebellion that we have been confronted with. They can also learn a lot from the approach of another moderate muslim by the name of Kamel Attaturk who was the founder and father of the modern Turkish state. He knew what to do to the islamist terrorists in his midst and he did it without thinking twice or batting an eyelid.

Yet sadly Nigeria is not blessed with such leaders today. Instead we are saddled with a President who, only a few weeks ago, described Boko Haram as his ''siblings''. We have a President who does not appreciate the fact that it is his job to provide security for our nation and to protect the Nigerian people from the enemy within and the enemy without. We have a President who is on his knees morning, day and night begging the islamist terrorists to accept an amnesty that they never asked for in the first place and which they have consistently rejected. We have a President and a people that just don't know what they are up against. We have a President and a people that are suffering from the worst form of denial. May God save Nigeria and may He send us a deliverer.

________________ FFK, 2013

One of the most important foundations of any civilisation is history. If we do not know our own history, who we are, who and what our forefathers were and where we came from then we are truly lost. In the film production of J. R. Tolkien's famous book titled ''Lord Of The Rings'' one of the most compelling yet tragic lines reads as follows- ''Thousands of years passed by....history became legend and legend became myth''. Few words are as profound as this and the import of those words resonate nothing but the deepest wisdom. The lesson that we can draw from this insightful truism is simple. If you do not learn and continue to remind yourself of your history as a person, as a family, as a people, as a nationality, as a tribe and as a nation the likelihood is that what is historical fact gradually pales into an intangible and unlikely legend and then it eventually turns into nothing but an ephemeral myth. And once such sacred historical facts become nothing but myth it destroys the soul and the foundation of your very existence as an individual, as a family, as a people and as a nation. When you do not know, care to know or care to learn and remember what your roots are, no matter how humble or seemingly inconsequential those roots may be, you become a nothing. It is to avoid the possibilty of history turning into legend and legend turning into myth that I have chosen to put on record the facts about one of the most distinguished and well-educated Nigerians that ever lived by the name of Victor Adedapo Kayode. 

Rev. Emmanuel Adelabi Kayode, was an Anglican priest who studied theology at Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leonne and who graduated with an M.A.  (Durham) in 1892. He was of the yoruba tribe and came from the ancient town of Ile-Ife in the old Osun province of south-western Nigeria. He was educated by the Anglican church from a very young age and after graduating from university and finishing at the seminary he rose through the ranks of the church and served as an Anglican priest throughout his life until he died in 1932 at the age of 58. He built, planted, established and pastored some of the earliest Anglican churches in Ile-Ife itself and in Osun province, Ondo province and Ijebu province as they then were. Rev. Emmanuel Adelabi Kayode married Miss Sophia Cole who was from Igbore in Abeokuta and who was the sister of the famous Rev. M.S. Cole. They had 13 children out of which only 9 survived. The first of those children was Victor Adedapo Kayode who is the subject of this essay and who was born in 1899.  

The first son of Rev. Emmanuel Adelabi Kayode and Mrs. Sophia Kayode, Victor Adedapo Kayode, was educated at the famous Kings College, Lagos which was established in 1909. After finishing at Kings College he became a teacher and taught at Methodist Boys Grammar School (MBHS) where his students included Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe. The bond between the teacher and the pupil endured and when Zik finally returned home from America after graduating from university in 1933, Victor Kayode was invited to be the special guest of honour at a ''welcome home'' dinner that was hosted by the igbo community in Lagos for him. In 1917 Victor Adedapo Kayode left Nigeria and went to the United Kingdom where he matriculated at Selwyn College, Cambridge University. In 1920 he graduated and was awarded his M.A. degree in law. He did his masters at Cambridge as well and he graduated and was awarded his LLB masters degree in 1921.Victor Kayode enrolled at the Middle Temple and was called to the English Bar in 1922. He came top in his exams at both Cambridge University (both the first and second year tripos) and at the Middle Temple.

This remarkable feat was repeated by his son Victor Babaremilekun Adetokunboh Fani-Kayode over 25 years later when he followed in his illustrious father's footsteps by doing very well at Cambridge University (Downing College), by graduating from there with honours in 1945, by completing his masters in 1946, by enrolling at the Middle Temple Inns of Courts and coming top during the English Bar exams for the whole of the British Commonwealth before he was called to the English Bar in 1947. Remi Fani-Kayode (as he was commonly referred to) went on to become one of the most brilliant lawyers of his generation. In 1948, he, Frederick Rotimi Alade Williams (who graduated from Selwyn College, Cambridge in 1942 and who was called to the English Bar in 1943) and Bode Thomas established the first fully indigenous Nigerian law firm which was known as ''Thomas, Williams and Kayode''. 

Victor Adedapo Kayode got married to Miss Aurora Fanimokun in Chelsea, London in 1920. Aurora Fanimokun came from a very distinguished and illustrious lineage.  She was the first daughter of the respected Rev. Joseph Fanimokun of the Lagos Colony (as it then was) and he was the Principal of the famous CMS Grammer School, Lagos from 1896 till 1914. Like his colleague in holy orders and future in-law Rev. E.A. Kayode, Rev. Joseph Fanimokun also graduated in 1892 with an M.A. (Durham) from Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leonne. After graduating Rev. Fanimokun married Miss Bucknor of the distinguished Bucknor family of Lagos. Miss Bucknor's mother, whose name was Lydia Savage, was from the Savage family who were also from Lagos. Mrs. Fanimokun (nee Bucknor) was the sister of the famous lawyer A.J.E. Bucknor who was called to the english Bar in 1895 and who was also a friend of Sir Kitoye Ajasa. Apart from Aurora, Rev. and Mrs. Fanimokun (nee Bucknor) also had a son that graduated from Glasgow University as a medical practitioner in the early 1920's. 

The Savage family of Lagos had enourmous clout and were highly respected. Josiah Savage was the father of Miss Lydia Savage who married a Bucknor and who gave birth to Mrs. Fanimokun (nee Bucknor). She was first cousin to lawyer William Akinlade Savage (who was called to the English Bar in 1906) and Dr. Richard Akinwade-Savage who, with Sir Kitoye Ajasa, Dr. J.K. Randle and Dr. Orisadipe Obasa, established the conservative People's Union in 1909. This was Nigeria's first political party and they were opposed to Sir Herbert Macaulay's more radical approach to political issues in the Lagos colony. Macaulay later established the NNDP and cultivated the support of the largely illiterate Lagos masses whilst the elites gravitated towards the Peoples Union. The NNDP was to later metamorphosise into the NCNC which turned out to be one of the greatest and most powerful forces in the politics of south-western and southern Nigeria in the 40's, 50's and 60's. In 1945, whilst on his deathbed, Herbert Macaulay handed over the leadership of the NCNC to a rising young igbo star that had been resident in Lagos for many years and that was educated at Methodist Boys High School (MBHS), Lagos before going to attend Howard University and the University of Pennsylvania in the United States of America. That star's name was Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe and he was to later become Premier of the Eastern Region and ceremonial President of Nigeria. 

All these families, including the Savage's, the Bucknor's, the Cole's, the Fanimokun's and the Kayode's constituted the cream of Lagos high society in their day. It was by dint of fate and providence that the son of Rev. Emmanuel Adelabi Kayode and the daughter of Rev. Joesph Suberu Fanimokun, both of whom were contemporaries at university and illustrious Anglican priests, ended up getting married in 1920. The first child of that marriage was Babaremilekun Fani-Kayode (Remi Fani-Kayode) who I referred to earlier in this essay and who was born in Chelsea, London in 1921. At that time London was the most affluent city in the western world yet 30 per cent of Londoners were living below the poverty line. This shows that even the most developed cities and nations in the world once went through very hard times as well. 

After being called to the British bar in 1922 Victor Adedapo Kayode went back to Lagos, Nigeria where he set up one of the most successful legal practices of his day. He specialised in criminal law. He occassionally intervened in the politics of the day in Lagos colony but his forte was law and because he was acknowledged as one of the best lawyers of his day he was appointed as a magistrate in 1940. In those days there were no Nigerian magistrates and judges. They were all British. 

Olumuyiwa Jibowu was the first Nigerian to become a magistrate in 1931 and then Adebiyi Desalu followed him in 1938. Adetokunboh Ademola was the third in 1939 and then came Victor Adedapo Kayode, F.E.O. Euba and George Frederick Dove-Edwin in 1940. F.O. Lucas was appointed in 1941. These were the first Nigerians to become magistrates and virtually all of them went on to the higher bench and did exceedingly well. Adetokunboh Ademola rose up to become the first indigenous Chief Justice of the Federation in 1958. Sadly Victor Adedapo Kayode did not have the opportunity to achieve his full potentials on the Bench because in 1941, just one year after being appointed as a magistrate, he died whilst presiding over an important land case. He was only 42 years old when this happened. 

A few of years after her husband's death Madame Aurora Kayode remarried. Her second husband was Ernest Ikoli, a well-known and very prominent Ijaw man that had been resident in Lagos virtually all his life. Ikoli was a journalist by profession and he was the editor of  the Daily Telegraph and later the Daily Service newspapers. He was very active in politics, he was a member of the Nigerian Legislative Council, he was one of the founders of the Nigerian Youth Movement (which later metamorphosied into the Action Group) and he was the man that was credited as being the mentor and benefactor of Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo and that actually funded his education in the United Kingdom when he went there to study law. Obafemi Awolowo was called to the English Bar in 1946. He went on to become one of the most formidable and respected political leaders that Nigeria ever had. It is an irony of fate and history that Ernest Ikoli, an Ijaw man that was resident in the Lagos for most of his life, was the mentor and benefactor of Awolowo, the future Leader of the Yoruba and a future Premier of the old Western Region.

Ikoli was part and parcel of Lagos high society and he was best of friends with Adeyemo Alakija and many other prominent and powerful Lagos elites in his day. Madame Aurora had no children for him but she had five sons and three daughters for her first husband,Victor Adedapo Kayode. The first of those children was Victor Babaremilekun Adetokunboh Fani-Kayode (Remi Fani-Kayode), the man who successfully moved Nigeria's motion for independence in the Federal Parliament in 1958, the Minister of Chieftaincy and Local Government Affairs and the Deputy Premier of Nigeria's old Western Region. Victor Adedapo Kayode and Madame Aurora Kayode were also the grandparents of Remi Fani-Kayode's third son, David Oluwafemi Adewunmi Abdulateef Fani-Kayode (Femi Fani-Kayode) who became Minister of Culture and Tourism and Minister of Aviation respectively. His mother was Mrs. Adia Adunni Fani-Kayode (nee Sa'id), the youngest daughter of Sheik Nurudeen Sa'id, a respected muslim cleric and civil servant who hailed from Ilesha and Alhaja Agbeke Sa'id (nee Williams), whose father was the famous businessman and community leader Alhaji Isa Williams who hailed from Lagos Island.  

It was as a symbol of the deep affection that Chief Remi Fani-Kayode had for his mother, Madame Aurora, that he added the prefix of her maiden name (which was ''Fani'') to his surname (which was ''Kayode'') and hence the name ''Fani-Kayode'' was created. It is my intention to ensure that this legend does not become myth and that that name continues to go from strength to strength. 

________________ FFK, 2013

By the time this essay is published the Supreme Court of the United States of America would have heard all the arguements and counter-arguements about the legality and desireability of same sex marriages. President Barak Obama has openly endorsed such marriages just as has the former American Sec. of State Hilary Clinton and her husband President Bill Clinton. According to a CNN poll no less than 58 per cent of the American people support same sex marriages too and another poll suggests that 80 per cent of Americans that are under the age of 30 also support it. And such support is not limited to those that are supporters or members of the American Democratic Party. Even the more liberal elements in the Republican Party, which is a party after my heart and which is the traditional bastion of conservative christian and American values, seems to have warmed to the idea. This is simply because that is what the majority of the American people want and any political party that continues to resist it may pay a heavy price at the polls.

It is clear that the world is changing and that America, under Obama, has redefined her moral and religious values dramatically. I saw this coming and that is precisely why I have never been a great fan of Barrak Obama and that, much to the chagrin of my fellow Africans and men and women of colour from all over the world, I openly opposed his re-election last year and wrote a highly celebrated essay titled ''Can Barak Obama Be Trusted'' which created quite a stir and which was widely published. The truth is that President Obama'a latest endorsement of and his stand on same sex marriage utterly appauls me.

What is the world coming to? How come we suddenly find it so easy to turn our backs on the word of God which specifically defines marriage as a holy union between a man and a woman which was designed primarily for the purpose of procreation? Not only does Obama and 58 per cent of the American people believe in same sex marriage but they also believe in same sex couples adopting and raising children. Is this not a tragedy of monuemental proprtions? This is a country whose founding father's, known as the ''pilgrim fathers'', founded and established it on God and on His Holy Word. President George Washington, the greatest American patriot and father of American independence, once proclaimed that ''you cannot rule without God and the bible''. Have the American people forgotten that? Has America turned it's back on the Living God? Have they forgotten the fact that God made them what they are today? Hve they rejected God and now espoused the spirit and luciferean principles of humanism? Is it not pertinent to note the fact that not one of the three great monotheic faiths on our planet, whether it be christianity, islam or judaism, that supports same sex marriage? As a matter of fact they all specifically forbid it and describe it as a perversion and an abomination. All the polytheic faiths, including the hindus, the sikhs, the buddhists, the shinto worshippers, the traditionalists and even the atheists and agnostics do the same and condemn same sex marriage in the strongest terms.

I have nothing against gays and lesbians I believe that a person's sexual preferences or sexuality are entirely their own business. I also accept the fact that gays should not be in any way discriminated against or subjected to hate speech. Your sexuality is a matter oif choice and no-one has the right to deny you the right to make that choice. This much I conceede and accept. However I draw the line when it comes to the issue of redefining the traditional definition of marriage and allowing gay couples to enter such a union. This is because the institution and it's definition was established by Almighty God Himself and it is not for man to alter or amend it. Attempting to do so is tantamount to man rying to play God. It is not right, it is morally indefensible and it is a violent and unprecedented attack on the institution of marriage and our traditional family values.

Yet America is not alone in it's madness. Europe has gone crazy too. In France, the U.K, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and various other European countries legislation to pave the way for same sex marriage has already been introduced and in some of those countries it is already lawful. The same thing is happening in Argentina, where gays are now allowed to marry, and I gather that Brazil is treading the same path. What is the world coming to? Will we ever see gay marriages in Africa and in Nigeria? I have little doubt that South Africa, the traditional bastion of liberalism in Africa, will be the first to permit it if they havn't done so already. Should we allow Nigeria to climb this slippery slope as well? I sincerely hope not. Meanwhile let us wait to see whether the American Supreme Court will do the right thing and shoot this abominable and morally repugnant concept down or whether they will affirm it. For the sake of God and humanity I sincerely hope that they choose the former course.

I pray that I have not hurt anyone's feelings by expressing these views on same sex marriage because the last thing that I would want is for anyone to describe me as a raging and ranting homophobe. I am far from that. As a matter of fact I think that it is a mark of a truly civilised society when people can tolerate and treat with love those that are ''different'' from them whether it be as a consequence of their faith, culture, colour or sexuality. The call for the enforcement of the rights of ethnic or sexual minorities, including the rights of homosexuals and lesbians, is an ethos and philosophy that I wholly subscribe to. In any plural, multi-religious and multi-cultural society it is incumbent upon us all to be as tolerant and accomodating as posssible about the peculiarities and preferences of one another. I am proud to say that some of my closest friends are gay and as a matter of fact many of the young men that I went to British public school with many years ago openly experimented with gay sex and gay love only for most to later discover that it wasn't for them. I see or feel no shame in that because for many it was simply a beautiful journey of self-discovery and love. As far as I am concerned it is each to his own but that should not stretch into marriage or the right of same sex couples to adopt and raise children.

Our country Nigeria, as in most of Africa, is a land that is plagued with ignorance and intolerance when it comes to the issue of sexuality and gays. We are wholly intorent and we are totally insensitive when it comes to the feelings of those in our community that are gay. Gay-hunting, gay-bashing, gay beating, gay-hating and even gay-killing is a favourite past time of ours and as far as I am concerened this is totally unacceptable. We have forgotten that our God is a God of love and mercy and not a God of hate and condemnation. Yet we are so quick and eager to judge others. For example how can we have laws in our land that send a man or woman to jail or to his or her death simply because he or she has different sexual preferences to the rest of us? As long as the two parties that are involved are consenting adults what they do in the privacy of their homes or hotel rooms is surely no-one else's business. I may not approve of it simply because it offends my values as a believer and because I cannot understand what promotes or motivates it but what gives me the right to describe such people as ''sick deviants'' that are ''destined to go to hell''. It really is just a matter of choice. We cannot regulate people's sexual habits or preferences but at the same time we have a duty to protect the institution of marriage as it is described and defined in the Holy Bible, the Holy Koran, the Torah and all the other divinely-inspired holy books. My position is therefore clear and it is as follows. I say ''yes'' to a tolerant and open society that allows individuals, if they so choose, to be gay, to explore their sexuality and to indulge in their sexual preferences without any legal sanction, prosecution or persecution. At the same time I say ''no'' to same sex marriages which I believe are a step too far and a direct attack on the family and God's purpose for a holy union that is designed and meant to lead to the procreation of children. The line is thin but the difference is clear. May God continue to guide us all in these matters.

________________ FFK, 2013

Permit me to begin this contribution by quoting the insightful and powerful words of Hon. Dino Melaye who is undoubtedly one of the rising stars and stronger voices of the new and up and coming generation of political leaders in Nigeria. On the 19th of March 2013, just a day after the terrible bombings in Kano in which between 30 and 65 innocent Nigerians were killed (depending on whose report you choose to believe), Melaye wrote the following words on his facebook wall-

''The Kano bombing is barbaric, callous and wicked. God save us in this country. The Federal Government and indeed President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has demonstrated incapacitation and ineptitude by their inability to contain this growing insecurity. According to our constitution the fundamental objective of government is the provision of security and welfare for the people. Unfortunately Jonathan has failed in both regards. Our President is overwhelmed. He should take the path of honour, take a bow and resign. There is too much blood in the land. There is blood in our roads, air, police stations, army barracks, churches, mosques, clubs, car parks and homes. There is blood every where''.

This is a courageous contribution from a young man who obviously has tremendous passion for our country and who is deeply troubled by all that is happening today. I only wish that there were more young men like Melaye in Nigeria. Can any serious-minded person disagree with his observations on this matter? Is Nigeria not in a state of undeclared war today? Is this not a season of complete anomie in which human life no longer has any value and where life itself has little meaning? Do we actually have a government in this country today? Are the murderers that killed the innocents in Kano on the 18th of march worthy of life let alone amnesty? Are they really human beings?


Can anybody, no matter how highly placed, respected or reverred still talk about amnesty for Boko Haram now? What do such people suggest that we tell the families of the 60 that were slaughtered on the 18th of march and the 4000 that were killed before them? How do we wipe away their tears and ensure that they are given the justice that they so desperately seek? Do we tell them that it was just one of those things and that they should consisder the murder of their sons, daughters, wives, husbands, parents, grandparents, siblings, distant relatives and friends as part of their sacrifice and contribution to national development and service? Do we tell them that those that murdered their loved ones have now been granted amnesty for their efforts and that they have been forgiven by the state and reintegrated back into society? Is that justice? Is the very suggestion not utterly heartless and insensitive? No-one should ever sing the amnesty song again because too many innocent and defenceless people have been killed. In this matter justice must be done.


Yet the sad tale does not stop at the loss of life. There is more. It is a sad testimony to our national malaise that in the very week that a refreshing and exceptionally compassionate and humble new Pope was elected to lead the 1.2 billion catholics in the world today, we have been reliably informed by the Catholic Churchin Nigeria, through Rev. Father Ituah,that no less than 50 of the 52 Catholic churches in Maiduguri,Borno state have been burnt down by Boko Haram. How does one explain this madness? How would the muslims of northern Nigeria have reacted if virtually every singlemosque that had been built in one of the southern stateshad been burnt down by christian militants? Would they have shown the level of maturity and restraint that the christian community have displayedin the face of these provocations and attacks on their places of worship? Would they have insisted on amnesty for those who killed their people and burnt down their mosques?


Why is it that Boko Haram and those in the muslim community in northern Nigeria that secretly sympathise with them cannot learn a thing or two from the billions of muslims in the world that live peacefully and happily side by side with other faiths including christians, jews and hindus? Why cant they learn from the yoruba muslims who are, generally speaking, exemplary and very liberal in their approach to adhherents of other faiths. Are they not muslims too? What is it about the islamist that he feels the need to kill and shed blood in the name of God? Indonesia has the largest number of muslims on this planet with 200 million practising muslims in it's borders. Yet Indonesia is a secular state with a sizeable and respected christian minorty population which runs into millions. India has the second largest concentration of muslims in the world with a muslim population of over 150 million. The muslims of India are a minority because the country is predominantly hindu yet the religious rights of every Indian is guarded jealously and protected by the constitution because India, just like Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, Algeria, Syria, Lebanon, Senegal, Tunisia, the Palestinian West Bank and many other predominantly muslim countries, is a secular state. Why can't the islamists of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria learn from these great countries and these great people who have proved to the world by their conductwhat a civilised, humane and decent religion islam really is?


Boko Haram insists ontrying to give islam a bad name and the challenge that they have thrown down to us is one that we must take up vigorously. Yet despite all the evil and ugliness that we see around us in Nigeria today we must not allow ourselves to loose sight of the light. St. Francis of Assisi whose name and memory has been resurrected by the new Pope Francis once said ''all the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of one candle''. And he was right. The darkness of Boko Haram will not extinguish the light of Nigeria but it is time for us to bring a firm end to their carnage before it is too late and before all hell breaks loose.

Though bitter the truth is this- Nigeria will not know peace until the blood of every single one of the over 4000 innocent souls that have been cut short and slaughtered by Boko Haram, Ansaru and all the other Al Qaeda-affiliated islamist terrorist groups that have plagued our land and bled our people in the last 2 years, is fully avenged. Until this is done that sea of innocent blood that has been shed will continue to cry out to God in heaven for vengeance and it will attract all manner of misfortune and curses on our beleagured land.

My solution to the Boko Haram scourge is simple and clear. The President, the Federal Government and the people of Nigeria must join hands together, rise up as one and seek them, their secret backers and their secret sponsors out. They must be unmasked, brought to justice, systematically eliminated and sent to hell where they belong. Enough is enough. Call it what you like- a crusade, a war against terror, a fight for justice and righteousness, a war against the kingdom of darkness, the final battle for the soul, liberation and independence of Nigeria or any other name that you choose. Let us take our country back from these heartless men called Boko Haram that were sent to our shores by the devil himself to slaughter and torment our people and to paint our land red with the blood of our women and children.

Mr. President needs to wake up, smell the coffee, rise up to the occassion and do his job diligently by defending and protecting the lives and property of the Nigerian people effectively. He must have no sense of restraint and he must give no quarter in this war. Yet if for any reason he cannot muster the will to do so then I would have to agree with my brother Dino Melaye that it is time for him to do the honourable thing, to resign and to leave the job for someone else who has the guts, the strength of character, the sense of urgency and the courage to do what needs to be done.

Nigeria is dying. She is being bled to death by Boko Haram, Ansaru and Al Qaeda. Who will deliver her? Who will save her? Who will take the bull by the horns and ''fight the good fight''? We need a President that has the stomach for that fight. We need a leader that harbours no fear, that has the courage of the biblical Joshua, Jehu and David and that is ready to stand up and openly confront the greatest evil that our country has ever known. It is time for old men to hold their peace and for young men to rise up in rage and anger and defend their values, their families, their faith, their lifestyle and their nation. It is time to put on the mantle of gallant men and to recite the inspiring words of King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt. It is time to invoke the spirit of the great Greek warrior, the noble Achilles . It is time to remember the words of Mark Anthony and to shout ''Cry havoc ! And let slip the dogs of war''. It is time to save our beautiful nation Nigeria from the evil that stalks the land and from the enemy that resides within.

________________ FFK, 2013

The call on the Federal Government by the Sultan of Sokoto to grant Boko Haram amnesty is misplaced and ill-conceived. I am in total agreement with the position adopted by CAN (Christian Association of Nigeria) and Mr. President on this issue and I am relieved that the call has been rejected. The suggestion that a group of people that have slaughtered 4000 Nigerians in cold blood in the space of 2 years should be granted amnesty is completely untenable and unacceptable. It is also dangerous and counter-productive.

This is all the more so when the group has no face and has refused to identify itself or its leaders and when it has not entered into a ceasefire or laid down it’s arms. No sensible or responsible government can offer amnesty to a group of people that are butchering its citizens at will and whose evil and genocidal tendencies are unprecedented in the history of our country.

Boko Haram is the greatest evil that Nigeria has ever known. They have killed more innocent people in two years than the Irish Republican Army managed to kill in 100 years of fighting against the British in Northern Ireland. You do not grant amnesty to such people. Instead you take off the gloves, remove all sense of restraint and allow the Nigerian military to do their job and crush them. This is a war against terror and it ought to be prosecuted as such. The great Kamal Attaturk did the same thing to the terrorists and Islamic fundamentalists that troubled his country, Turkey, many years ago. He took the bull by the horns, wiped them out and transformed Turkey into the powerful, modern, industrialised, medium-power, democratic and secular state with a strong economy that she is today.
Without doing what he did to the terrorists and those that butchered others in the name of God, Turkey would not be the great country that she is today.

The debate should not be whether we ought to grant Boko Haram amnesty or not. The debate should be about how much support we need to give the Federal Government, the Nigerian military and the security agencies to do their job in wiping out the insidious cancer called Boko Haram.

________________ FFK, 2013

I think that it is a pity that President Goodluck Jonathan’s Government declined to take up the challenge of the former Minister of Education, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, to a public debate on the $67billion USD savings that President Obasanjo left behind in 2007. I do not think that our government ought to have run away from the debating ring.

Government ought to have accepted the challenge of a rigorous public debate and allow the Nigerian people to listen to it and make up their own minds about who was right and who was wrong. I thought that the response of the Special Assistant to the President On Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, to Obiageli Ezekwesili was more logical and made far more sense than that of the Honorable Minister of Information, Labaran Maku’s, but I still believe that Ezekwesili was right. I believe that the government’s position on this issue and it’s attempt to over-aggressively defend what I personally consider to be the indefensible is not only disingenuous but it is also essentially dishonest and self-seeking.

The charge that our foreign reserves were heavily depleted between 2007 and 2013 cannot be convincingly or logically denied. In 2007, President Olusegun Obasanjo left 45 billion USD in our foreign reserves and 22 billion USD in our Excess Crude Account. If the two figures are added up the amount that you will come up with is 67 billion USD of savings for our country. This is the figure that Obiageli Ezekwesili cited. It represents what was in both our foreign reserves and our Excess Crude Account put together.

Let us look at the history. When President Olusegun Obasanjo came to power in 1999 Nigeria only had 1.5 billion USD in her foreign reserves and consequently no-one in the world took us seriously. We were poor, weak and lonely and we were viewed as a failed state and a pariah nation. No-one trusted us, no-one wanted to do business with us and no-one seriously believed that we as a people or as a nation were capable of enduring the rigours of serious economic recovery, prudence and fiscal discipline. As far as the developed world was concerned Nigeria was only good for it’s endless supply of sweet bonny light crude oil. Yet Obasanjo proved the world wrong and showed that Nigerians could do far better than they thought. After eight years of good stewardship and the display of fiscal discipline and remarkable prudence he built up those foreign reserves from a measly and pitiful 1.5 billion USD in 1999 to no less than 45 billion by 2007.

This was quite an achievement yet sadly what took place after Obasanjo left power was very disheartening. It was not only a downer but it was also sad and unfortunate. I say this because by the Federal Governments own admission, and four long years after leaving 45 billion USD for the Yar’adua administration to build on in 2007, we still only have that same figure of 45 billion USD left in our foreign reserves today. Worse still this was after it had plummeted to a shameful 30 billion USD under late President Umaru Yar Adua. Had it not been for the fact that whatever was coming in after we left in 2007 and over the last 4 years was being recklessly shared and spent by the Yar’adua and later Jonathan administrations our foreign reserves ought to have doubled and reached at least 100 billion US dollars by now. That is just the foreign reserves alone and I am not even adding the Excess Crude Account figures yet. If I were to do that I would be talking about an expected increase of up to 150 billion USD by today. That is what we ought to have in the savings kitty today if the two governments that succeeded Obasanjo knew anything about prudence, good management and fiscal discipline.

The difference is that under Obasanjo it was ”save, save, save” whilst under Yar’adua and later Jonathan it has been ”spend, spend, spend’. Yet if they insist on spending the question is what do they have to show for such high expenditure and what has this cost the Nigerian people in real terms. I believe that these are legitimate questions. Mrs. Ezekwesili may have been inelegant or a little too harsh in her use of words when she made those weighty assertions in her speech but her analysis and conclusions surely cannot be faulted. Yet the Government has given no reasonable explanation or response to her or the Nigerian people and they do not even appear to like the fact that questions are being asked.

As a matter of fact they appear to believe that it is an achievement for us to be exactly where we were four years ago in terms of our foreign reserves by openly boasting that we have 45 billion USD saved today. The questions that we should put to them are as follows – did you not save anything in the last 4 years in either foreign reserves or the Excess Crude Account? Where did all the money that accrued to you and that you ought to have saved go? How come 4 years after being handed 45 billion in foreign reserves and after billions have come into your hands through record price crude oil sales you still only have 45 billion saved? Is this not strange and absurd? Is this the way a responsive and responsible government ought to behave? Do they know the true meaning of ”saving for a rainy day”?

It is not surprising that the Prime Minister of Great Britain, The Right Honorable David Cameron, asked just a few days ago where the 100 billion USD that Nigeria received from oil sales in the last few years has gone. Would our Government be good enough to answer his question and tell him even if they feel that they don’t owe the Nigerian people themselves an explanation? As far as I am concerned it is not something that our government should be proud of that 4 years after Obasanjo handed 45 billion USD to them as savings in foreign reserves they have not built on it in all that time but rather they have spent all the receivables and inflows that came in after that time and that ought to have been saved.

Yet the story does not stop there. It gets worse. Apart from the sorry tale about our foreign reserves, the story about the usage and outright draining of our Excess Crude Account is even more damning. It goes like this. When President Obasanjo left power in 2007 the Excess Crude Account had just over 22 billion USD in it’s coffers. This figure was built up by Obasanjo from zero in 1999 because at that time there was no Excess Crude Account. In 8 years he built it up from zero to 22 billion USD. Yet when the Yara’dua administration and later the Jonathan administration came in ALL the money in that account was shared with the state governors and spent. The Federal Government saved nothing for a rainy day and instead chose to just spend all the money.

Umaru Yar Adua’s government but, in fairness to President Jonathan, he has now been able to build it up to approximately 10 billion USD. This represents approximately half the figure that Obasanjo left in that account in 2007 but at least it is a step in the right direction. Yet if both the Yar adua and Jonathan government’s had continued to save and not just spend all the money we would have had at least 50 billion USD in the Excess Crude Account today and not just a paltry 10. Whichever way one looks at it, when one sees all these figures and considers the strong position that we were coming from in 2007 it represents a failure in fiscal discipline by both the Yar’adua and Jonathan administrations. This is because the Federal Governmentt was meant to build up on the legacy that they inherited in 2007 and not spend and squander all that money. For the purpose of emphasis permit me to repeat the fact that had they been doing the right thing in the last 4 years and not overspending we ought to be hitting at least 100 billion USD in our foreign reserves by now and at least 50 billion in the Excess Crude Account. Yet we have not seen anything near that and instead all we have seen is a depletion and a drain of both accounts and the monies that ought to have accrued to them since 2007.

Finally when President Obasanjo came to power in 1999 our foreign debt was 30 billion USD. Yet by sheer dint of hard work by the time he left office 8 years later he had paid off the foreign debt compltely and for the first time in its history Africa had a debt-free nation. This was a monuemental achievement by any standard and one that which every serious-minded and patriotic Nigerian ought to be proud of no matter what side of the political divide they stand. Yet sadly 4 years later we are back in chronic debt to the tune of 9 billion USD and we are still borrowing. In view of the foregoing it is perfectly legitimate for anyone to ask how come so much money was spent, what it was spent on and how the government has managed our resources over the last 4 years. As a matter of fact not asking any questions would be most unpatriotic and it would lay some of us open to the charge of cowardice and collusion. Since 2007 we have seen nothing but depletion of our resources and more and more borrowing. Unlike President Obasanjo, both President Yar Adua and President Jonathan’s governments did not build up our reserves or save any money. Instead they both spent recklessly and borrowed more and more. As a matter of fact if our government continues to borrow at the rate it has been borrowing for the last four years for another two years Nigeria will be back to having a foreign debt of close to 30 billion USD very soon. That was where we were in 1999 and if that were to ever happen it would be a tragedy of monuemental proportions.

I sincerely hope that other than the usual insults, intimidation, sponsored stories, persecution and baseless allegations that are channeled against and heaped on some of us for pointing out these matters and raising these questions, the Federal Government will endeavour to change it’s ways and display a greater degree of fiscal discipline and accountability to the Nigerian people. To that extent I am in total agreement with my former cabinet colleague in the Obasanjo administration, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili.

________________ FFK, 2013

Being ”yesterday’s men” does not mean that some of us cannot be ”tomorrow’s men” as well. Only God knows what lies ahead for each and everyone of us.

I read Dr. Reuben Abati’s article titled ‘The Hypocrisy Of Yesterday’s Men” (3rd Feb.2013), which was published in virtually every newspaper in the country, with amusement. He sought to ridicule and demean those of us that served President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government and that are not very impressed with the performance of his boss. The fact that we asked President Goodluck Jonathan to account for the 67 billion USD he squandered from our foreign reserves has clearly upset him. We dared to ask about the money and so we were singled out and targeted for a tongue-lashing and a long lecture from the Presidency.

Yet we remain undeterred. This is how weak governments that have nothing to offer and something to hide always behave. They come after their perceived enemies with full force and they are petty and oversensitive. This is all the more so when they lack experienced hands and when they do not have anyone with deep insight or wisdom about the art of governance or politics within their ranks. In his response, instead of answering our questions, addressing the issues or making any pertinent and sensible points about the numerous allegations against his principal, Abati chose to go on a delusional and self-serving joy ride. He simply refused to address any of our numerous concerns but instead indulged vainly in what can only be described as an utterly vulgar and distasteful form of intellectual, spiritual and psychological masturbation by telling us that he and his master were ”today’s men” who needed no lessons from the ”men of yesterday”.

The essay was nothing but the usual smear campaign and a crude attempt to intimidate, which has been the hallmark of this government whenever they are faced with even the mildest form of criticism. I will not dignify most of the insulting and childish submissions that Abati indulged in with a response other than to say that he told a shameless and pernicious lie when he wrote that as minister of aviation I ”shut down Port Harcourt Airport for two years” and ”allowed grass to grow all over it”. This is false. It is a classic case of disinformation coming from a man that is obviously suffering from a very low self-esteem. It is clear that Abati, who is a journalist, has forgotten the most important tenet of his profession which is that ”facts are sacred and opinion is cheap”. Ordinarily one would have ignored his bitter rant but it is important that I set the record straight for the sake of posterity. The facts are as follows.

Port Harcourt International Airport was closed on Dec.10 2005 after the Sosoliso Air crash in which 100 people were killed. The crash affected the runway of the airport very badly and consequently the then Minister of Aviation, Professor Babalola Borishade, closed it. I was redeployed from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to the Ministry of Aviation in November 2006. This was 11 months after the Sosoliso crash took place and that Port Harcourt Airport had been closed. It is clear from the foregoing that I was not the one that shut down Port Harcourt Airport. When I took over at Aviation, my priority was to carry out all the necessary repairs at Port Harcourt Airport and to open it as quickly as possible. I was saddened to discover that in the previous 11 months before I got there, nothing had been done and the contract to repair the runway had not even been awarded. Consequently, within a month of my being appointed Minister of Aviation, we set to work and awarded the contract to Julius Berger at the cost of 3 billion naira. 50 per cent of the money was paid up front and Julius Berger set to work immediately.

The runway was fully completed and the airport was in pristine condition before I left office on May 29th 2007 just 6 months after I awarded the contract. However despite this the airport could not be opened before we left because the runway lighting system was still in the process of being installed. The Yar’adua government went ahead and opened the airport a few months after we left office even though the runway lights had still not been installed. The record shows that from the day that I was appointed Minister of Aviation and the time that our mandate ran out 7 months later, my staff at the Ministry and Julius Berger worked night and day on the runway project at Port Harcourt International Airport in order to ensure that we finished it in record time. And this we managed to do. It was my project. I sourced the money for it, I paid for it, I forced the contractor to move fast on it and I finished it. The fact that the Yar’adua administration did not complete the lighting system and open the airport for another few months after we left office, even though the runway was ready, is for them to explain and not for me.

Even though nothing was done at that airport for 11 months before I got to Aviation, once I was appointed we swung into action immediately. I repeat that it was under my watch that work commenced, that it was rebuilt, that it was completed and that it was fully restored and after that the airport was ready to be fully utilised. Given these facts, how Abati can peddle the lie that I was the one that not only closed the airport but that I also kept it shut for two years, did nothing there, caused it to remain idle and allowed ”grass to grow all over it” honestly baffles me. I was Minister of Aviation for only 7 months and not 2 years and within those seven months, from scratch, I did all the work that needed to be done in order to make the airport functional again. I am proud of the fact that we succeeded in meeting our target and completing the job.

Abati also asserted that I closed down ”other major airports” whilst I was Minister of Aviation ”for the purposes of renovation”. Again this is not true. Not one of the four major airports in the country were closed down for renovation works or any other reason whilst I was Minister of Aviation. And neither, to the best of my recollection, did I close or suspend the operations of any of the smaller airports except perhaps for safety reasons. As a matter of fact the opposite was the case. I actually installed and completed the sophisticated Safe Tower Project in three of the four major airports in the country, resurrected and funded the Tracon Radar System which is operational in our country today and which gives us full radar coverage in our airspace, upgraded the facilities in many of the old smaller airports and granted permission for the establishment of new airports in places like Gombe. Quite apart from that, we not only stopped the terrible cycle of plane crashes that was prevalent at that time but there was not one aircraft that crashed under my watch and no loss of life from the air under my tenure. I am the only Minister of Aviation in the last 10 years of our country that can boast of that and yet Abati seeks to tarnish my name, stain my record and rubbish my efforts with his lies.

All this and far more and Abati accuses me of ”running the aviation sector down to a state of near collapse”. For that I commit him to God’s judgement. It is obvious that he is just being malicious and dishonest. I take strong objection to his specious lies, his brazen falsehood and his distortions of fact. The suggestion that I closed Port Harcourt Airport and neglected it for two years, that I closed other airports for renovations and that I ran the aviation sector down to the ground is what I would refer to as a figment of his malicious, overactive and fertile imagination. It is a glaring mendacity, a brutal assault on truth and an affront on my sensibilities. I find it utterly reprehensible and repugnant that a man that is entrusted to speak for the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria can indulge in such petty lies.

Let me end this contribution by pointing out the fact that being ”yesterday’s men” does not mean that some of us cannot be ”tomorrow’s men” as well. Only God knows what lies ahead for each and everyone of us. So when Abati glibly writes people off as if they will never be in power again it is a sad reflection of his lack of experience and naivety. It is God that determines our tomorrow. It is He that lifts men up, that pulls them down and, sometimes if it be His will, lifts them up again. There are countless examples of that in our history.

Finally I have a few questions for President Jonathan and his ”todays men”. When will they take President Obasanjo’s advice and finally do something concrete about Boko Haram and our security situation? Does the fact that at least 4000 Nigerians have been killed by these terrorists in the last two years under their watch not bother them? How can they sleep well at night with all that innocent blood that has flowed and precious lives cut short whilst they were at the helm of affairs of our nation? More innocent souls have been killed in the last 2 years by terrorists than at any time in the history of Nigeria outside the civil war. How does President Jonathan and his ”today’s men” feel about winning such a dubious and dishonorable title? Does he still regard Boko Haram as ”his siblings” who he ”cannot hurt”? Why has the President refused to visit the good people of the northeast despite the fact that dozens of people are still being slaughtered there by Boko Haram every day?

Moving to the issue of corruption and the economy, when will our President and ”today’s men” answer the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron’s question and tell him what they did with the 100 billion USD that they made from oil sales in the last two years? When will they answer Obi Ezekwesili’s question about how they squandered 67 billion USD of our foreign reserves? When will they answer the question that Nasir El Rufai asked sometime back about how they spent over 350 billion naira on security vote in one year alone? When will they answer the many questions that Dr. Pat Utomi and many other distinguished and courageous leaders and ”yesterday’s men” have raised about the trillions of naira that have been supposedly spent on oil subsidy payments in the last two years? When will they implement the findings and recommendations of the Nuhu Ribadu report on the thievery that has gone on in the oil sector? When will they cultivate the guts and find the courage to respond to a call for a public debate to defend their abysmal record?

When will these ”today’s men” stop being so reckless with our money? Why would our ”today’s man” FCT Minister budget 5 billion for the ”rehabilitatioin of prostitues in the Abuja”? Why would he budget 7.5 billion naira for a new ”FCT city gate”? Why would he budget 4 billion naira for a house for the First Lady? Why would the Federal Government of ”todays men” budget 1 billion naira for food in the Villa? Are these the priorities of ”today’s men and women”? And all this when Nigeria is back in foreign debt to the tune of 9 billion USD and is still borrowing, when local debt has hit almost 50 billion USD, when graduate unemployment has hit 80 per cent, when 40 per cent of Nigerians do not have access to good food and ”are hungry” and when 70 per cent of Nigerians are living below the poverty line? Is this the vision of ”today’s men and women”?

If so, may God deliver Nigeria.

.

________________ FFK, 2013

I went through Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s article about Nasir El-Rufai titled ”Sanusi Lamido On El Rufai” with amusement. I am glad that he has reiterated his love for Nasir and expressed his tremendous respect for him. He has also spoken well about Nuhu Ribadu, who is also a mutual friend, and he has said that anyone that is their enemy is his enemy as well. I am happy for Sanusi's reiteration of love for his two friends and when it comes to both Nasir and Nuhu most people know that these are precisely my sentiments as well. As I have always said when things were really bad in this country these two men were amongst the few that gave some of us hope that we could still have a united Nigeria where northerners and southerners could live and work together in peace and harmony. Sadly I cannot say the same about Sanusi.

I got to know him reasonably well because we were both members of a vibrant political association called the Progressive Action Movement between 2001 and 2003. In those days we often clashed as a consequence of our different world views and our differing visions of the sort of country Nigeria should be and how she ought to be structured.  As he argued in his essay, at that time, I was a regionalist and yoruba nationalist who had stopped believing in a united Nigeria simply due to the horrific experiences that General Sani Abacha's administration had put the people of the south-west through for five terrible years and due to the fact that General Ibrahim Babangida had annulled the June 12th 1993 presidential election of a great and illustrious son of the yoruba in the person of Chief MKO Abiola simply because he was not from the north. Being a hardline northern conservative people like Sanusi saw no wrong in the actions of either Abacha or Babangida and consequently whenever the two of us were put in the same room sparks were bound to fly.

This is because at that time I was a hardline foot-soldier of NADECO and I reflected the thinking and feeling of every self-respecting yoruba man. I believed then, and I still belive today, that if we cannot have a Nigeria where all the people and all the tribes and nationalities are treated as equals, regardless of tribe or faith, then we should not have a Nigeria at all. The Sanusi's of this world opposed that view and they believed that some Nigerians were born to rule and that some faiths are greater than others. This represented the fundamental difference between the two of us at that time and that difference remains until today. 

He also spoke about the views that I once had about President Olusegun Obassanjo before I met him, before I got to know him and before I joined his government. Sanusi was absolutely right there. At that time my views about Obasanjo were precisely what Sanusi said they were. Permit me to reiterate what those views and perceptions were here. I, together with virtually every other self-respecting yoruba man at that time, regarded Obasanjo as a tool of the north and we believed that he was released from prison and given power by the northern generals and ruling political elite to serve their interests in 1999 and as a pawn to stop the yorubas from breaking away from Nigeria. That is what the overwhelming majority of yoruba people believed then and that is why Obasanjo was overwhelmingly rejected by his people in the 1999 presidential election. It was after my brother Akin Osuntokun took me for a series of meetings with Obasanjo in 2001 on my return from self-imposed exile in Ghana and after the  late Chief Bola Ige, his Attorney General and my mentor and political leader, encouraged me to get closer to him that I knew that Obasanjo had changed and that his intention was to serve all Nigerians and not just the north. This was precisely why I joined his government.

Now to the point of this contribution. What I find curious about Sanusi’s article is the following. He expresses so much love for El-Rufai and Ribadu yet he so gladly served a government and President that tried to kill, jail and discredit them both and that ruthlessly drove them into exile. Worse still he did and said nothing in their defence at the time. I see that as a contradiction.  With friend like him, who needs enemies? Yet people have different ways of manifesting their loyalty to their friends so perhaps we should give Sanusi the benefit of the doubt here and assume that he was not playing a double game of deceit, treachery and subterfuge and that he did not sacrifice his friends and sell his soul to the devil. My own style and approach to friendship is very different. When I give my friendship I give it totally and I have never been comfortable with those that swim with the tide.  

I guess whichever way Sanusi Lamido Sanusi decides to manifest or express his love and loyalty to his friends is not my business. Yet what is my business is to try and figure out why he felt the need to bring me into his love letter to Nasir El-Rufai. What relevance my name is to that whole narrative is quite beyond me. Clearly he brought me into it in bad faith and with malicious intent and I suppose he did so simply because of the role that I played in the oil subsidy debate and the bellicose poistion that I took. Perhaps the fact that I referred to his boss, the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as an ''agent of the IMF and the World Bank'' upset Sanusi and he felt that he had to rally to her defence and speak up for her. If that was his motivation he would have done far better to just keep quiet and let Ngozie fight her own battles. I have no doubt that she would have done a far better and more cerebal job than Sanusi has done.

There is also another reason why Sanusi felt the need to bring in my name and this has to do with the various intellectual clashes that we have had over the years. I thought that he had grown up and gotten over the series of heated debates that we used to have in the newspapers when he was a public commentator and when I was a NADECO footsoldier 10 to 15 years ago but evidently I was wrong. On his part the bitterness is still very much there.
Yet despite his malevolent thoughts for me what I found the most amusing of all was the fact that in his article on El Rufai he also asserted that I had written ”in defence of Nasir” and that the words used were mine and ''not El-Rufai’s”. I really do wonder where on earth Sanusi Lamido got the idea that I was seeking to represent Nasir El Rufai's views or speak for him on this matter. I challenge him to produce the article in which I wrote ''in defence of El-Rufai'' on the oil subsidy issue.

Nasir is a respected friend and he is more than capable of speaking for himself. I am not his spokesman. I have defended him on various occassions when lies are told about him just as he has often defended me but the issue in this particular debate was ”oil subsidy” and not ''El Rufai'' or indeed ''Fani-Kayode''. The essays that I wrote about the removal of the oil subsidy was my own contribution to the raging debate and I believe that as someone that has been in active partisan politics for the last 21 years and that was part and parcel of those that brought the Goodluck Jonathan and Yar’adua administration into power in 2007 and 2011 respectively, I have a right and indeed a duty to do so. My contributions to the oil subsidy debate, which were encapsulated in just two articles titled ”Who Will Deliver Us From This Goodluck” and ”The Problem Is Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala” respectively were both directed at his two bosses, namely Mr. President and the Minister of Finance whom he reports to, and they did not have anything to do with Nasir El-Rufai. Nasir’s views and mine on the removal of the oil subsidy just happened to be the same but my write-ups had already been published in various newspapers before he publicly expressed his views on the matter in a number of interviews.

Sanusi also criticised my words and writing style in a subliminal manner which is certainly his right and prerogative. Yet the truth is that I have no apology to him or anyone else for either my words or my style and it is clear that I reflected the sheer disgust and anger that most Nigerians had about the plan to remove the oil subsidy. And that disgust was directed more at the econmic and globalist hardliners in the Jonathan administration like him and Ngozi than anyone else because the removal of the oil subsidy was their brain-child and they sought to justify it before our people. Sanusi spent many hours on television pontificating to the Nigerian people about the ”blessings” and ”beauty” of having our petrol pump price at 145 naira per litre but unfortunately for them they failed to convince anyone but themselves. So shameful and dishonest was their attempt to defend the indefensible that, in my view, they should have both been compelled to resign and they would have done so if people placed any stock or value on honour and decency in this country.

  
We must never forget that many people have been killed over this issue simply for protesting against the proposal to remove the subsidy and plenty of brutality has been displayed in the streets of Abuja and the south-west by our security agents. As I write this essay soldiers are still deployed on the streets of Lagos and many of our people are living in fear and trepidation of them. Some of us feel very bad about this series of events and we blame people like Sanusi Lamido Sanusi for misleading our President. The truth is that men like like him are completely detached from reality and they simply have no empathy with or compassion for the ordinary people. And neither can they identify with their hardship and suffering. That is the difference between a straight-jacket, unfeeling and cold-blooded monetarist and technocrat from the heartless world of international high finance like Sanusi and a warm-blooded and humane politician, lawyer, ”freelance contributor” and ”public commentator” like me. Unlike him we know the pain that the people will suffer from their heartless policies, we recognise the hardship that they are suffering and we know what they can and cannot take.

  
I congratulate Sanusi for whatever feelings and affection he may have suddenly re-cultivated and rediscovered for Nasir El Rufai but that has nothing to do with me and he should leave me out of it. Despite his plain cheek I wish him the very best yet he can be rest assured that I will lose no sleep over what he thinks or does not think about me.

________________FFK, 2012

Once again we have witnessed yet another tragic air crash in our nation. And once again it has happened in the usual mysterious circumstances and with the usual attendant loss of life. This is so sad. There is so much death in this country. So many tears. So much evil. So much sadness and so many tragedies. So many shattered dreams, broken hearts and wounded souls. So much injustice and insensitivity. So much greed and want. So much bloodshed, blood-letting and blood-spilling.

Welcome to Nigeria- the Federal Republic of Shattered Dreams. A country in which sadism, failure, iniquity, injustice, wickedness, persecution, cover-ups, lies and abuse of power are enthroned. A land in which “men of God” do not pray but instead sell the anointing and buy private jets. A country where common decency, kindness and human compassion has no place. A nation in which the rulers pay homage to the baphomet and make open sacrifices to Satan.

A country where ignorance and mediocrity is exalted and in which excellence and knowledge is scorned. A nation in which truth has no place and in which those that tell it are hated and treated with contempt. I weep for my country. May God deliver her from the blood-sucking and relentless demons that plague and afflict her.

May the souls of General Andrew Azazi, Governor Patrick Yakowa and all our other compatriots that perished in this terrible crash rest in perfect peace.

________________ FFK, 2012

Our attention has been brought to an article written by Mr. Iyobosa Uwugiaren who is a columnist for your newspaper. The article was titled “Odi —Who Is Listening To Fani-Kayode’’ and it was published on wednesday 21st November, 2012.

The article was not only insulting but it fell far below the standard that we have come to expect from one of the most reverred and powerful newspapers on the African continent which Leadership is fast becoming.

It is fair to say that anyone, particularly a columnist in such a respected newspaper, can support or not support the Jonathan administration as he or she sees fit.

However when it gets to a point that such a columnist, for reasons best known to himself, resorts to lies in order to impress those that commissioned him to do a hatchet job, it becomes a matter for concern.

Iyobosa said many things in his article and touched on many areas in a futile and pitiful attempt to rubbish Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, the former spokesman for President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was also Minister for Culture and Tourism and later Minister for Aviation under the Obasanjo administration.

His deceit and lack of understanding of various issues and his hatred and contempt for Chief Fani-Kayode, who he kept referring to by his first name as if they were the same age or on the same level, was nauseating.

The writer can disagree with and even dislike a man without being filled with hatred for him. And whether he likes Fani-Kayode or not he is a man that ought to be respected given the fact that he once held a very high public office in the land; he has been in politics for over 22 years and he is still a very strong, relevant and influential voice in the affairs of Nigeria.

Whether Iyobosa cares to admit it or not, tomorrow belongs to people like Fani-Kayode and many listen to him, follow his write-ups and swear by him till today.

Probably more than any of Obasanjo’s former Minister’s and aides today, with the possible exception of Malam Nasir el-Rufai who wears the crown as the unofficial ‘’leader of the opposition’’ in Nigeria today, Fani-Kayode has continued to find relevance and has continued to make an impact on our national affairs.

He has also become a thorn in the side of the Goodluck Jonathan administration even though his attacks on them have been less scathing and far more measured than el-Rufai’s.

However, given recent events and the contribution that Fani-Kayode has just made on President Obasanjo’s behalf on the Odi issue, it is clear that this may well change now and that Fani-Kayode may begin to be even more combative than he has already been in the last two years. This is not good news for President Jonathan’s government because the former Minister has often been described by both his friends and his enemies as an ‘’exocet missile’’ and something of an Achilles in battle.

He never misses his target and he wages a good war. He and Obasanjo make a lethal combination. The next few weeks and months will prove this and as 2015 approaches the attempt by the Jonathan administration to discredit, discourage and silence the voices of all those that oppose them, oftentimes by using the security agencies and willing tools like Iyobosa, will fail.

The issues that he raised in his article are hardly worthy of a response other than to say that Chief Fani-Kayode dutifully and rightly defended and joined issues with all of President Obasanjo’s traducers in the right and proper manner when he was in government because, for three years, that is what he was paid to do.

If Iyobosa cannot make a distinction between “abuse” and ‘’insulting’’ on the one hand and “joining issues” and “defending” on the other then he surely needs to go back to school.

He claimed that Fani-kayode had responded to Col. Abubakar Umar, Professor Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Chief S. B. Awoniyi and others by “abusing” and “insulting” them yet he did not produce the evidence of the so-called “abuse” and neither did he tell us what these distinguished gentlemen said about President Obasanjo that resulted in a forceful response from Fani-Kayode.

It is so interesting that those that are ready to give out punches are not ready to receive them back. It is only in Nigeria that a man will throw a brick at his President and tell lies about him and yet that same man complains when he gets a pebble of truth or a brick thrown back at him. What a country this is.

Was Fani-Kayode supposed to clap for Obasanjo’s enemies and critics? Was he supposed to be their cheerleaders? I doubt it very much and as far as I am concerned the former Minister needs to offer no apology to the likes of Iyobosa or anyone else for doing his job properly and effectively.

Again the writer took issue with Fani-Kayode’s response to President Goodluck Jonathan on the Odi issue and it is clear that his submission lacked any form of logic or sense. If Iyobosa is looking for a job in the Jonathan administration he should just say so instead of coming up with all sorts of embarassingly shallow submissions.

President Goodluck Jonathan claimed that Odi was a disaster and that nothing good came out of it and President Obasanjo, through his former spokesman and Minister, responded to him and said that he was wrong.

He also gave his reasons, in a very restrained and polite way, as to why he believed that this was so. Why do people like Iyobosa find that so hard to accept, bear or understand? Does he expect everyone to agree with Jonathan all the time? Is Nigeria now a police state where dissent has no place?

Must he villify those that do not agree with Jonathan’s version of historical events in his column and must he turn it into a personal issue? Do people like Iyabosa expect Obasanjo and his loyalists to keep quiet when the President of Nigeria publically accuses them of mass murder and war crimes?

Even Jonathan-lovers like him can surely appreciate the fact that it is always important to set the record straight when the President is wrong on any issue.

This is all the more so when the same President resorts to telling lies about the man who single-handedly lifted him up from the obscurity of Bayelsa State Deputy Governor and made him Governor, Vice President and later President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Iyobosa asked “who is listening to Fani-Kayode” and the answer to that is that “many are listening to Fani-Kayode’’. I will go a step further by saying that “many know that, on this issue, Fani-Kayode is right’’.

As much as it is clear that Obasanjo made many mistakes during his tenure of office, it is also clear that one of the things that he got right was his strong response to the insurgency and killings of our security personnel and civilian population by the Niger Delta area militants and their brutal form of terrorism.

Obasanjo was decisive and very effective which is far more than any of us can say about President Goodluck Jonathan. Fani-Kayode made this point eloquently in his response to Mr. President and he is absolutely right.

The fact that Jonathan’s sickening weakness, cowardice and capitulation in the face of Boko Haram has led to 3000 deaths in the last two years in our country does not appear to bother Iyobosa.

The fact that churches are regularly bombed and innocent people are targetted and slaughtered on a daily basis up until today by the dreaded sect, whilst those in government just spend their time drinking champagne, or whatever it is that they drink in the Villa these days, means nothing to the Iyobosa’s of this world.

The fact that Jonathan’s government cannot stop the killing or fight the terrorists effectively is something that matters not to people like this esteemed columnist called Iyobosa.

He just doesn’t seem to care. I really do wonder how many more people need to die before people like him will stop their cheerleading and their shameless worship of Jonathan and speak out against this evil abdication of governmental responsibility?

Instead of addressing the obvious inability of the Jonathan administration to handle the Boko Haram insurgency, it is Fani-Kayode and Obasanjo that he seems to be obsessed with. Since when has objectivity and decency been thrown out of the window by some of our columnists in this way?

How is it that Iyobosa will lament about Odi and yet will not even spare one sentence for those that have been massacred by Boko Haram under Jonathan’s watch. Is it because he is from the Niger Delta area himself?

Is the blood of those that have been killed in the north by Boko Haram not as red as the blood of his own Niger Delta area people? So blinded is this columnist that he could not even bring himself to urge the Federal Government to do a better job in fighting Boko Haram and protecting the lives and property of Nigerians.

Whatever it is that motivates Iyobosa to behave in this way is known only to God and him and neither does it matter one way or the other. This is because in the scheme of things he is just a minor irritation. Yet the truth is that when even minor irritants tell lies they must be responded to and on this occassion it will be no different.

Let us look at one of those lies. Iyabosa claimed that sometime in 2006. Chief Fani-Kayode went to the home of Chief Sunday Awoniyi to “beg him” and “prostrate before him” after ‘’insulting’’ him for Obasanjo. He also said that he told Chief Awoniyi that if Obasanjo asked him to insult him again he would do so.

This is an insidious and pernicious lie. It is falsehood and fabrication in it’s purest form. I say this because this event never happened. Iyobosa is a liar with a wild imagination and the veracity of his assertion shall be put to the test.

Chief Fani-Kayode never “begged” Chief S.B. Awoniyi and neither did he ever ‘’go to his house’’ or ‘’prostrate before him’’ or anyone else. I spoke to the Chief himself and asked him and this is what he told me. He also treated Iyobosa’s claims with the derision that they deserve suggesting that the young man is ‘’best ignored’’.

In any case, anyone that knows Fani-Kayode will tell you that it is not in his nature to “beg” anyone and that, whether you agree with him or not on any issue, he often stands his ground and has the courage of his convictions. His relationship with the Awoniyi family goes much further back than the likes of Iyabosa can possibly imagine.

The late Chief Remi Fani-Kayode, Fani-Kayode’s father, who was Deputy Premier of the Western Region and who was a regional minister himself, was exceptionally close to Chief S.B. Awoniyi from the early 60’s right up until the day he passed on in 1995. Chief Femi Fani-Kayode himself was also close to Chief Awoniyi and worked closely with him in 1996 during the days of the defunct political association called ANC which Awoniyi led. From that time, and until the day that he died, Chief Awoniyi took Fani-Kayode as his own son and often prayed for him.

Where were people like Iyobosa then? The only time that Awoniyi and Fani-Kayode ever disagreed or parted ways was when there was a division of opinion between President Obasanjo and the elderstatesman and naturally Fani-Kayode sided with his boss.

Yet In doing so he did not “insult” or “abuse” Awoniyi, as Iyobosa has alleged, but he responded to his criticisms of the Obasanjo administration clearly, logically and forcefully.

This is not the first time that he has done this. He insulted the former Minister and fabricated lies about him a few years ago in the same manner and accused him of all manner of things even then. This was in the same Leadership newspaper that he still writes for till today.

Yet those of us that know, love and respect Fani-Kayode ignored him at the time because we knew that he was motivated by nothing but hate and malice.

This time around we will not ignore him and we will set the record straight. We will let Nigerians know the truth. Iyobosa is entitled to have any opinion that he wants about Fani-Kayode and he can disagree with him on any issue and no-one will lose any sleep over it.

What he does not have the right to do is to lie about him and fabricate fanciful and far-fetched tales.

— Olaiya sent in this piece from Abuja

________________ TO, 2012

Today our nation stands at a crossroad and it is left for us to decide which path we choose to take. Do we take the path of despair and dishonour and give up on our country? Or do we rise above it all and latch on to the promises of God for our land and for our people? With biting poverty, mounting hopelessness, a bleeding economy, youth restiveness, unprecedented violence, brazen acts of terror and all manner of vices and evil thriving in the land one wonders how things got so bad.

The foundation for our current situation was laid many years ago and since that time we have seen so much suffering and failure at virtually all levels. We were plagued with leaders who lacked vision, who lacked intellect, who lacked sincerity of purpose and who were antagonistic to those that dared to challenge their visionless and purposeless policies. Our country is currently bedevilled with so much negativity that it is easy to look around and just give up. Yet I say that we must never give up because ”hope springs eternal”. The bible says though the night may be dark yet ”joy comes in the morning”. The wise ones say you cannot have a message without a mess. You cannot have a testimony without a test. You cannot get to the top of the mountain without first going to the bottom of the valley. This is true. And out of Nigeria’s ”mess” shall surely come her ”message”. Out of Nigeria’s ”test” shall surely come her ”testimony”. We have been to the ”bottom of the valley” and therefore we shall get to the ”top of the mountain”. Our dream for a better Nigeria shall never die and neither can our collective prayers be in vain. I refuse to give up because I know that the God that I serve never fails. He alone rules in the affairs of men. He alone forges the destiny of nations. Out of a deep void and formlessness He ordered the creation of the world. He established it by the power of His word and He gave us dominion over it.

In the same way He created Nigeria for His purpose and for His glory and that purpose and glory shall surely be established. It shall come to pass and it will be manifest to the entire world. We shall see it and we shall be established in it as a nation and as a people. If God can do it for others, He can do it for us too. We can be great and, by the grace of God, we shall be great. This is my dream and this is what I see. And believe me when I tell you that it is prophetic. A Nigeria where every man and woman, regardless of faith, ethnicity, status or political persuasion finds a common cause and relishes in our collective humanity. A Nigeria where the rich have a conscience and the poor have hope. A Nigeria where joy and peace reign supreme and where bombings and killings are a thing of the past. A Nigeria where the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac and the adherents of the two great Abrahamic faiths of Islam and Christianity live together in peace, harmony and mutual respect. A Nigeria where the secularity of the state is respected yet where God is revered and honoured by all. A Nigeria where the knowledge and fear of the Living God reigns in the hearts and minds of the people. A Nigeria where every man is His brother’s keeper, where leaders show compassion to those that they lead, where justice is done to all and where political persecution has no place. A Nigeria where decency is rewarded, where dissent is tolerated, where non-conformity is encouraged and where equity is enthroned. That is the Nigeria of my dream. A Nigeria where youth unemployment is low and where every individual, no matter how high or low, can aspire to any position and live his or her dream. That is the Nigeria of my dream. A Nigeria where human life and human dignity is sacrosanct and where fairness is the watchword of every soul. That is the Nigeria of my dream.

I have no fears about the future of this great nation because the God that I serve never fails. The bible says the nations are ”as a drop of water before Him”. He sits above the circles of the earth and He counts the earth as His footstool. Yet despite His sheer awesomeness and majesty, with Him lies great compassion and mercy. Once we return to Him, acknowledge Him, honour Him and are led and guided by Him, He will restore us and shower us with His blessings. The Lord awaits us to make the right choice. We either continue to wallow in self-delusion, wickedness, greed, murder, the persecution of perceived enemies, the abuse of power, evil and insensitivity or we desist from our wicked ways and turn to Him. I am persuaded that once we make the right choice our date with destiny, as a people and as a nation, will come far sooner than we can possibly imagine. In his book titled ”The Wretched of the Earth” Frantz Fanon said the following- ”each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover it’s mission and fulfill it or betray it.” Past generations in Nigeria have not lived up to expectation. This is the bitter truth.

Yet there is still hope as long as we have faith. That hope and faith is our blessed assurance and it lives in our minds and hearts. We know that the Lord will fix it. We know that He is ”more than able”. We know that He is a man of war whom none can resist and we know that He restores, redeems and rebuilds even the most broken and wretched walls. Dr. Martin Luther King jnr., after delivering his celebrated and inspiring ”I have a dream” speech, was felled by an assassin’s bullet on April 4 1968. To those that killed him, his dream died with him. Yet they were wrong. They did not know that great dreams, once birthed, never die. That is why the Word of God said ”if the princes of this world had known they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory”. If those that murdered Jesus, and the devil that inspired them to do it, had known that He would honour His word and rise up three days later they would not have crucified him. They persecuted Him, they humiliated Him, they beat Him, they tortured Him, they spat on Him and they killed Him yet they could not kill His dream or abort His mission. His dream lived on and became a reality for all mankind to see. It was the same with Martin Luther King. They killed him but his mission had already been achieved and his vision came to pass 45 years after his sacrificial and selfless death. This is indeed the stuff of which dreams are made. Great things are birthed in great dreams and if you dare to dream nothing is impossible.

I have a dream for Nigeria. I have a dream that one day Nigerians will see themselves as Nigerians before anything else and they will not regard their country and its people as a collection of strange bed-fellows that do not love or trust one another. Yet this dream can only be fulfilled when those amongst us that call ourselves leaders preach, practice and display discipline, temperance, holiness, morality, restraint, tolerance, mercy and the fear of God in the conduct of our affairs. It can only be made manifest when we stand up and fight against evil, tyranny, injustice, indecency bad governance, the abuse of power , political persecution and sheer wickedness. Our dream can only be brought to reality when love is the motivating factor in all that we do. The Lord commands us to love our neighbour as we do ourselves. That is the cornerstone and the foundation of our faith and it is in that faith and that resolve that our hope for a better and greater Nigeria lies. I have a dream that Nigeria will be what God wants her to be, a great and powerful nation that is dedicated to the Living God and that will act as a shining example and a beacon of light for all to see.

I assure you that despite the dashed hopes and unbearable suffering of millions of our people over the last 52 years, our dream still lives and the Lord shall not forsake us. Our land and our people may seem blighted, in despair, depressed, repressed and confused. It may appear as if there is no hope for a better tomorrow and that nothing will ever change. It may seem as if the Lord has forgotten us and it may appear that our story is one of recurrent failure and shattered dreams. Yet this is not so. I have come here today to tell you that, despite all we see and hear, it is not over for us as a people and as a nation. I have come here today to tell you that we as a people have a date with destiny. I have come here today to tell you that Nigeria and the Nigerian dream lives on and that it shall be made manifest for all to see in the fullness of time. I therefore urge you to be strong, to hold your heads up high, to be proud of who and what you are and to stand firm. The vision is for an appointed time. Though it may tarry it shall not prove false. Just hold on. God bless you and God bless Nigeria.

________________ FFK, 2012

During a live broadcast of the Presidential Media Chat to the nation on the evening of 18th November 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan said that the military operation in Odi by the Nigerian Armed Forces in 1999, which was ordered by President Olusegun Obasanjo, did not solve the problem or stop the killing of soldiers, policemen and innocent civilians in the Niger Delta area by the terrorists and militants. He also said that all he saw in Odi after he went there on an official visit as Deputy Governor were the dead bodies of old people. With the greatest respect to Mr. President this is factually incorrect. He has either forgotten the relevant facts or he has been misinformed. Whichever way he is mistaken and it is important for those of us that proudly served the Obasanjo administration to respond to him in order to clarify the issues, clear the air and set the record straight for the sake of history and posterity. I had the privilage of being briefed about all the facts by President Olusegun Obasanjo himself and Col. Kayode Are, the former DG of the SSS, immediately after the Presidential Media Chat and I believe that it is appropiate to share some of those facts with members of the Nigerian public given the grave assertion and serious charge that President Jonathan has made. Those facts are as follows.

Five policemen and four soldiers were killed by a group of Niger Delta militants when they tried to enter the town of Odi in Bayelsa state in order to effect their arrest. This happened in 1999. After the brutal killing of these security personnel President Olusegun Obasanjo asked the then Governor of Bayelsa state, Governor Alamesighya, to identify, locate, apprehend and hand over the perpertrators of that crime. The Governor said that he was unable to do so and President Obasanjo, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, took the position that security personnel could not be killed with impugnity under his watch without a strong and appropiate response from the Federal Government. Consequently he sent the military in to uproot and kill the terrorists and to destroy their opearational base which was the town of Odi. The operation was carried out with military precision and efficiency and it's objectives were fully achieved. The terrorists were either killed and those that were not killed fled their operational base in Odi, were uprooted, were weakened, were demoralised and were completely dispersed. That was the purpose of the whole exercise and that purpose was achieved. The truth is that the killing of security agents and soldiers with impugnity by the Niger Delta militants virtually stopped after the operation in Odi and remained at a bare minimum right up until the time that President Obasanjo left power eight years later in 2007. I advise those that doubt this to go and check the records.

The same thing was done in Zaki Biam in Benue state in the north-central zone of Nigeria in 2001 after 19 soldiers were murdered in cold blood and then brutally beheaded by some terrorists from that area. Again after the Federal Government's strong military response in Zaki Biam the killing of security personnel with impugnity stopped. The objectives of the military operations in both Odi and Zaki Biam were to stop such killings, to eliminate and deal a fatal blow to those that perpetuated them and to discourage those that may seek to carry out such barborous butchery and mindless violence in the future. Those were the objectives and nothing more and clearly those objectives were achieved. There is no doubt that after Odi there was still unrest, agitations, protests, kidnappings and the blowing up and sabotage of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta area but there were hardly any more attacks on or killing of soldiers and security personnel by the terrorists and militants because they knew that to do that would attract a swift and forceful reaction and terrible retribution from the Nigerian military. To stop and deter those attacks and killings was the objective of President Obasanjo and that objective was achieved. President Goodluck Jonathan was therefore in error when he said that Odi did not solve the problem of killings in the Niger Delta area by the Niger Delta militants. Not only did it stop the killings but it is also an eloquent testimony of how to deal with terrorists, how to handle those that kill our security personnel with impugnity and how to deter militants from killing members of our civilian population and thinking that they can get away with it. If President Obasanjo had not taken that strong action at that time many more of our civilian population and security personnel would have been killed by the Niger Delta militants between 1999 and 2007. By doing what he did at Odi and Zaki Biam President Obasanjo saved the lives of many and put a stop to the killings and terrorism that had taken root in the Niger Delta area previous to that time.

On the issue of Boko Haram it is unfortunate that President Obasanjo's comments have been miscontsrued and his views misrepresented. He never said that the Odi treatment should be applied to Boko Haram or that such action is appropiate in these circumstances. What he said was that a solution ought to have been found or some sort of action ought to have been taken sooner rather than allow the problem to fester over time like a bad wound and get worse. There can be no doubt that he was right on this because, according to President Jonathan's own Chief of Army Staff, no less that 3000 people have been killed by Boko Haram in the last 2 years alone. That figure represents approximately the same number of people that were killed by the IRA in Northern Ireland and the British mainland in the 50 years that the war between them and the British lasted and before peace was achieved between the two sides. The same number of casualties that the IRA inflicted on the people of the United Kingdom in 50 years is the same number of casualties that Boko Haram have managed to inflict on our people in just two. This is unacceptable and it is very disturbing. The Federal Government must cultivate the courage and the political will to stop the killings by Boko Haram and to find a permanent solution to the problem. When President Obasanjo was in power he handled such matters decisively, with vigour and with the utmost urgency. He brought justice to the perpertrators quickly and promptly and he did whatever he had to do to protect the lives and property of the Nigerian people. The truth is that the strategy that he adopted to fight terrorism and mass murder worked very well and it was very effective. For President Goodluck Jonathan to suggest otherwise is regrettable.

________________ FFK, 2012

Like everyone else in the country I was informed about the death of the Waziri of Ilorin, Dr. Olusola Saraki, on the morning that he passed on and the news saddened me immensly. This is because he was one of the greatest, kindest, most compassionate, most generous and most selfless leaders that we have ever had in this country. His power and influence stretched from the Second Republic when he was the Leader of the Senate on the platform of the NPN up until today. He made the dreams and aspirations of many come true and throughout his life he brought nothing but smiles to many faces. He was my late father's close and loyal friend and he was like a father to me and so many others. This is not a good time for him to go because Nigeria needs him now more than ever and we shall all miss him dearly. My heart goes out to the Saraki family. I mourn with them and I stand shoulder to shoulder with them today. Like the biblical David said about the passing of King Saul, I am constrained to say about the passing of the great Oloye Olusola Saraki, ''how are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle. How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished''.

In Shakespere's famous play ''Julius Caesar'', whilst trying to warn Caesar about the prospect of death, Calphurnia said ''when beggars die there are no comets seen.The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes''. Caesar responded promptly and appropiately by saying ''Cowards die many times before their deaths.The valiant never taste of death but once''. Dr. Saraki was not a beggar or a coward. He was a prince in every sense of the word and since his passing not only have many comets been seen, not only have the heavens been blazing forth his death but the whole of Nigeria has been mourning him. What a befitting honour this is and none is as deserving of such honour as the Oloye. Like Julius Caesar, he did not fear death even though he must have known, like Mark Anthony said in that very same play, that ''the evil that men do live after them, the good is often buried with their bones''. With Saraki there was no evil but plenty of good. And those of us that he left behind must not allow that ''good'' to be ''buried with his bones''. It is just one example of that ''good'' which I intend to share with you in this essay.

If the truth be told many wonderful things are often said and written about great and powerful leaders in Nigeria after their passing. Some of these things are true and some are not. Yet In Saraki's case I assure you that these things are really true. The following story that I am about to share with you is not only an eloquent testimony to that but it also proves the fact that Dr. Saraki was not only a truly great, compassionate and kind man but that he was also selfless and sensitive to the suffering of others. In early 1998, during the turbulent yet dying days of General Sani Abacha, a promising and brilliant young journalist by the name of Mr. Tunde Oladepo, who at that time was the Abeokuta Bureau Chief of the Guardian Newspaper, was brutally murdered by agents of the Federal Military Government in his home in Abeokuta and in the prescence of his wife and two very infant children. The murderers wore masks and committed the crime in a terrible way that is best left to the imagination of readers. I will not repeat those sordid details here. What I will say is that no-one deserves to die in that way. After butchering Tunde the three murderers went over to the wife and children, who had been in the same room whilst the killing was taking place and who witnessed the whole event, and removed their masks so that she could see their faces clearly. They seemed to relish in the pain that they were causing her and the fear that they were instilling in the children. The point that they were conveying to the young bereaved widow, like all predators and beasts often do after their kill, was one of total impugnity. They were saying that ''we have done this to you and your family, you have seen our faces and yet you are utterly powerless to do anything about it''. This was the height of cruelty and after their horrendous display of callousnes and brazen power and control they left the house. Yet the torment for the Oladepo family had only just started.

A little background would be helpful here. Tunde had been murdered simply because of his stringent and uncomromising support for NADECO and the fight for the realisation of the mandate of Chief M.K.O Abiola who had won a free and fair Presidential election in 1993. Nigeria was in turmoil in those days and there was literally a war going on between those that supported NADECO and Abiola and those that supported Abacha and military rule. Thousands of young men and women, mostly unsung and unkown, were murdered, tortured and driven into exile by the Government of that day simply because they stood on the side of righteousness, justice and truth. Tunde was one of such people. He was a great supporter of NADECO and he took great risks for his country, the cause of freedom and the cause of democracy. Sadly, in the end, he paid the supreme price for his stand. It was in that context, for that reason and with that background that Tunde Oladepo was murdered. Yet the torment of the Oladepo family did not end with his murder. As a matter of fact it had only just started.

I say this because what happened next beggars belief. During Tunde's burial ceremony many came to honour him and of course they were most welcome. However to the utter shock and chagrin of his young widow and two young children, the three butchers that had killed her husband and that had also shown their faces to her after the murder turned up at the burial as well. Not only did they turn up but they also went over to the young widow and, with a wicked smile, whispered their ''commisserations'' into her ears. This was not only frightening, bizarre and macabre but it also had the intended effect. Mrs. Oladepo was completely terrified and was frozen into silence by fear and trepidation. Had they come back to kill her and her children too? Did they have unfinished business with them? Was the pain and torment that they had inflicted on her family not enough? These were the questions that shot through her mind. Yet she had the prescence of mind, courage and discipline to hold her peace knowing that if she didn't she may invite instant death upon herself there and then and upon her children. What a strong lady she was. Once again she got the message from her tormentors loud and clear. And the message was the following- ''we kill, we bury, we destroy, we are above the law, we are untouchable, we control everything, we can get away with anything and there is NOTHING that you can do about it''. Such was the nature of those that killed for Abacha and such was the clime of those dark, evil and dangerous days.

After the burial and after all the mourners left Mrs. Oladepo soon found out that she and her two young children were all alone in the world. Not only did she fear for her life but she also feared for the future of her children. She had no means to live, she had no business and she was finding it difficult to get all the dues that were owed her husband. Worst still all those ''big men'' (and I have their names) that her husband had supported and fought for in NADECO and most of his old friends turned their back on her and offered her nothing in terms of encouragement, substance, protection or support. She had no money and no way of surviving in a country that was exceptionally dangerous and that was in deep conflict and turmoil. Worst of all she knew that it was only a matter of time before the assasins came back for her and her children because she had been forced to see their faces, not once but twice. She and her two children were the only living witnesses to their homicidal butchery and therefore they presented a real threat to them. The ''system'', like the mafia, does not leave witnesses alive for long and they always tie up loose ends. It was only a matter of time and she knew it. Her only recourse was to secretly flee from Nigeria, just as many other NADECO widows and fighters had done, and seek greener patures and safety elsewhere until the evil had passed. Yet for this she needed resources and support and there was none forthcoming from anywhere. She was literally in despair and every day was a nightmare for her. She was deserted by all and she literally had to fend for herself and her two little children on a daily basis. These were indeed difficult days for the young widow because she had no money and all hope seemed lost. All she could do was cry, hope against hope and pray to God. Then things suddenly changed.

She was sitting in her house one afternoon and there was a knock on her door. She welcomed the strangers in with some trepidation, not knowing who they were or who sent them. There were two men. They told her that they worked for Dr. Olusola Saraki and that they had been sent to her by him. They said that he did not know her husband and had never met him before but that he had read about the murder and terrible tragedy in the newspapers. They said that he felt moved by the fact that Oladepo had left a young widow behind and two infant children and that consequently he had sent a token of sum of money to them to help them at that difficult time. They handed over 250,000 naira cash to her (which was a lot of money in those days) and then promptly left. Mrs. Oladepo was overwhelmed and she knew that this was an answered prayer. Now she had the resources to leave Nigeria and, with the support of the NADECO network, she could move to the relative safety of Ghana and from there, with the support of NADECO and the Canadian Embassy in Accra, get a visa to Canada and settle there permanently with her family. This was her dream and it was the only way in which she felt that she could survive and protect herself from the madnes that had gripped Nigeria at the time. She made all the necessary arrangements and effected her plan within a matter of days. Mrs. Oladepo was smuggled through the NADECO routes and arrived in Accra in early 1998. That is where I had the privilage of meeting her and hearing her remarkable story. She was taken care of in Ghana by a tightly-knit, dedicated and committed group of NADECO operatives there led by Mr. Bunmi Aborisade and Chief Tunde Edu. Bunmi is a good friend of mine and he was a brilliant and fearless jounalist in Accra who at that time the editor of the Ghanian Independent Newspaper. Sadly and ironically Bunmi's own dear mother was also murdered in brutal circumstances not too long after this as well. Many have paid a heavy price for the democracy that we enjoy in Nigeria today and most of them are not appreciated. Yet patriots like Aborisade were rare and utterly fearless and selfless. Without them the struggle against Abacha could not have been kept alive and they, more than anyone else, with their strong links with the Ghanaian government, the Americans and the Canadians ensured that Accra remained a safe-haven for NADECO sympathisers and operatives and a tough and very dangerous place for the supporters of Abacha.

It was these same NADECO operatives that helped Mrs. Oladepo to stay in a safe house in Accra, protected her, encouraged her, supported her and, most important of all, liased with the Canadian Embassy over there to ensure that she got the necessary permits and visa to be able to relocate to Canada as a political refugee with her two children permanently. During her stay in Accra Bunmie, Mrs. Oladepo and her two beautiful children did me the honour of joining me and my family in our home for dinner. As she told her story tears ran down her face, just as they did that of my darling wife Regina's. We were all moved and as she spoke there was pin-drop silence at the dinner table. She kept saying that she did not want anyone's pity because she knew that God would see her and her children through. This was a woman of tremendous beauty, dignity and remarkable faith. Furthermore this was a powerful and moving testimony of God's power and grace. It was clear that given the circumstances that she was in and all that she had been subjected to, the fact that she managed to even get out of Nigeria safely with her children was in itself a miracle. We all gave thanks to God and then she said the following. She asked me whether I knew Dr. Olusola Saraki and I told her that my family had been associated with the Saraki family for many years and that he was a good friend of my late fathers. I also told her that my younger sister Mrs. Tolu Fanning (nee Fani-Kayode) was the best of friends with Mrs. Gbemi Saraki-Fowora who was Dr. Saraki's first daughter. She was very happy when she heard that and then she told me that had it not been for the kindness and generosity of this man that she had never met before and that had never known her husband, that she and her children would never have been able to escape Nigeria with their lives. She asked me to please thank him for her whenever I saw him again and to convey their deep gratitude to him. After that she prayed for him for almost twenty minutes and we all thanked God for Dr. Saraki's compassion and kindness. God had used him to touch their lives and deliver them from evil. It was a wonderful evening and we had a great dinner.

A few weeks after that Mrs. Oladepo and her children were granted all the necessary permits and flew to Canada where they live safely and happily till this day. I had not heard from her in almost 10 years and then all of a sudden she sent me an email almost two years ago and told me that she and the children were very happy and that they were doing very well in Canada. Once again she thanked God for the kindness shown to her by the NADECO operatives in Ghana but most of all she thanked God for Dr. Olusola Saraki. She also asked me if I had conveyed her message to him and to my eternal shame, even though I actually saw Dr. Saraki on many occassions after my return to Nigeria from self-imposed exile in 2001 and especially after I joined President Olusegun Obasanjo's Government in 2003, I had failed to do so. I told everyone and anyone that cared to listen this story whenever Dr. Saraki's name came up anywhere over the last 12 years and some time back I told the beautiful Senator Gbemi Saraki-Fowora the story over dinner and I conveyed the message to her. Yet sadly I must confess that, till the day Oloye passed on, I never told him the story or expressed the young widow's deep gratitude to him directly. This was a failing on my part and that is one of the two reasons that I feel that it is appropiate to share it with the whole of Nigeria today by writing this article in his honour and relating the facts. It is now a matter of historical record.

The other reason that I have shared this story with members of the public is because it is a resounding and eloquent testimony to and proof of Dr. Olusola Saraki's generosity and kindness. He did not know the widow or her children and yet he helped. He did not know that in helping he was literally saving their lives. He did not know that I or anyone else would ever find out. He did not know that this would be a subject of discourse or an essay after he passed on. He did it out of his love for God and humanity and it was done quietly without any fanfare. I have little doubt that Oloye did the same and perhaps much more for many others whilst he lived and I wonder how many of our leaders have the same kind of charitable and compassionate spirit as he did. That was Dr. Olusola Saraki for you and it is that kindness, that selflessness and that warmth of heart that spoke before God on his behalf all the days of his life. That was the secret of his success. He gave his substance that others may live their lives. He brought smiles and hope to many faces and families. He helped both the high and the low. Of him Shakespeare's Mark Anthony could never say that his ''good are buried with his bones''. Nay, Dr. Olusola Saraki's ''good'' will speak for him forever. Not just for him but also for his dear widow and the matriach of the Saraki family, Mama Morenike Florence Saraki, and each and everyone of his distinguished and illustrious children and grandchildren. May the Lord reward him for his good works, may the Lord forgive him for his sins, may the Lord honour him with Heaven and may the beautiful soul of this kind, generous and charming son of Nigeria rest in eternal peace.

________________ FFK, 2012

Boko Haram say they have ''no problem with Jonathan'' yet they are killing his people like flies, destabilising his country, bringing his government to it's knees, destroying national unity and cohesion, waging a relentless religious and ethnic war against the state and committing genocide and ethnic cleansing against a section of the population.

These people, and those at the highest level of government and the society that secretly support and encourage them, are seised of the devil and there is no truth in them. They have come only to kill, steal and destroy. They and those they represent need to be crushed and exterminated like cockroaches. Like the Agagites and Canaanites of old they and their pagan gods need to be wiped out and removed from the face of the earth. They are the darkness that seeks the darkness-demons in human flesh that have no regard for human life and that delight in the shedding of innocent blood.

They are utterly evil and they have no place in God's glorious light or in the land of the living. And make no mistake about it. Boko Haram and their secret backers, supporters and financers are everywhere. They are the enemy within. They are in our Armed Forces, our security agencies, our Central Bank, our intelligentsia, our government and our political elites. They are heartless vampires all. And in the name of God the Great, the Living God, the Lord of Hosts, the Glory of Israel and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah they shall be exposed and destroyed.

________________ FFK, 2012

I am sad and troubled for our nation. I just cannot sleep when I consider the amount of innocent blood that has been spilt in the 24 hours before I wrote this piece. Kano, Bayelsa, Bauchi....it goes on and on. So much blood, so much hate, so much division and so much destruction. And at the end of it all, just in the space of one afternoon, Nigeria's second largest city of Kano has been brutally raped and violated and no less than 260 innocent and defenceless Nigerians have been butchered mercilessly in broad daylight and are now lying dead in the mortuary or the cemetery.

Many bodies are still lying under the rubble undiscovered and unrecognised even in death. I am convinced that there is only one thing left for President Goodluck Jonathan to do if he wants to turn the tide of public opinion that is mounting against him and if he wants to save himself, save his government and save Nigeria. He must find the courage to convene a Sovereign National Conference of the various nationalities that make up the geographical expression called Nigeria in which the terms and conditions of our continued union will be fully renegotiated. If he can do this quickly and if he can pull it off successfully his image will be redeemed and his name will be carved in gold in Nigerian history forever despite all that has happened in the last two years. If he does not do this the Islamist slaughter, the sectarian bloodshed and the inter-ethnic mayhem will just continue, his government will eventually fall and Nigeria may well break up in the process. Mark my words.

Depending on the choice that he makes he will either be known as the saviour of Nigeria or her destroyer. May God guide our President and cause him to make the right choice. When I first made this suggestion about the convening of a Sovereign National Conference on my facebook page many asked why it was that the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, which I served, did not convene a Sovereign National Conference at that time and why I didn't support such a course of action then. My answer to them was as follows. A few of us most certainly did push for a Sovereign National Conference when we were in power. Some of us in that government, including Chief Akin Osuntokun, Professor Julius Ihonbere and a few others pushed for it very hard but you know very well that essentially President Olusegun Obasanjo is a conservative and he resisted it. As a matter of fact that is what qualified him and that is why he could be trusted with power and the job of President in 1999 by the northern power-brokers that brought him out of jail and put him there. They knew that they could trust him not to let them down and not to do what they did not want. And what they did not want was a Sovereign National Conference because they saw it, wrongly in my view, as a precursor to a break-up of the country.

The Yoruba nation, on the other hand, has been pushing for an SNC since 1993 and the June 12th annulment and many of our people were killed over the years in the pursuit of that noble cause. Again when OBJ's government was in power every single one of the 6 zones in the country endorsed the call for an SNC except for the north-west and the north-east. That was 4 for it and 2 against it. Yet OBJ would still not do it. Instead he listened to the objections of the two core-northern zones and came up with that celebrated and famous quote that ''we cannot have two sovereigns at once'' and that '' the Nigerian people have given their sovereignty to me through my mandate and I will not relinquish it to any conference''. Of course some of us, including me, took him up on that publically and we disagreed with him openly. My leader and my boss and the man that I still consider to be the father of our nation, President Olusegun Obasanjo, with the greatest respect, just didn't get it then and perhaps he never will. We discussed this matter with him privately on many occasions and he resisted the idea but with the recent developments in our country I am sure that he wished that he had listened to us at that time. When we joined his government in 2003 there were many of us that had been NADECO men who urged him to find the courage to call the SNC but the man regarded us as dangerous radicals and he felt that we just wanted to break up Nigeria. Well he was wrong, we were right and history has proved this to be so. If we had had this ''sovereign'' national conference long ago we would have had a better, stronger, restructured and more united Nigeria by now which would have been a true reflection of the will of the people. We would also have had either a true federation or a confederation.

We would not have still had what is in real terms essentially a unitary government with a Federal facade and we would not have still been busy killing ourselves over the little crumbs that we get from the federal table.

The reason that it was not so urgent when OBJ was in power, despite the fact that even then most Nigerians wanted it, was because religious and sectarian violence and ethnic and fratricidal butchery hat we see today did not exist at that time. Our government was able to contain the violence and threats of the Niger-Delta militias, the OPC, MASSOB, the Egbesu Boys, the Bakassi Boys, the Arewa Youth Congress and the core northern pro- Sharia lobby through a firm and strong ''no-nonsense''-style of leadership and we did not have to deal with a vicious and extremely violent, well-funded and well organised islamist sect with an Al Qaeda-style agenda like Boko Haram at the time. Sadly now we do and we are on the verge of a monumental disaster and violent breakup of the country simply because our President is weak, indecisive, inexperienced and he does not have the guts to crush the internal enemy or the ability to protect the people. Worst still Boko Haram and those that secretly support, arm and fund them have made it clear that they are at war with the government, with the security agencies, with CAN, with Christians and with Muslims that do not share their extremist views and or espouse their vicious brand of Islam.

They have also said that they want a northern Nigeria which is free of Christians, which is free of western education, which has an Islamic fundamentalist/Taliban-style government and which practices full Sharia law. They are not just demanding for this but they are also waging an open and terrible war and what is essentially a form of ethnic cleansing and genocide against a section of the people of northern Nigeria in order to achieve it. If we had a conference such demands could be put there peacefully assuming that is what the people of the core north really want. Other regions and zones also have their legitimate demands which should and would also be considered. The Niger-Deltans want resource control and derivation as a principle for revenue allocation, the Yorubas want regional police and armies, the Igbos want to live in a country where they are not considered as second class citizens anymore and where their people are not killed like chicken, the Middle Belt want to be emancipated from the core north and we all want guarantees that Nigeria remains a secular state where no religion lauds it over the other and where we can all practice our respective faiths without being marginalised, killed, bombed or persecuted for it.

The list of aspirations and demands of the various nationalities go on and on and these old soars and wounds are now festering and making us all bow in pain. The fact that they have not been treated is slowly killing our nation because no government has seen fit to address these issues once and for all and actually muster the guts to answer the all-important ''nationality question'', or as some prefer to call it the ''national question''. Most importantly when President Obasanjo's government was in power Nigeria was still regarded by most Nigerians as a place where they all wanted to remain as one. Today that feeling is not as pronounced, national unity and cohesion has been badly eroded and we are more divided as a people than we have ever been before. The need for a Sovereign National Conference is more relevant and obvious today than it has been at any other time in our history. We will either answer it or convene one expeditiously or eventually two or three of the ethnic nationalities that are badly aggrieved in this country will not wait any longer and they will attempt to secede.

This will be resisted by the rest of the nation and that will lead to a civil war that will last for no less than 50 years. We must avoid that at all costs and we must acknowledge and appreciate the right of the various nationalities and peoples that make up present-day Nigeria the right to secede and to self-determine if that is what they really want. If we want Nigeria to remain together it must be in everyone's interest that this is so, no-one must be made to feel like a slave to anyone else, everyone must enjoy the right and privilege to rule the country without being threatened simply because they are not of the right faith or ethnic stock and the terms and conditions of our union must be properly negotiated and agreed upon. The truth is that Lord Lugard's Nigeria, which was a forced amalgamation of incompatibles in 1914, is long dead and things can never be the same again in our country. We either settle these fundamental issues by talking about it around a table at a Sovereign National Conference whose findings and resolutions would be binding on ALL our people or we will eventually settle it with bullets and bombs. Sadly this is the reality that we must face and accept.

________________ FFK, 2012

Yesterday (4th of Jan. 2012) during a specially convened meeting of the Federal Executive Council of the Goodluck Jonathan administration Mrs. Ngozie Okonjo-Iweala, my former cabinet colleague and good friend, threatened to resign from her position as Finance Minister and de-facto Prime Minister and go back to the World Bank from whence she came if the President dared to reverse his policy on the removal of the fuel subsidy and if he decided to re-introduce the subsidy once again.

This interesting show of power, display of strength and manifestation of a new-found confidence by Ngozie Okonjo-Iweala came as a consequence of the fact that the lady knew that the Nigerian people were bringing massive pressure upon President Jonathan to reverse that policy and to do so quickly and expeditiously. My advice to President Jonathan is as follows- call the good lady's bluff, reverse the policy, make your peace with the God and the Nigerian people and, if she doesn't resign after that as she has promised to do, then fire her with immediate effect. It was this same display of hubristic arrogance that compelled President Obasanjo to remove Okonjo-Iweala as initially Finance Minister during his tenure and then later on to demote her even further by removing her as the head of the Economic Team in early 2007. It was after that announcement, which the lady only heard about when she was on an official assignment as our Foreign Minister in far away Paris, that compelled her to resign from the government altogether and go back to the World Bank.

She could not bear the prospect of having to sit in an Economic Team meeting in which she did not preside. Such is the manner and peculiar nature of this otherwise delightful lady. My reason for suggesting that President Jonathan should accept her resignation with gladness or to fire her is because, as far as I am concerned, Ngozie Okonjo-Iweala IS the problem. She is the architect of this government's misguided policy on the untimely removal of the fuel subsidy and she is it's chief prophetess and enforcer. All the others in government, including Mr. President himself, are simply her disciples. Yet the truth is that this lady serves the interests of the IMF and the World Bank and the powers that control those two institutions more than she does the interests of the Nigerian people.

That has always been the case but President Obasanjo controlled her with a firm hand when we were in power and he used her to secure a good deal for us on the foreign debt issue because she knew the system. If the World Bank asks her to jump she will ask ''how high''? This is the woman that is virtually our Prime Minister today. No wonder we are in trouble. People like this have very little feeling for the masses and they cannot empathise with their pain. Even the traditional politicians empathise more with the ordinary people because they have to interact with them on a daily basis but these so-called technocrats do not and they do not really care. All they care and think about is the full implementation of the economic prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank and they don't care how painful and drastic the implementation of those prescriptions is. I have tremendous respect for Ngozie as a person and frankly I happen to actually like her because she is civilised, well-bred, exceptionally intelligent, warm and affable. However we have a completely different world-view. Her world-view is that the ''Third World'' should live at the behest and by the grace of the Bretton Woods monetary institutions and she believes in a fully globalised world where the second slavery (i.e. international debt) holds sway and keeps the poorer nations of the world in their proper place. My view is that nations were not created to be broken down into vassal states which are remote-controlled, punished, enslaved and impoverished by a few greedy international bankers that run the IMF and the World Bank.

I do not trust these foreign international monetary institutions and those that work for them and my vast knowledge of history shows me that wherever they go in the world they only spread misery, poverty, unreasonable conditionalities, debt and wickedness. Their yoke is heavy and they are simply tools of oppression that are firmly in the control of all-mighty America and Western Europe. These are the forces and the people that are causing GEJ to derail. He should stand up to them and he should not give in to their intimidation and threats. He has nothing to fear from them because the western world itself is now going through it's own major financial crisis and it is crumbling. Nigeria is big enough and strong enough to face them down no matter what and chart her own course. What they are using him to do is to impoverish the Nigerian people, weaken them and bring them down to their knees. They did the same in South America through the 80's and the 90's and they are still doing it in Africa.

Even the nation of Ghana, which has a far more stable and prosperous economy than Nigeria today and which has just discovered oil, was forced by this hidden hand that controls their government to remove their own oil subsidy on Christmas day of all days. What a terrible Christmas gift to the Ghanaian people. Since then prices for virtually everything in Ghana has doubled. And we can be rest assured that after the trickledown effect sets in we should expect the same in Nigeria- everything will double or triple in price including food, transport, diesel, kerosene, petrol, commodities, the general cost of living etc. This is unnecessary, unfair, wrong and exceptionally callou.

________________ FFK, 2012

”Igbo domination of Nigeria is only a matter of time’ ‘- Charles Onyeama, a prominent igbo lawyer and member of the Central Legislative Council, 1945. (Pg. 204 ”Ethnic Politics In Kenya and Nigeria” by Godfrey Mwakikagile).

”It would appear that the God of Africa has created the Igbo nation to lead the children of Africa from the bondage of ages ….” – Dr Azikiwe, President of the Pan-Igbo Federal Union. (The West African Pilot of July 8, 1949).

The first statement from Charles Onyeama, which was made in 1945, was the first overtly tribal and divisive comment that was made and recorded in the politics of southern Nigeria in our history. That is where and when tribalism in the south actually started. After that comment and as a direct reaction to it, the yoruba established the ”Egbe Omo Oduduwa” to further and protect yoruba interests and after that came the formation of the Action Group in 1948.

The second statement from Zik, which was made in 1949 (and which clearly shows that the great Zik of Africa had forgotten that the NCNC was not an igbo party at the beginning and that it had in fact been established by an upper class and very well educated yoruba man by the name of Sir Herbert Macauly, one of the famous ”Black Victorians” from the Lagos Colony, and who, at his death bed, was gracious enough to hand over the leadership of the party to him even though he was igbo) confirmed that tribalism was here to stay in the south and that ever since that time the igbo had an agenda to dominate others. This sentiment and this unfortunate igbocentric attitude is what cost Zik the Premiership of the Western Region in 1953 when the NCNC narrowly lost to the Action Group.

It is clear from this that if you want to know who started tribalism in southern politics and the politics of the southern protectorate of Nigeria it was not the yoruba or the southern minorities but the igbo. The excesses of the Igbo State Union and their treatment of the southern minorities and the yoruba from 1943 till 1967 was completely unacceptable. The rest of the south were prepared to accept the igbo as equals with open arms but they were not prepared to be politically dominated or conquered by them.

Worst still the first coup in the history of Nigeria, which was the Jan 15th 1966 coup d’etat led by Major Ifejuana and Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, was essentially an igbo coup and an igbo grab for power. I say this because 95 per cent of those that took part in it were igbo and 99 per cent of the political and military leaders that were brutally murdered during it’s execution were non-igbo. It was this coup and it’s sheer brutality that led to the even more brutal northern officers counter-coup of July 1966 (in which 300 igbo officers were killed in one night including the igbo Head of State, Gen. Aguiyi-Ironsi, and his yoruba host, the Military Governor of the Western Region, Gen. Adekunle Fajuyi who sought to protect him), the pogrom of igbos in the north (in which over 100,000 igbo civilians were killed in a few weeks) and the Nigerian civil war (in which 2 million Nigerians and Biafrans died).

These are the facts of our history. Live and learn. If you want to know who introduced tribalism into southern politics, it was the igbo. If you want to know who carried out the first coup in our country it was the igbo. Having done the painstaking research over a numberof years these are my findings and this is my conclusion.

I will open my wall for a robust discussion and debate on this issue and I will accomodate contributions from even those that are not my fb friends just for this debate. I will accomodate all shades of opinion and contributions from anyone that cares to join in the fray and I want to encourage those that disagree with my findings to state their case. We are all still learning but please take not that any rude or insulting comments will be deleted. This is a historical debate and I would encourage all those that seek to qoute anyone or make any assertions to mention their sources so that we can cross check the facts. Thanks

________________ FFK, 2012

The most controversial point in Chinua Achebe’s new book, ‘There was a Country’, is the accusation of genocide levelled against Chief Obafemi Awolowo and General Yakubu Gowon. Would you say it is a fair charge?

No, I would not. It is completely unfair, unreasonable, it is irrational and it is irresponsible and I say that with all due respect to Prof. Chinua Achebe who is highly respected. But I think the statement is completely uncalled for and inaccurate.

Why would you say it is inaccurate considering the fact that Achebe actively participated in that war?

The issue is this: there was a war and there was a blockade in that war which the Nigerian government placed against the Eastern Region i.e. the Biafra. They did so because that is standard practice in any war. If you look at the American Civil War, the First World War, the Second World War, every country imposes a military blockade on the other side to ensure that supplies don’t get there. It is standard and that is what the Nigerian government did. Rather, what the Nigerian government was a little bit more humane than most countries. So what happened is this, at the beginning of the war, they allowed an air corridor; they allowed food and medical supplies to be flown into Biafra in order to ameliorate the suffering of the ordinary people. So, the Red Cross, Medicins sans Frontieres, and humanitarian agencies and food aid were being flown in from various parts of the world in the middle of the night into Biafra. The blockade was not imposed completely; this is a humanitarian gesture on the part of the Nigerian government and they allowed it to happen for quite some time.

What happened later was this; the reason why they stopped the blockade, the government discovered and as a matter of fact, it was Chief Awolowo that discovered on a trip, that the food supply being flown in was not getting to the Biafran people. They were being diverted upon landing in Biafra and being given to the Biafran soldiers and the children and the families of the elite. They were eating very well and the ordinary people were not eating at all; that was the first problem.

The second problem and perhaps the major is: it was discovered that they were using the night flights to not just fly in food but to also fly in arms because once you open the sky, you cannot stop a plane in the middle of the air to say ‘stop I want to search’, and by the time it lands, it is landing in Biafran territory and you are not going to go there to search.

What was happening was that, arms were being flown in from the Ivory Coast, Tanzania and South Africa. Mercenaries were coming in under the cover of no blockade at night and they were using the humanitarian gesture to bring in arms.

When the Nigerian government discovered this, they said ‘we are going to stop this because we cannot allow our enemy to be using our humanitarian gesture to continue to arm themselves.’ So they decided that they must implement the policy of full blockade and it happens everywhere in the world. In other words, we will police the sky, if any plane is coming in to Biafra from anywhere, that plane will automatically be shot down and that is how they did it. Naturally, this caused untold suffering for the civilian population in the East because it meant food was not coming in any longer and it had terrible impact on them. And that is when you now start seeing pictures of kwashiokor -infected children, starved children on TV which suited Ojukwu because what it did was that it created more support for him in the international community as propaganda. He was beaming these pictures to everyone. The international community now prevailed on the Nigerian government that something needed to be done about this. The Nigerian government had British support, Soviet support, American support and they knew that the support will not last for too much longer if those pictures continue to beam into the bedroom and sitting rooms of the Europeans and the Americans. So they said something needed to be done and the Nigerian government said “we don’t have any problem because our war is not against the ordinary people of Biafra; it is against Ojukwu and his army”. They said no problem at all and what did they do? This is unprecedented in any war of any type: they made an offer to Ojukwu and the Biafran government that they will open land corridors, not air ones, because it was the only way they could verify that arms were not going in and ensure that the humanitarian agencies flying the food (because the food was not from Nigerian government), that the international community bringing the food will now accompany the food from Nigeria into Biafran territory and stay with the food until it is handed over to the ordinary people.

That served the Nigerian government two things: they would inspect and ensure that arms don’t go in and that those supplying the food will be able to police it to ensure that it gets to the right people and not for the Biafran Army. These things seems to me as a very reasonable and rational proposition, and this is what everybody felt was the solution to the problem. But, surprisingly, Ojukwu turned it down, or the Biafran government turned it down, and said they were not prepared for land corridor, and that they preferred the air corridor. Of course, when their response was made clear, the Nigerian government was not prepared to do that and that was why food was not getting to the Biafrans. After that the suffering and the starvation continued. If you are going to ask me who was responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Biafran women and children and the civilians during the course of the civil war, I would put the blame on the door step of nobody but Col. Ojukwu who made that choice and decided that he would prefer that his people suffer and starve to death so that he can beam the pictures to international communities and gain more support from them.

Now, you don’t have to take my word for it. I would cite three people who have written about it. The first person I would cite is Ralph Uwechie who was the Special Envoy for Biafra to France during the Civil War. Presently he is the head of Ohaneze and he wrote a book in 1971 in which he said it clearly that Ojukwu was more interested in propaganda and beaming pictures of starving children to the international community than ameliorating and stopping the suffering of the people. He put the whole blame on Ojukwu’s doorstep and on the doorstep of the Biafran elite whom he described as cowards that could not tell Ojukwu the truth. Another person that spoke out was a gentleman by the name of Richard Goldstein. He was the media consultant to the Biafran government. He was doing all their international media work for them and this man wrote a formal letter

to Ojukwu and the Biafran government in which he resigned on the basis that the Nigerian government made an offer to allow land corridor and Ojukwu rejected it and the people were starving. For him, it was like the leaders of the Biafrans did not understand that it is more important to ensure that your people survive the war than to be beaming pictures. So he said he was not prepared to accept it anymore.

This is widely circulated in the media, it is recently leaked. This was an authentic document, i.e. the letter of resignation and he used words like inhuman. The Biafrans were being inhuman; they were being unfair and that he could not believe what was happening because they had misled him into helping them and that he could no longer accept that. He blamed Ojukwu as well.

The most important person spoke just a few days ago, and that was General Gowon himself. He responded to Prof. Achebe that it wa because Ojukwu and the Biafrans rejected the idea of land food corridor that is why the suffering of the people was so pronounced and unnecessarily prolonged. So, this is the history of it and I think every single Igbo person needs to seat down and reflect on that. If you want to find out why so many of your children and people died in the Civil War, they died unnecessarily, they died a slow and painful death. First and foremost is the man who refused land corridor to come in and that man is Ojukwu.

Whatever the case, would you say that the denial of food in a war situation is justifiable?

Let me put it to you like this: there is no case in which war is fought that there is no food blockade, absolutely none. It is even the Nigerian government that was lenient and I say no war including the American war, war between two nations and civil war. The minute war is declared, standard practice, we will block the port of the enemy and you will also try to stop food supplies from going through the air.

During the Second World War, they were even bombing civilian ships that were crossing the channel from America to the United States. The

Nazis were doing that and the Allies were doing same to the Nazi as well. So it is standard practice. Now, it seems to me that if you are in the state of war, you cannot deny any combat arrowed at you if you do not have the power to do it and that is what happened. It is a question of war. Even the Nigerian government relaxed it and opened the air space for them to come in but it was abused and another offer of food corridor through land be done and it was rejected, so they went back to ensure that there was a full blockade of Biafra and it need not to have been so had it been that the Biafrans were initially honest and fair to their own people and flew in only food and not stolen all the food. So, I think that nobody wanted to starve children or deprive people of food; nobody wants civilians to suffer in a war, no doubt about that. However, it is legitimate to impose a blockade; it is lawful under the rules and laws of war. There is whole body of law that supports the imposition of blockade and the consequences of that blockade are left to the people that are disturbing their country. The consequences of the Nigerian blockade could have been ameliorated by the effort and the good behavior of the right counsel of Ojukwu but he decided not to behave in the right way and valued the pictures and footage of starving children in television far more than he did feeding them through the land food corridor.

General Gowon also said the civil war would not have happened if seccession had not taken place. To which side would you ascribe the greater blame for this national tragedy?

That is a very difficult question, but I have always been somebody who has sympathy for the Biafran course. If you look up the history of it, you will find out that any people that feel sufficiently maligned and they feel that their people are being slaughtered and so on and so forth have the right of self-determination. It is enshrined in international law. The event that led to the civil war, depending on how far you go, you will be able to know who caused the whole thing.

Let me not go far back; let us just talk about what happened just before the civil war and what led directly to it. Over a hundred thousand Igbo people were slaughtered. It was a revenge action for the killing of Northern leaders and Yoruba leaders from the January 15,1966 coup. They did a lot of killings. If you want to know who drew the first blood, who shed the first blood when it comes to Nigerian military intervention, it is certainly the Igbo. The January 15th 1966 coup was an Igbo coup and a lot of non-Igbo were killed. It is only Igbo that were not killed and that upset the North and the West and the reaction to that, as far as I am concerned, was disproportionate.

Six months after that, there was another coup, three hundred Igbo officers were killed in one night. Following that, over hundred thousand Igbo were slaughtered in the North as a direct reprisal for the January 15th action and, in that situation, you need to ask yourself, if you were the leader of the East yourself and you are in full command of the Eastern Region, what would you have done? Would you have stayed and allowed your people to be killed because the fear was that they had killed all their people in the North and even as they were leaving the North because Ojukwu said come home, at every train station, they were stopped and the ones that did not stop were stoned and it was a nightmare for women, children. They were going to hospitals and cutting pregnant women and pulling out the child and saying they wanted to know if it is a boy or a girl and dashed its head on the floor. These are historical facts. They suffered immeasurably and they were killed in droves, slaughtered like chicken and they had to go back to their homeland. And like Ojukwu once said, once they crossed that line into the Eastern Region, they were under the protection of the Biafran government and army and they felt safe. As far as I am concerned, if I was an Igbo person there is no doubt in my mind that it was absolutely right and proper for them to say we are not going to have any more of this. Either we negotiate and restructure this country or we go our separate ways. So, to that extent, I feel it is a legitimate aspiration to say that ‘we are going to quit because they want to kill all of us.’ The feeling amongst the Igbo then was that, after killing Igbo in the North, the Northern army will now come to the East and exterminate all of them. That was the genuine fear the Igbo had and they are entitled to self-defence and it is enshrined in international law. I feel that it was a perfectly legitimate aspiration to say ‘no, I don’t want to have my people killed and if you don’t stop killing my people, I will not be part of you.’ Then came the Aburi Declaration, and negotiations took place. Aburi was signed and there were some issues, but I feel Ojukwu made a mistake because he got 90 per cent of what he wanted in the Aburi Accord. It is unfortunate that it was the 10 per cent that he did not get that made him say no, otherwise we would have had a confederation if he had just accepted.

Chief Awolowo advised him to accept since he had gotten more or less what he wanted but he refused, and I feel that is where he made a mistake. Since he got 90 per cent of his demands in Aburi, he should not have insisted on the 10 per cent and it is the 10 per cent that made him refuse. And what happened, immediately it was clear that he was not going to accept the 90 per cent Aburi deal, he now went on the offensive against the Mid-West and he completely overran all the minorities in the Eastern Region – that is the Ibibios, the Efiks, went into the Mid-West, Urhobo, Isoko, the Benin; the Biafran Army just swept everywhere and knocked on the door of Ore. It was not just a question of secession, it was a question of occupation: take the oil areas, capture the southern minority people, take the Mid-West and if possible take Yorubaland and then secede. So, it was not just a case of the Igbo going because if it was, perhaps they had a right to say, ‘ok we are going.’ But if they were reasonable they would have accepted a confederation. To my mind, it was not just a question of confederation.

What Ojukwu really wanted was to ensure that the whole of the South was under the control of the Igbo. Also, the French had told him about the vast oil reserves in the Niger Delta area and that is what all this is all about. It was not just the case of take my people and go, it was the question of, yes, this is our opportunity, we will take the oil, we will occupy the whole place, we will capture the people and ensure that we have full control of southern Nigeria. Even if the Yorubas will not come with us and we will ensure we dominate them forever. This is the issue. For us on the Nigerian side, it was not a war of emancipation. Particularly, General Benjamin Adekunle of the Third Marine rose up and said no, we are going to oppose this and we are going to fight back and they pushed him out of the Mid-Western Region. Now, to your question; it is a difficult but good question because at the end of the day, they did not have what they wanted because they were not reasonable and they rejected the confederation and because they wanted to conquer, occupy the people of the South.

Would you say Ojukwu consulted widely with others before plunging the region into that war?

I don’t think the issue of consultation really arose at the initial stage because they had lost a lot. If I were Ojukwu in this issue, I would have done precisely what he did because his people were being slaughtered like fowls. But the problem is that he went too far. Once he was given the necessary guarantee and Aburi was offered to him, he should have stopped there. The fact that he did not stop there added to it.

Were there any alternatives to war considering the situation then?

He should have accepted. When they met in Aburi, they agreed on a confederation. When they came back to Nigeria, the northern hawks in Gowon’s government… the Murtala Muhammeds told Gowon that he had gone too far, take a little bit out. He took about 10 per cent out. I cannot remember what the details were but 90 per cent was left. Ojukwu wanted a hundred percent and that is where the famous statement “On Aburi we stand” emanated from. I don’t think he should have stood on Aburi a hundred percent. He should have taken the 90 per cent. He would have had a confederation and they would have been fully protected with their own army, police and protect the people and remain within the confederation. He said no and went ahead and attacked. He went on the offensive against the Mid-West and he tried to conquer the people of the South, Mid-West and the southern minorities and take what were to be the oil deposits and take them all to Biafra. That is where he overstretched himself and I think he went too far. And in terms of consultation, frankly speaking, nobody mattered at that time.

In fairness to Ojukwu, he is seen as the saviour of the Igbo. I do not believe that any self-respecting man would be against him. Everybody was with him except for Zik who was sitting on the fence, and at the end of the day, if the Igbo had succeeded Zik would have been the father of the nation. Let me not attack Zik, but he would have sang a different tune if the Biafrans had succeeded. As far as I am concerned, no self-respecting Igbo man will see hundreds far as I am concerned, no self-respecting Igbo man will see hundreds of thousands of his people being killed in the north and would say he should sit and pretend that nothing was happening.

Have you read Achebe’s book?

Of course, I had a special copy of the book before it was released to the public and I read it from cover to cover. I knew what was in it and you don’t even need to know what is in a book if he had gone to leak extracts of it in Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom. It was there for everybody to read. I don’t even need to read the whole book to tell you that he was lying when he said Awolowo and Gowon were those who committed genocide against children during the civil war. All I need to do is read that extract and make my comment which is what a lot of people did but I read the whole book and as far as I am concerned, the book belongs in the dustbin because what it does is that it is being written by a man who is still living in Biafra. He has a Biafra mindset and it is the greatest exercise of revision in history i.e. in our history so far. What he has done is that he tried to distort history, distort the facts, malign people that should be described as liberal during the conflict. Awolowo and Gowon were the very people that stood up and said that there must be ‘no victor, no vanquished’ in this war, we must be liberal, we must be generous and we must treat the Igbo as Igbo even after the war. They were on the Igbo side and this man wrote a book to malign them and to describe them as genocidal maniacs killing children. Talking of integration, they all came to the South-West and were given their property. There were no abandoned properties, jobs were safe and kept for them; they were treated well. Yes, there was the issue of currency change because they were using Nigerian money to buy arms, so Awolowo changed the currency. The issue of the 20 pounds was not an Awolowo initiative, it was an initiative by Central Bank Committee. They made that recommendation because of the claims they came up with. An Igbo man will come and say he had so and so amount in his bank account, meanwhile there was no way of verifying anything. It was not an Awolowo initiative. The fact that they were allowed to come back, they were not harassed and 10 years after the civil war, we had an Igbo Vice President, it has never happened in any country. Go and check world history. It has never happened anywhere before for people that have rebelled against a state to become number two in that state only 10 years after. Gowon and Awolowo were very generous to them. If Murtala Muhammed had been the Head of State at that time, there might not be a Biafra at the end of the day because it would have been a total war for people like that. So I feel that people like Achebe have been very unkind to the memory of Awolowo and very unkind to the Yoruba people who have always opened their arms to the people of the South-East, embraced them and also allowed them to have their homes in Lagos and other places. I said unkind to the Yoruba race because he attacked the Yorubas as well by saying, “Awolowo and his people”… that is what he wrote in his book.

He also highlighted the reasons why the Yorubas particularly hate the Igbos. Can you say anything about this?

All the reasons that he listed are what the British will call balderdash. That is completely unfounded. If you look at the history of our country, you will see that Yorubas are more accommodating of the Igbos, and of other tribes and other nationalities. The NCNC was established by a Yoruba man, Sir Herbert Macaulay and he handed over the party flag on his death bed to Zik who was the National Secretary of the party, not caring if he was an Igbo man or not. Action Group did not exist at that time. Zik would also have become the Premier of the Western Region. Have you ever heard of a Yoruba man almost becoming the premier of the East? Zik would have become the premier, his party was more powerful. Charles Onyeama made a famous statement in 1945 that Igbo domination was just a matter of time in Nigeria and in Africa. It was because of that statement that Egbe Omo Oduduwa and Action Group came up in 1948 and after that, Zik himself said the God of the Igbo had given the Igbo the power of liberating the whole of Africa. The consequence of these two comments, Onyema’s and Zik’s comments, introduced tribalism into the political arena. It had never happened before. That was when everybody felt that something was wrong and it was after Zik’s statement of 1949 that they went to election in the South -West and Zik almost won. He lost by a narrow majority because Action Group went into alliance with the Ibadan People’s Party and that is how Zik was kept out of becoming Premier of the West. So, how on earth can anybody accuse the Yoruba? Even after that, NCNC still remained neck-and-neck in power with Action Group even in the South West. It was in 1953 when the NNDP was formed that most Yoruba’s went to NNDP. NCNC which was an Igbo party, if you like, was extremely powerful in the South-West for many years. And we had people like Adelabu in Ibadan, Ilesha, Oyo; they were all NCNC and we accommodated them.

Would you say Nigeria has reintegrated the Igbos after 40 years?

The issue is that we have had Igbo Vice President. How many Presidents have we had since then? Since then, after Shagari, we have had Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Goodluck who is partially Igbo because he is called Ebele (laughs). Anybody that tells me that Igbo have not been fully integrated, I am sorry, I don’t mean to be rude to anybody, but that person is living in dream land. Why do I say so? If you looked at the level of Igbo participation since 1999, especially the women… it was Obasanjo that really opened the door for them. Look at what happened in 1999: we had Igbo Minister of Finance, Igbo Minister of Foreign Affairs, we had Igbo as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. We have had Obi Ezekwesili, Okonjo Iwieala, Charles Soludo, Dora Akunyili. You know you just had this sudden surge in the Presidency at that time. Andy Uba was one of those running the government. It got to a point that many Yoruba were accusing President Obasanjo of having an Igbo father which we all know is not true. Even the first General Officer Commanding Obasanjo appointed when he came in was General Obiakor. He was the first Igbo GOC in the army ever since the civil war. Obiakor was such a good officer that he opened the doors for the man that is there now and other Igbo officers to become highly integrated within the army and the military high command. Now, you have an Igbo Chief of Army Staff and it is a good thing. Who owns more property than any other ethnic group in the South-West apart from probably the Yoruba’s themselves, is it not the Igbo’s? Look at Alaba market and see how many Igbo own property there. Nobody has ever discriminated among them. They have land, and they have money and every other thing in the South-West more than anywhere else in the country. Do they reciprocate it? Do we have Yorubas having all these things in the East? I think that the idea that Yoruba people are not accommodating is completely false. We have shown that we are accommodating but the problem is that people may take our generosity and liberalism for some kind of weakness and they feel they can come to our area and take us for granted. They feel they can come to our territory to insult us and say things about us and act as if we are some kinds of fools. We are not fools at all. We know how to defend our corner if we have to. Yoruba are just too enlightened. So when the Igbo’s now come and start writing books like Chinua Achebe and start saying Yoruba’s are genocidal maniacs and they start talking about someone who is not alive to defend himself, claiming that he committed atrocities during the war and for him to say ‘Awolowo and his people’, it is a very big insult on us and we must set the record straight. Otherwise, millions of Igbo youth today and in the future may think what this great man wrote in his book was actually the truth. We must never allow history to be revised; it will mar the relationship between us and the Igbo. It will set us back so many years and it’s something that is not good which is why I said we will not accept it.

.

________________ FFK, 2012

The American Presidential election will take place in a few days time and frankly some questions still need to be answered. I wish that Governor Mitt Romney had put one of those questions particularly to President Barrack Hussein Obama during their last Presidential debate which was on foreign policy. Permit me to put that question here and it is as follows. Why did the President bow so low before Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah four years ago during his first state visit to the Arab Gulf state and why did he feel the need to almost touch his toes with his forehead when he did so. It is a matter of historical record that no American President in the last 200 years has ever bowed so low before any foreign leader, Prime Minister, Head of State, President or monarch. It appears to me to be rather strange that Obama, on his first trip to the Middle East as President of the most powerful country on the planet, should literally prostrate before an Arab King whose country has an abominable record on human rights, civil liberties, the rights of women and religious minorities and where the system of government is a totalitarian and absolute monarchy. Luckily a picture was taken of that celebrated event and that picture really does tell us something about the American President's mindset. Yet it does not stop there.


On that same trip four years ago, after leaving Saudi Arabia, Obama toured the greater part of the Middle East and Egypt and in speech after speech he apologised to the Arabs for American policy in the Middle East over the previous 50 years. He did this despite the fact that in most of those countries christians,shia muslims and ethnic minorities have no rights at all and even though they have been killed, persecuted and supressed for many decades. Again he did this even though none of those countries were democracies and even though all of them, except for two, have refused to acknowledge the right of the Jewish State of Israel to even exist.This left a bad taste in the mouth of many at the time and the question that came to my mind was whether the ''Hussein'' was coming out of the ''Barrack Hussein Obama'' more than the ''Barrack'' itself was. Yet whatever anyone may feel about the issue of his touching his toes with his head and his bowing before the Saudi king, as far as I am concerned, President Obama is not what he appears to be. There is far more to him than meets the eye. A couple more questions will suffice to illustrate this point.


Why is it that each time Barrack Obama is about to submit himself for a Presidential election and seek a mandate from his people there is a raging, monuemental, earth-shattering and record-breaking freak of a storm which kills numerous people in America? It happened a few days before his Presidential election in 2008 and it is has just happened again a few days before his Presidential election in 2012. Again why is it that on the first day of the convention of the opposition Republican party, both in 2008 and again this year, yet another violent and dangerous killer storm hit the towns in which the two conventions were held causing them both to be partially disrupted? What is Obama's relationship with the elemental forces? What is his relationship with God or some lesser deity? What is his source of power and what is his spiritual foundation? There is no doubt that he is a powerful orator and that he delivers brilliant speeches that mesmerises his audience. Yet so did Adolf Hitler and we all know what he was. I ask these questions because President Obama has supported every anti-christian and anti-faith policy that the American permissive state has thrown up and endorsed in recent years. The violation and literal denunciation of these religious core values, in my view, betrays the unfolding of an illicit,dark, sinister and subterranean anti-Christ agenda which must be rejected by all true men and women of faith. They must be renounced by every christian, every jew and every muslim and indeed all those that truly espouse the noble values and virtues of any of the three Abrahamic faiths. They must be rejected by all those that believe in the supremacy and efficacy of a monotheic God whose core values and holistic principles and standards are worthy of emulation and of being respected and cherished. There are many examples of these gross violations of our core religious values but permit me to share just four of them with you here. Firstly, President Obama has endorsed a woman's right to have an abortion and he has publically denounced ''the right to life'' of unborn babies. Secondly, he has endorsed same-sex marriages. Thirdly, he has consistently supported homosexuality and the rights of homosexuals and lesbians. And fourthly, and perhaps the most disturbing of all, he has endorsed the right of same-sex couples to adopt and raise children. Quite apart from these four Obama has also endorsed all manner of social perversions and deviant behaviour in the name of humanism, ''new age'' liberalism and the permissive American state. No true believer or person of faith can possibly accept such practices, endorse such values and still stand right before God.
To put the cake on the icing let me make one more point. Rev. Jene Robinson, a vocal and practising homosexual, whose ordination as a Bishop split the Anglican Church in America into two, was specially selected by Obama to deliver the invocation of the name of God and prayers at the beginning of the inaugral weekend of his inaugration ceremony as President in 2008. What message was Obama trying to send to America and to the world by insisting on this?

Outside of the area of social and religious values President Obama has also failed in the area of foreign and domestic policy. A few examples will suffice. The unprecedented number of drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan which has led to record highs in the number of deaths of innocent muslim civilians, women and children in both countries. The alienation of Pakistan and Afghanistan as key allies in the war against terror. The destabilisation of north Africa and the opening of the door for islamist insurgents in the north African Arab Sahel states and the west African sub-region. The display of weakness and procrastination before Iran and it's covert agenda to build a nuclear bomb. The display of double standards in the State of Bahrain and the over-pampering of the Arab Gulf states. The sheer mess that has been created in Syria and the indecision and procrastination of the Obama administration who have abandoned the opposition forces in that country even as thousands of innocent people are being slaughtered by Assad's brutal regime.The insincerity of purpose and sheer coldness being displayed towards Israel and the indifference to her dangerous and existential plight. The disdain and contempt shown to all people of faith, the evangelical movement, the christian far-right and the vision of the old Pilgrim Fathers that founded the great country that is known as the United States of America.


The removal of the words "God" and "Israel" from the Democratic Party Convention. The disasterous handling of the American economy that has acquired a five trillion dollar deficit in the last four years. The rise of islamic fundamentalism in Mali and Nigeria due to a shortsighted and reckless policy in Libya. The taking of power by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the rise in power of Al Shabbad in Somalia and East Africa. The inexplicable refusal to declare Boko Haram (the islamist terror group that is bombing and killing thousands in northern Nigeria) as a terrorist organisation.The gradual turning of America into a quasi- welfarist state where ''big government'' reigns and in which the traditional engine room of growth that is known as the American middle class is being systematically weakened and destroyed. The desecration of the traditional family unit and good old fashioned christian values by the adoption of strange and liberal "new age'' practices, values and philosophies. The inability to protect the lives of American diplomats living abroad and the lack of firm reprisals after the killing of the American Ambassador and other Americans by terrorists in Libya. The massive foreign debt that America has acquired in the last four years. The huge quantum of cash that America is is now owing China. The fact that fuel prices have doubled in America in the last four years. The fact that trade and aid to the African continent has dropped to an all-time low under Obama's government and that historically it is only under Republican administrations that Africa is treated with any real compassion and equity in terms of economic policy. The fact that more money and concrete support was pumped into Africa and African causes by President George W. Bush than any other President in American history and that President Obama has literally reversed all that in the last four years. The fact that Obama's refusal to tap into, make use of and mine the fossil fuels, coal and massive oil and gas reserves that reside in American territory which has led to an unhealthy and expensive dependence on foreign oil and a dangerous interest in the affairs of oil-producing nations. The fact that the American military has been subjected to serious cutbacks and that some of those cut backs have affected the morale of the Armed Forces. The list goes on and on. These are just some of Obama's disastarous legacies and sadly the mistakes he has made in his foreign policy in north Africa particularly impacts on us directly in Nigeria and in west Africa. Let me give you just one example of that. Had it not been for the fall-out of the mess in Libya and the brutal way in which Muammar Ghadaffi, the Libyan leader, was murdered in cold blood one year ago, his Taureg friends and allies in north Africa would not have been inspired and driven to take over northern Mali and create a Taliban-style islamic fundamentalist state there and northern Nigeria would not have been flooded with jihadist footsoldiers and all manner of sophisticated arms and bombing devices for usage by Boko Haram.


With Obama all we see and hear are beautiful and inspirational speeches, a good deal of doublespeak, a failed economic policy and a weak, dangerous and thoroughly uninspiring foreign policy. Worst still all we see in Obama's African policy is unpredictability, chaos, the appeasement of terrorists and utter confusion. Given this I cannot come to any other conclusion than the fact that President Barrack Hussein Obama cannot be trusted with America or indeed the world for the next four years. In my view he is a very mysterious, strange and complex man and sadly he has proved to be a thoroughly disappointing President. Consequently my prayer is that Governor Mitt Romney defeats him in the Presidential election which will hold in a few days time. If he does not I fear that the much predicted "beginning of the end" of America as a world economic power may have just begun. With China on the rise, Russia waxing strong, Brazil, India and Japan flexing their muscles and the European Union finally beginning to take shape and find her feet, in the next twenty years the world will be a very different place and America may no longer be "prima inter pares" (the first amongst equals). Only Romney can stop that downward trend. I am aware of the fact that, given Obama's ancestry, this may not be a popular position to take amongst those of us that are people of colour and that are Africans but nevertheless it is still my position. I may be wrong but at least I have provided some food for thought.


Finally let us remember President Obama's health policy. This can be framed as follows- ''President Obama Vs Revelations 13:15-18''. The US Senate has passed the Obama HealthCare' bill into law. The implementation would commence on 23/03/ 2013.This bill would require all Americans to be implanted with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip inorder to access medical care.The device will be implanted on the forehead or on the arm. This is to fulfill the prophesy in the Book of Revelation 13:15-18 concerning the MARK OF THE BEAST! Anyone that has ears should listen.

God bless America.

________________ FFK, 2012

Today is yet another sad day for our country Nigeria. This morning General Muhammadu Mamman Shuwa was murdered just outside his Maiduguri home by a group of heartless people who are suspected to be members of the muslim fundamentalist sect Boko Haram.This is a tragedy of monuemental proportions.

General Muhammadu Mamman Shuwa was not only an absolute gentleman but he was also perhaps the most respected, effective, disciplined, restrained and successful battle commander in the Nigerian Army during the civil war. He was in command of the 1st Division of the Nigerian army and it was the 1st Division that managed to defeat the Biafran Army and enter the east from the northern front.

Unlike many other commanders on both sides of the war, Shuwa was known for his immense compassion for the civilian population quite apart from his extraordinary courage and fighting skills. It is a matter of historical record that, unlike with other commanders, no massacres of civilians were carried out under him or by his 1st Division throughout the entire course of the war.

After capturing them he treated the Biafran soldiers, enemy combatants and the Igbo civilian population with immense respect and remarkable compassion. This man was not just a profoundly good and humane person, he was not just a war hero, but he was also a great father, husband and family man. He was a very quiet man that consistently shunned the limelight and public office even though there is not one retired senior army officer in this country or politician, alive or dead, that did not revere him and hold him in the highest esteem.

He was not only one of General Yakubu’s Gowon’s most trusted and able officers and senior commanders during the war but he was also exceptionally close to and highly respected by other great and distinguished war-time commanders like General Olusegun Obasanjo, General Muhammadu Buhari, General TY Danjuma, General Benjamin Adekunle, General Adeyinka Adebayo, General Sani Abacha, General.Alani Akinrinade and General Ibrahim Babangida. They all looked up to General Shuwa just as did those of us in the younger generation and who are not in the military.

I should mention the fact that again as a measure of this great man’s level of compassion it is on record that during the northern officers counter-coup of July of July 1966 he saved the lives of many igbo offices by locking up the armoury and refusing to give up the key after the mass killing of igbo officers started all over the country.

At that time General Shuwa was Commander of the 5th Battalion in Kano. Had it not been for his timely intervention and efforts and the efforts of the late Major General James Oluyele, who was his Second in Command at the time, many more igbo officers that were stationed in Kano, would have lost theirlives that night.

Yet there is far more to the story of this great man than just his efforts, as gallant and indispensible as they were, during the civil war.

He went on to live a long and distinguished life of honour, duty, selfless service and distinction after the war. I mourn with my brother Hon. Yusuf Tuggar and his dear wife who have lost their father-in-law and father respectively in such tragic and cruel circumstances and I mourn with the Shuwa family of Maiduguri for this great loss.

If I were to ever use the great Mark Anthony’s words when he saw Julius Caesar’s bleeding and dying body after he was cut short by Brutus and the other Roman traitors this is the time that it is appropiate to do so. For I can say of General Muhammadu Shuwa as Mark Anthony said of Caeser that “here lies a Caesar, after whom comes no other”.

We have lost a true ‘’titan’’ and a living ‘’immortal’’ all rolled into one. He was a great son of Nigeria and a glorious shining star and we must do all that we can to honour him even in death. May the Lord have mercy upon General Muhammadu Mamman Shuwa and forgive him of all his sins.

May his good deeds speak for him before God. May the Lord welcome him into the hosts of Heaven.May his beautiful and compassionate soul rest in perfect peace. And may the Lord avenge him of all those that saw fit to cut short his precious life.

This tribute was forwarded yesterday.

________________ FFK, 2012

I am a historian and I have always believed that if we want to talk history, we must be dispassionate, objective and factual. We must take the emotion out of it and we must always tell the truth. The worst thing that anyone can do is to try to re-write history and indulge in historical revisionism. This is especially so when the person is a reverred figure and a literary icon. Sadly it is in the light of such historical revisionism that I view Professor Chinua Achebe’s assertion (which is reflected in his latest and highly celebrated book titled ‘’There Was A Country’) that Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the late and much-loved Leader of the Yoruba, was responsible for the genocide that the igbos suffered during the civil war. This claim is not only false but it is also, frankly speaking, utterly absurd. Not only is Professor Achebe indulging in perfidy, not only is he being utterly dishonest and disengenious but he is also turning history upside down and indulging in what I would describe as ethnic chauvinism.

I am one of those that has always had tremendous sympathy for the igbo cause during the civil war. I am also an admirer of Colonel Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu who stood up for his people when it mattered the most and when they were being slaughtered by rampaging mobs in the northern part of our country. At least 100,000 igbos were killed in those northern pogroms which took place before the civil war and which indeed led directly to it. This was not only an outrage but it was also a tragedy of monuemental proportions.Yet we must not allow our emotion or our sympathy for the suffering of the igbo at the hands of northern mobs before the war started to becloud our sense of reasoning as regards what actually happened during the prosecution of the war itself. It is important to set the record straight and not to be selective in our application and recollection of the facts when considering what actually led to the starvation of hundreds of thousands of igbo women, children and civilians during that war. And, unlike others, I do not deny the fact that hundreds of thousands were starved to death as a consequence of the blockade that was imposed on Biafra by the Nigerian Federal Government. To deny that this actually happened would a lie. It is a historical fact. Again I do not deny the fact that Awolowo publically defended the blockade and indeed told the world that it was perfectly legitimate for any government to impose such a blockade on the territory of their enemies in times of war. Awolowo said it, this is a matter of historical record and he was qouted in a number of British newspapers as having said so at the time. Yet he spoke nothing but the truth. And whether anyone likes to hear it or not he was absolutely right in what he said. Let me give you an example. During the Second World War a blockade was imposed on Germany, Japan and Italy by the Allied Forces and this was very effective. It weakened the Axis powers considerably and this was one of the reasons why the war ended at the time that it did. If there had been no blockade the Second World War would have gone on for considerably longer. In the case of the Nigerian civil war though the story did not stop at the fact that a blockade was imposed by the Federal Government which led to the suffering, starvation, pain, death and hardship of the civilian igbo population or that Awolowo defended it. That is only half the story.

There was a lot more to it and the fact that Achebe and most of our igbo brothers and sisters always conveniently forget to mention the other half of the story is something that causes some of us from outside igboland considerable concern and never ceases to amaze us. The bitter truth is that if anyone is to be blamed for the hundreds of thousands of igbos that died from starvation during the civil war it was not Chief Awolowo or even General Yakubu Gowon but rather it was Colonel Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu himself. I say this because it is a matter of public record and a historical fact that the Federal Government of Nigeria made a very generous offer to Ojukwu and the Biafrans to open a road corridor for food to be ferried to the igbos and to lessen the suffering of their civilian population. This was as a consequence of a deal that was brokered by the international community who were concerned about the suffering of the igbo civilian population and the death and hardship that the blockade was causing to them. Unfortunately Ojukwu turned this down flatly and instead insisted that the food should be flown into Biafra by air in the dead of the night. This was unacceptable to the Federal Government because it meant that the Biafrans could, and indeed would, have used such night flights to smuggle badly needed arms and ammunition into their country for usage by their soldiers. That was where the problem came from and that was the issue. Quite apart from that Ojukwu found it expedient and convenient to allow his people to starve to death and to broadcast it on television screens all over the world in order to attract sympathy for the igbo cause and for propaganda purposes. And this worked beautifully for him.

Ambassador Ralph Uweche, who was the Special Envoy to France for the Biafran Government during the civil war and who is the leader of Ohaeneze, the leading igbo political and socio-cultural organisation today, attested to this in his excellent book titled ‘’Reflections On The Nigerian Civil War’’. That book was factual and honest and I would urge people like Achebe to go and read it well. The self-serving role of Ojukwu and many of the Biafran intelligensia and elites and their insensitivity to the suffering of their own people during the course of the war was well enunciated in that book. The fact of the matter is that the starvation and suffering of hundreds of thousands of igbo men, women and children during the civil war was seen and used as a convenient tool of propaganda by Ojukwu and that is precisely why he rejected the offer of a food corridor by the Nigerian Government. When those that belong to the post civil war generation of the igbo are wondering who was responsible for the genocide and mass starvation of their forefathers during the war they must firstly look within themselves and point their fingers at their own past leaders and certainly not Awolowo or Gowon. The person that was solely responsible for that suffering, for that starvation and for those slow and painful deaths was none other than Colonel Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the leader of Biafra, himself.

I have written many good things about Ojukwu on many occassions in the past and I stand by every word that I have ever said or written about him. In my view he was a man of courage and immense fortitude, he stood against the mass murder of his people in the north and he brought them home and created a safe haven for them in the east. For him, and indeed the whole of Biafra, the war was an attempt to exercise their legitimate right of self-determination and leave Nigeria due to the atrocities that they had been subjected to in the north. I cannot blame him or his people for that and frankly I have always admired his stand. However he was not infallible and he also made some terrible mistakes, just as all great leaders do from time to time. The fact that he rejected the Nigerian Federal Government’s offer of a food corridor was one of those terrible mistakes and this cost him and his people dearly. Professor Chinua Achebe surely ought to have reflected that in his book as well. When it comes to the Nigerian civil war there were no villains or angels. During that brutal conflict no less than two million Nigerians and Biafrans died and the yoruba who, unlike others, did not ever discriminate or attack any non-yorubas that lived in their in their territory before the civil war or carry out any coups or attempted coups, suffered at every point as well. For example prominent yoruba sons and daughters were killed on the night of the first igbo coup of January 1966 and again in the northern ‘’revenge’’ coup of July 1966. Many of our people were also killed in the north before the outbreak of the civil war and again in the mid-west and the east during the course and prosecution of the war itself. It was indeed the predominantly yoruba Third Marine Commando, under the command of General Benjamin Adekunle (the ‘’Black Scorpion”) and later General Olusegun Obasanjo, that not only liberated the mid-west and drove the Biafrans out of there but they also marched into igboland itself, occupied it, defeated the Biafran Army in battle, captured all their major towns and forced the igbo to surrender. Third Marine Commando was made up of yoruba soldiers and I can say without any fear of contradiction that we the yoruba therefore paid a terrible and heavy price as well during the war because many of our boys were killed on the war front by the Biafrans.

The sacrifice of these proud sons of the south-west that died in battle to keep Nigeria one must not be belittled, mocked or ignored. Clearly it was not only the igbo that suffered during the civil war. Neither does it auger well for the unity of our nation for Achebe and the igbo intelligensia that are hailing his self-serving book to caste aspertions on the character, role and noble intentions of the late and reverred Leader of the Yoruba, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, during the civil war. The man may have made one or two mistakes in the past like every other great leader and of course there was a deep and bitter political division in yorubaland itself just before the civil war started and throughout the early ‘60’s. Yet by no stretch of the imagination can Awolowo be described as an igbo-hating genocidal maniac and he most certainly did not delight in the starvation of millions of igbo men, women and children as Achebe has tried to suggest. My advice to this respected author is that he should leave Chief Awolowo alone and allow him to continue to rest in peace. This subtle attempt to denigrate the yoruba and their past leaders, to place a question mark on their noble and selfless role in the war and to belittle their efforts and sacrifice to keep Nigeria together as one will always be vigorously resisted by those of us that have the good fortune of still being alive and who are aware of the facts. We will not remain silent and allow anyone, no matter how respected or reverred, to re-write history. Simply put by writing this book and making some of these baseless and nonsensical assertions, Achebe was simply indulging in the greatest mendacity of Nigerian modern history and his crude distortion of the facts has no basis in reality or rationality. We must not mistake fiction and story telling for historical fact. The two are completely different. The truth is that Professor Chinua Achebe owes the Awolowo family and the yoruba people a big apology for his tale of pure fantasy.

________________ FFK, 2012

Lord Apsley and I were colleagues at Harrow School in England approximately 36 years ago. I have never forgotten his uncharitable remarks about Nigeria which led to a heated arguement between us. At that time I found it ironic, and I still do, that this quintessential member of the English upper class not only had the nerve to say such things to me about my country but that he could say it with such confidence. My response to him was that if Nigeria was indeed a ‘’toilet where evil reigns’’ then it was a toilet that was created by his British forefathers who not only dumped the evil there by defecating in it but who also refused to wash their hands, to flush and to leave the toilet after they had finished. My point was simple and it was that Nigeria was as much their mess as it was ours. For a young man who had been born into wealth and power and who had been brought up to believe that ‘’Brittania’’ had civilised the world and had brought nothing but immense benefits to the natives of her colonies, he found my response most disconcerting. I have never forgotten what he said about my beloved country on that occassion. It was painful and regrettable.

Yet I look at what has happened to us in the last 52 years of our existence as an independent nation and what we have suffered in the last 98 years since the 1914 amalglamation of the northern and southern protectorates and I really do wonder. If the truth must be told, things have not gone too well for us. I was born in the same year as we gained our independence and as I ponder and reflect on the last 52 years all I see is violence, bloodshed, dashed hopes, lost opportunities and shattered dreams. I see a brutal civil war in which two million people died. I see a string of violent military coups and repressive military dictatorships and I see suspicion and division between the peoples of the north and the south. I see dangerous tensions between the numerous ethnic nationalities, continous strife and sectarian violence. I see church bombings, the slaughter of the innocents, islamic fundamentalist rebellions, battle-ready ethnic militias and bloodthirsty local war lords. I see economic degradation, decaying infrastructures, environmental disasters and untold suffering and hardship. And finally I see poverty and unemployment, poor quality leadership and a dysfunctional semi-failed state which is still struggling to find it’s true identity. If this sounds like a scene from Dante’s hell please forgive me but this is what I see.

On October 1st every year we make nostalgic and inspirational speeches about the ‘’labours of our heroes past’’, pop the champagne, pat each other on the back, go to churches and mosques to give thanks to God, dance at owambe parties and congratulate one another on our independence. Yet we refuse to sit back in deep reflection, take stock of what has really been going on in our country and carry out an honest and candid appraisal of our situation. We are not ‘’a toilet of a country where evil reigns’’ but we must admit that we are in a mess. A really terrible mess. And the question is why are we in such a mess, how did we get there, why have we not been able to get out of it in 52 years and what role did our former colonial masters play, and are still playing, in creating and sustaining that mess.That is the subject of this essay.

If we want to answer these questions we must go back to the beginning. The problem is that the British established a faulty foundation for Nigeria right from the start which they knew could not produce anything wholesome. The Nigeria that they handed over to us in 1960 was nothing but an unworkable artificial state and a “poisoned chalice”. It was destined to fail right from the outset. Worse still they handed us that poisoned chalice with a malicious and mischevous intent and without any recourse to our people in terms of any form of a national referendum. The British did the same thing in varying degrees when they left virtually each and every one of their other ‘’third world’’ colonies. The most obvious cases however were Nigeria, the Sudan, India and the nation that was formerly known as Malaya. Every single one of these four countries had monuemental problems with sustaining their unity after independence and all of them, with the exception of Nigeria, were compelled to break up into smaller entities before they could bring out the best in themselves as a people and fully exercise their human potentials. Consequently India broke up into three and became India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Sudan broke into two and became Southern Sudan and the Sudan and Malaya broke into two and became Malaysia and Singapore. Nigeria is yet to find the courage and fortitude to go that far and whether we will eventually break up or not remains to be seen.

Yet the truth is that when you force two incompatibles with completely different world views together into an unhappy marriage, lock the gates of the house, throw away the keys and bestow leadership upon a “poor husband” to rule over a ‘’rich wife’’ in perpetuity, you are looking for trouble. The bible says “if the foundation be faulty what can the righteous do?” Our foundation as a nation is faulty and the consequence of that is that everything that is built on that faulty foundation is unproductive, unsustainable and unpleasant. And until that foundation is fixed the biblical ‘’righteous’’, no matter how well intentioned, can do nothing about it. It will always be a case of one step forward and ten steps back. Some have made the point that what exists in the Nigerian space today was once a collection of confederations and that our level of integration centuries before the British came to our shores was far greater than many care to admit. This may be true but upon their arrival the British, rather than build on that and allow us to forge a united nation ourselves based on dialogue, trust and consensus, instead played up our differences, drove us further apart, set us against each other all the more and compelled us to remain in the same cage hoping that we would eventually kill each other in the process.

The result of the amalgamation was therefore predictable. It was either that the “poor husband” (the north) would fully subjugate and eventually kill the “rich wife”(the south) or the “rich wife” would fully subjugate and eventually kill the “poor husband”. And we are right in the middle of that struggle for mutual subjugation till today. In 1960 the British ensured that power was handed over to the most pliable region at the Federal level by establishing an alliance with the northern traditional institutions and political ruling elite and fixing the census figures in their favour. Consequently by 1960 we had a situation where the well-educated, enlightened, progressive and predominantly christian south was played out through intrigue, deceit and fixed census figures and instead power was given to a fatalistic and ultra-conservative muslim north who were prepared to do anything the British wanted them to do, who had already overwhelmed and supressed their own ethnic and christian minority groups and whose major preoccupation was to dominate and control the entire federation, to keep the south out of power at the centre and to “dip the koran in the Atlantic ocean”. It did not stop there.

Even after the British left in 1960 they continued to meddle in our affairs and they encouraged, sponsored and supported a string of repressive military regimes, all of which derived their power from a northern-controlled army officers corps whose retired generals, up until today, are the ones that determine who will be what in our country. That is our story. Some have argued that despite the ignoble intentions of the British we ought to have been able to sort out our own problems 52 years after they left us. This is a good point. It does however betray a tinge of naivety and a lack of appreciation of just how chronic those problems were right from the start and just how malevolent a hand the British dealt us. I say this because the bitter truth is that the system in Nigeria cannot be changed simply because the forces that have controlled our country since 1960 are deeply conservative and the foundation and the structure upon which she has been established has been designed in such a way that makes radical and fundamental change impossible. Some have compared Nigeria to a badly wounded, gangerous and dieased leg which can only be cured through restructuring or which needs to be cut off in order to save the rest of the body. The consequence of doing neither is death for the whole body. It follows that the only way real change can come is if the country is broken up into two or more independent nations or, if we insist on remaining as one, through the auspices of a peoples revolution (our very own ‘’Nigerian Spring’’, similar to the ‘’Arab spring’’ that we witnessed in Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and Egypt last year and that we are witnessing in Syria today) which will sweep away the old order, convene a Sovereign National Conference, restructure the country drastically and devolve power from the centre. If you are looking for fundamental change in Nigeria these are the only two courses of action that can produce it.

The line up in our country is therefore clear-on the one hand you have the ordinary people, who have nothing and little hope for a brighter future, and on the other you have the ruling elite, who have everything. Those that are waiting for such a change to evolve under the present system and structure will wait forever. This is because under the present system there is no hope for a peaceful, purposeful and meaningful change because justice, equity and fairness has no place. Worse still the most courageous people with the best minds, that are prepared to speak the truth no matter how bitter that truth is and that have an element of vision are always destroyed, discredited or set aside. If anyone doubts this they should consider the fate of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Moshood Abiola. Those that have a clear vision about the way that Nigeria needs to go have no say and those that have a say have no vision. Our country is in the hands and grip of mediocres that just don’t care.

Unfortunately the Nigerian people do not seem to have the resilience or strength to effect either of the two options for true change anytime soon. They seem to have been so traumatised, demoralised and subjugated in the last 50 years that they have lost their will to resist inequity, tyranny and injustice, to insist on determining their own fate and to fight for their own future. And who can blame them because the state itself is extreemly violent and ruthless in the way and manner in which it fights and resists change and those that advocate it. Very few good leaders can emerge at the federal level in such a system because it was not designed to produce truly progressive leaders. There are a few exceptions to the rule but generally speaking the type of leaders that the Nigerian system is designed to throw up are leaders that are not minded to bring any benefit or hope to the ordinary people but rather that are there to protect the archaic system and to maintain the nebulous and dysfunctional status quo. The relevance of the British today is that they are not only the architects of this monuemental monstrosity but they are also the ones that have continued to encourage and support the ruling elite that runs and sustains it.

If they were being fair to us they would have been amongst those that have been encouraging the idea of restructuring our country, devolving power from the centre and effecting a fundamental and radical change in our attitudes and affairs. That is precisely what they are doing in the United Kingdom itself today where power is being systematically and gradually devolved from the centre at Westminster in England to the hitherto supressed and occupied regions of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This is good enough for them yet our erstwhile colonial masters have never supported a similar course of action for us. Instead they have done all they can to support those that believe that power should continue to be centralised and concentrated in Abuja, to maintain the “ancien regime” and to preserve the chronically conservative system and the status quo. The idea of a properly-led, prosperous, peaceful and truly united Nigeria has never been something that the British ever sought to establish. It is for this reason that we can blame Lord Apsley’s forefathers almost as much as we can blame ourselves for the mess that our country is in up until today. May God deliver Nigeria.

________________ FFK, 2012

The Dana Air crash and the recent lifting of it’s suspension from flying in Nigeria has once again brought to the fore the issue of plane crashes and the safety of air travel in our country. The fact of the matter is that ninety nine per cent of fatal air crashes that have occured in Nigeria in the last 10 years have taken place on a weekend. The question is why is this so? Is it a mere coincidence or is there something more to it? What is it that is so different about those three precious days of friday, saturday and sunday that make up our weekends? What is it that makes planes and helicopters drop from our skies, that causes the blood of our people to flow and that cuts short so many precious lives during the course of those three days? The facts are as follows. EAS Airline crashed in Kano on May 4th 2002 resulting in the loss of 77 souls. This took place on a weekend.

An Aenail spray aircraft belonging to Berfieex Nigeria crashed in Bauchi state on March 6th 2004 with the loss of all the souls that were on board. This was on a weekend. A Nigerian Airforce jet crashed into some farmland in Yar Kanya, Kano state on Jan 28th 2005 resulting in the loss of the souls on board. This took place on a weekend. Bellview Airlines crashed in Lisa village just outside Lagos on 22oct 2005 resulting in the loss of 117 souls. This took place on a weekend. Sosolisso Airline crashed in Port Harcourt on 10 December 2005 resulting in the loss of 108 souls. This took place on a weekend. ADC Airline crashed in Abuja on 29th Oct. 2006 resulting in the loss of 105 souls. This took place on a weekend.

An aircraft belonging to Harka Air crashed in Lagos on June 24th 2005 with the loss of all the souls on board. This took place on a weekend. A Nigerian military plane crashed in Oko village, Benue state on Sept. 17th 2006 with the loss of 15 Generals of the Nigerian Army. This took place on a weekend. An OAS service helicopter crashed in Warri, Delta state on Nov. 10th 2006 with the loss of 4 souls. This took place on a weekend. Wings Aviation Airline crashed on March 15th 2008 in Cross Rivers state with the loss of 6 souls. This took place on a weekend. In 2009 and 2010 there were a series of small light aircraft crashes, an Airforce jet crash and helicopter crashes that all resulted in the loss of souls. They mostly took place on a weekend.

An OAS Helicopter crashed in Ife Odan in Osun state on 29th July 2011 resulting in the loss of 3 souls. This took place on a weekend. On June 2nd 2012 A Nigerian cargo plane shot off the runway into the highway behind Accra’s Kotoka Int. Airport resulting in the death of 10 Ghanaian nationals that were driving past the airport in a bus. This took place on a weekend. The following day on June 3rd 2012 Dana Airlines crashed into a residential area in the suburbs of Lagos resulting in the loss of 176 souls. This took place on a weekend.

Curiously the Dana crash of June 3rd 2012 took place exactly 10 years and one month (less one day) after the EAS crash of 4th May 2002 had taken place. This clearly represents the end of a 10 year sacrificial cycle. Another curious fact is that there had been an earlier ADC Airline plane crash on 7th November 1996 in which 142 souls had perished. Exactly 10 years (less 9 days) later, on 29th Oct 2006, another ADC Airline plane crashed with the loss of 105 souls. This again represents the end of a ten year sacrificial cycle. If the skeptics are ready to waive away the weekend crash phenomenon as a mere coincidence that has nothing to do with the paranormal what would they say about the ten year cycle? Is that a coincidence too?

I do not seek to create panic, alarm or fear by sharing this information and neither do I wish to disrespect the dead or to be insensitive to their loved ones. I rather believe that we have a duty to find out and expose precisely who and what was responsible for their deaths and to do all we can to ensure that such terrible things and such strange patterns of events do not reoccur. We owe both the living and the dead that much. Without digging deep, looking within ourselves, indulging in spiritual reflection and thinking outside the box we cannot possibly do this. Quite apart from that I am very mindful of the fact that knowledge is power and we need to begin to gather all the relevant facts and do the research in order to fully appreciate and understand precisely what we are dealing with. All that is done in darkness must be brought to light and all that is hidden must be exposed. Secrecy, strange practices, spiritual wickedness in high places, rituals, sacrifice, ignorance, occultism and mysticism must give way to the power and workings of the Holy Spirit and to the light of truth.

They say to solve a problem one must first recognise it for what it is. In order to break this jinx and free ourselves from this strange pattern of events and frightful cycle of crashes the Aviation authorities must continue to work very hard, the necessary reforms must be put in place, the airline operators must be far more mindful of their responsibilities, the flying public must be far more vigilant and, most important of all, we must all pray to the Living God to keep our airspace and our air travellers safe and sound. The importance and efficacy of such prayers cannot be overemphasised if this evil cycle and pattern is to be broken.

The great philosopher C.S. Lewis once said that the greatest trick that the devil ever played on mankind was to make him accept the idea that he does not exist. Many have fallen for that trick yet the sad truth is that he not only exists but that he is also alive and well on planet earth. Worst still he has many followers and many delight in doing his bidding. After the attack on the United States of America on September 11, 2001 George W. Bush said the following famous words, ‘’It is enough to know that evil, like good, exists. In those that do such things, evil has found a willing servant’’. This is wisdom. Sadly evil has found many willing servants in our beloved country Nigeria. May the souls of those that have perished in our skies continue to rest in perfect peace. Happy flying.

________________ FFK, 2012

When I challenged Chief E.K. Clark's assertion that there was ''nothing wrong with placing soldiers on the streets of Lagos'' last January during the oil subsidy crisis at a conference of the Political Summit Group in Lagos I knew that I was heading for trouble. I was given the floor to speak just a few minutes after the former Minister of Information and elderstatesman had stirred the audience with his words and to say that he was infuriated by not only what I said but also the thunderous applause that I received for daring to say it would be an understatement. The old man screamed at me at the top of his voice from his chair even as I had the floor and spoke and he accused me of all manner of unspeakable things there and then simply for daring to disagree with him to his face. Naturally I continued with my speech and acted as if he wasn't even there but I knew that he would take his time and eventually hit back at me and claim his pound of flesh. Yet even with that expectation nothing prepared me for the virulence and sheer ferociousness of his counter-attack. And that counter-attack was launched during a public lecture on August 1st 2012, when the elderstatesman, during the course of his lecture, passionately proclaimed that I was holding myself out as a ''moral icon'' after ''embezzling funds'' that were entrusted to me when I was Minister of Aviation that were meant to be used to ''stop planes from crashing and to reform the aviation sector''. This was on live television and it was being watched by millions of Nigerians from all over the world.

Chief Clark added many to his hit list that day from former Heads of States, former Presidents and Vice Presidents, former Governors and Federal Ministers and so many more. If he was not accusing the northern leaders and governors of being behind Boko Haram and claiming that the problem began under President Obasanjo's watch, he was daring Generals Babangida and Buhari to come clean and condemn Boko Haram or stand the risk of being counted amongst those that were behind it. He also had very harsh words for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the northern Governors, the Governors Forum, Senator Joshua Dariye, Pastor Tunde Bakare, former Governors Alamesighya, Peter Odili, Orji Kalu, former Minister of Aviation Professor Babalola Borisade and so many others. This was quite a show and the elderstatesman was very much in his element. He was having a wonderful time kicking all his enemies in the pants without exercising any sense of restraint or decency. It was just slander all the way. There has probably never been a greater public display of defamation of character and the impugnment of the integrity of former public office holders that were not there to say a word in their own defence in the history of Nigeria. Everyone that had ever been accused of a crime was pronounced guilty of that crime by Chief Clark on that day. That is anyone that is not part of the present administration and that is not part of the Jonathan cabal which our elderstatesman merrily presides over. It was quite a show with more than enough razzle dazzle, sensationalism and wondrous allegations to go around. I was a little surprised that my former colleague in the Obasanjo government Professor Jerry Gana was left out of the list of those that were being lampooned until I saw him grinning like a cheshire cat from and clapping so eagerly and with such enthusiasm as our elderstatesman was spitting fire and defaming those that he once worked with and worked for. Such loyalty. And of course the erstwhile gathering loved Clark's performance and cheered him on passionately even though the organisers of the event went to the podium as he spoke and advised him to stop mentioning names and saying such things about people that were deemed innocent until proven guilty and that were not there to defend themselves. Yet Chief Clark, in his characteristically brazen manner, brushed their concerns aside and boldly proclaimed that he would continue his epistle regardless of all because he was ''already in the waiting room before leaving this life'' and he didn't care about the consequences of what he was saying. It was all very exciting and dramatic but, needless to say, his assertions were mostly completely false.

Though I have little doubt that the man hates me with the biblical ''perfect hatred'' I still found it extraordinary that someone of his sheer standing, magnitude and gravitas would seek to pronounce guilt on me on a matter in which he clearly knows nothing about. It is a sad testimony to his exciteable nature and his penchant for making unsustainable and irascible assertions that he should, on this occasion, have turned himself into a prosecutor, a judge and a jury in a matter that is before a duly constituted court of law. Let it be on record that not only did I not embezzle any public funds but also that I was cleared of doing so by the Senate Aviation Committee who conducted a public hearing into the whole matter in 2008. Even the EFCC, after initially charging me in July of that same year, dropped those charges one month later for want of evidence. Contrary to Clark's assertions, I was the one that actually investigated and exposed the embezzlement of 6.5 billion naira from the 19.5 billion Aviation Intervention Fund which had taken place just before I became Minister in 2006. I was the whistleblower in that matter, I was the one that wrote to President Obasanjo and reported it and it was after I did so that he referred it to the security agencies for further investigation. Yet after we left office and in a manner that is so typical of Nigeria when it comes to such matters, I was punished for doing so and I was later accused of committing the very crime that I had exposed. Is that not absurd? In their zeal to effect the orders of the late President Umaru Yar'adua and to ''get me at all costs'' the Farida Waziri-led EFCC, without any prior investigation into the matter, detained me for 10 days in their custody and proceeded to charge me in an Abuja magistrate's court for the supposed misappropriation of the said 6.5 billion naira. Yet one month later, after realising the futility of their cause and after establishing all the relevant facts, they withdrew those charges against me and instead prosecuted my predecessor in office for that same offence at the Abuja Federal High Court.

Chief Clark claimed that I ''embezzled the money'' that I was given ''to use to stop the plane crashes'' yet the truth is that not only did I not embezzle one kobo but also that not one plane crash took place under my watch. This is despite the fact that 5 crashes had taken place the year before I became Minister. The fact of the matter is that by God's grace my team and I put an end to those crashes and saved lives. It was as a consequence of our hard work, our prayers, our dedication to duty and the solid reforms that we put in place that those crashes stopped and did not occur again for at least one year after we left office. Yet without knowing these facts, Chief Clark got up in a public forum on live television and not only made the most scurrilous, slanderous and outrageous allegations against me but he also pronounced me guilty of a crime that I did not commit. Is it a surprise that we are in such a mess in this nation when an elderstatesman behaves in this indecorous way. It is common knowledge that he is the Godfather-In-Chief of this administration but the question is whether he is making more friends or enemies for his son, President Goodluck Jonathan, when he behaves in this way and when he throws all caution to the wind and pontificates about issues that he knows nothing about? Perhaps I should point out the fact that the charges that were proffered against me by the EFCC in a Lagos High Court on December 2008, 6 months after the first set of charges had been withdrawn, had nothing to do with the 19.5 billion naira Aviation Intervention Fund. It was obvious from the outset that all those charges were malicious and politically-motivated yet for the last four years I have kept my cool, honoured the conditions of my bail and avoided discussing the issue publically for obvious reasons. I have resisted and fought those charges vigorously for all those years and the likes of Chief E.K Clark and all the others that have sworn to see my end can be rest assured that I will continue to do so as long as I have breath in me. In God's time and in God's way He will vindicate me. It is however most unfair for Chief Clark to pronounce me guilty in this matter and to label me as a criminal when a court of law has not done so.

This is especially so when our constitution confers on me the presumption of innocence unless and until I am proven guilty. On a final note let me end this write-up with a word about political persecution and the usage of politically-motivated charges to intimidate those that are perceived by the government of the day as being vocal and dangerous enemies that must be silenced at all costs. This is nothing new. And regardless of it's success or otherwise it changes nothing when it comes to God's purpose. When God's hand is on a man for leadership or greatness you can lock him up in the deepest and darkest dungeon below the sea and throw the keys away but when the time is right God will spring him out again in order for him to fulfil destiny. The problem with people like Chief Clark and those that do not understand the power of God and the pull of destiny is that they refuse to learn from history. Let me give you some examples. Three of the greatest leaders that Nigeria ever had, namely Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello and President Olusegun Obasanjo all suffered persecution at one point or the other in their lives and every single one of them was convicted by a court of law and spent some time in jail. Awolowo was wrongly accused of treasonable felony and spent three years in jail, Obasanjo was wrongly accused of plotting a coup and spent three years in jail and Ahmadu Bello was wrongly accused of stealing public funds and spent some time in jail. All three of them were targeted by the powers that were at that time who thought that they had successfully silenced and discredited them forever by jailing them.

Yet when the time was right circumstances suddenly changed and God's purpose spoke for all three of them. Awolowo was brought out of jail to become the de facto Prime Minister of Nigeria, Obasanjo was brought out of jail to become the President of our country and Bello went on appeal, won his case (Chief Bode Thomas of ''Thomas, Williams and Kayode'' the first indigenous law firm in Nigeria who was the law partner of my late father Chief Remi Fani-Kayode and Chief Rotimi Williams represented him in court) was acquitted and freed and later went on to join politics and become the greatest leader that northern Nigeria has ever known. Destiny and the power of God spoke for all three of them and delivered them from the hands of their tormentors. Equally relevant is the bitter end and unspeakable sorrows that engulfed and ended up consuming those that persecuted them and that orchestrated their incarceration and terrible ordeals. As a matter of fact in at least two of those cases those that orchestrated the persecution and unjust incarceration of these great men were murdered in cold blood shortly before the release, pardon and vindication of their victims. My point is simple and clear- regardless of what the powers that be decide to subject us lesser mortals to, God alone rules in the affairs of men and determines the destiny of nations. Even though some that stalk the corridors of power today believe that they have the power over life, liberty and death and that they control everything, in reality they control and they have nothing. This is because the God of Heaven alone controls all that is. Any man that has been so intoxicated by power or by his access to the President to the extent that he is ready to play God at every given point in time ought to be pitied for his naivity rather than be the object of our anger. Chief E.K.Clark, the all-powerful former Minister of Information, the great leader and elder of the Ijaw nation and the political and spiritual father of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, in my view, ought to be viewed in such light.

________________ FFK, 2012

I can go back to fight a war to keep this country together even at 71…..some people are saying that should anything happen to President Jonathan, forget about Nigeria and so on. I know those who are saying this. Yes, they are supporters of the President. But I know the President is a sensible person so don’t waste your time saying that the world would come to an end if something happens to your son. Of course he is your son but he is our President. I have always respected these people but these things that they say amaze me. These are the same people that went to school, people who went to universities, people that are educated and people who have held positions of responsibility. There is a doctrine known as the ”Doctrine of Nigeria’s Settled Issues” and nobody should attempt to tamper with them. Number one, I don’t want anyone of us to tamper with anything to do with Nigerian unity. Number two, the republican constitution is also a settled issue, more or less. Number three, the states are the federating units of this country and number four we are a capitalist country. Anybody that wants to talk about this country must make sure that he doesn’t do anything that will disrupt these basic settled issues in our political life. Anyone that is talking about dismembering this country you should not listen to him. If we see such things as ”christian south” and ”muslim north” we should disregard it. Even if such people say it the media should ignore it because you know it is not the truth, so you should not even write it”- GENERAL IBRAHIM BABANGIDA, The Daily Trust Annual Dialogue, Abuja, 26th January 2012.

 

I have nothing but the deepest respect and affection for General Ibrahim Babangida and those that know me can attest to this. He is not only a great and profoundly good man that has sacrificed so much for our nation but he is also one of the very few truly detribalised leaders who genuinely and honestly loves Nigeria and who passionately believes that the interest of every Nigerian is better served if our country remains as one. I do not for one minute doubt General Babangida’s sincerity of purpose or his deep sense of partiotism. Anyone that can take a bullet to keep Nigeria one must always be given his due respect and honour. Yet despite my personal feelings and affection for the general I am afraid that, from an intellectual and political perspective, I have to respectfully and humbly disagree with him on this issue. I do not believe that there is any such thing as a ”Doctrine of Settled Issues” in our body politic and neither, in my view, is Nigeria as we know it today a sacrosanct, unbreakable or unchangeable union. It is trite that the only thing that is certain in the life of men and nations is change. Whether we like it or not change is like an irresistable tide and, when it’s time comes, it is like a moving train and a raging wind which crushes or blows away anyone or anything that stands in its way.

 

You either bend with it or you break. I am a student of history and it may interest those that subscribe to this rather arcane and anachronistic theory known as the ”Doctrine Of Settled Issues” to know that Nigeria remains the only mega-nation and forced union of incompatibles that the British colonial masters cobbled together at the beginning of the 20th century that still remains together today. There were actually three in all and the other two, namely the Sudan and India, have broken into two and three pieces respectively over the years. Why should Nigeria be any different? More importantly why should we be told that Nigeria MUST be different? Would this have been so if there was oil in the north?

Again when one considers the delightful and miraculous ”crumbling” of the almighty Soviet Union (another forced artificial union) or the breaking up of the old Yugoslavia and the emancipation and creation of numerous new countries in the Balkans and eastern Europe which came as a consequence of that magnificent change, I ask again, why should Nigeria be any different? The words of the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher are instructive here. In the September 2, 1991 edition of Newsweek she said, ”the lesson of this century is that countries put together artificially will fall apart. National identities will not be suppressed”. Twenty years after these famous words were spoken we are beginning to witness their relevance and veracity in Nigeria. The right to self-determination and to forcefully resist what many feel is an internal colonial system is a legitimate and inalienable right of all free men and women. You cannot hold me down and keep me in your house on your own terms and deny me the right to be free or to say or do as I please. If you do not treat me fairly and if you continue to make me feel worthless and full of fear of your terror and ability to inflict violence on me and mine, then eventually, whether you like it or not, I will leave. No one signed their life or their future away to bondage and none of us subscribed to the view that decisions about our country and our furure can and have been made by our past leaders and heroes and that they can no longer be changed or altered. I say that they can if the circumstances determine that this must be so. And if you do not give us our rights eventually we will exercise them by force and regardless of how you feel.

As much as I am amongst those that have criticised the Goodluck Jonathan administration forcefully, objectively and vigorously over some of their policies in the last few months let me make two things clear. Firstly my criticisms are borne out of my concern for our country and nothing else. I have nothing against Mr. President personally other than the fact that by not getting it right he is playing into the hands of the ”born to rule” northern cabal who believe that he does not have a right to be President simply because he is an Ijaw man. The overwhelming majority of the Hausa- Hulani intelligentsia and elite do NOT belong to this cabal and are indeed decent, law-abiding, rational and patriotic Nigerians. However there is a small, powerful and strategically-placed cabal that do espouse this Hitlerite philosophy and do believe that no southerner should have the right to rule in peace without being told what to do and without being teleguided and controlled by them. This small but strategically-placed group have sworn to make the country ungovernable for Jonathan and we are now seeing the results of that threat. For the record let us just warn these ethnic supremacists that they must not misconstrue the position that some of us have taken when it comes to this government and its policies as an endorsement of their deeply conspiratorial and despicable ethnic agenda. I should also add that Jonathan must not die under any mysterious circumstances. If this were to happen there would be no Nigeria left afterwards and by the time it is all over they will know that it is only when you kill a madman that you will know that he has friends and family. The new Nigeria has no place and no room for those that believe in the “born to rule” philosophy or those that subscribe to any form of Boko Harm or Taliban-style islamic fundamentalism. We will not tolerate it, we will not bow to it and we will resist it with every fibre of our being.

I have said it before and I will say it again- if Nigeria is not a place that every ethnic nationality is regarded as being equal and is treated as such then let there be no more Nigeria. There is nothing that is sacrosanct about a forced union of incompatibles. If you are in a bad marriage you get out of it before you kill each other. The Lugardian ”poor husband of the north” cannot force the ”rich wife of the south” to remain in this unholy and iniquitous union for much longer unless the terms are right and unless there is equity and justice for all. The mistake we made in 1967 by not standing on Aburi will not be repeated. The days of the master/servant relationship that we have witnessed between the north and the south for 51 years of our national existence are long over and they shall never return again. This country is moving forward and she is not going back and if Presdent Goodluck Jonathan can just get his act together and vigorously resist the hegemonist giants in the land he would have my full support and that of millions of others. This is the time for a new vision for our country. It is the time for new leaders who are ready to stand up and speak the truth about our precarious state of affairs and about the direction in which our nation must go. It is the time to talk about the convening of a Sovereign National Conference and to answer the Nationality Question.

It is the time for courage. Let us not take our unity for granted or treat it as ”a given”. Nigeria must change, she must be restructured, she must be reformed and she must make every single ”Nigerian” believe that he or she can get to the top regardless of their nationality or faith.
On a final note permit me to point out the fact that it does not help when you have a northern Governor of Central Bank who seeks to create a subtle but clear intellectual justification for the existence and activities of Boko Haram by telling the Financial Times of London that ”there is clearly a direct link between the very uneven nature of distribution of resources and the rising level of violence. When you look at the figures and you look at the size of the population of the north you can see that there is a structural imbalance of enormous proportions. Those states simply do not have enough money to meet their basic needs whilst some states have too much money”. The subliminal message and signals are clear to the discerning. Yet it does not stop there. Thisday newspaper (28th Jan. 2012) reported that that same individual said that ”attempts to redress historic grievances in Nigeria’s oil-rich south may inadvertantly have helped create the conditions for the islamic insurgency spreading from the impoverished north-eastern region of the country”. I am astounded by this contribution and having read it, it is now very clear to me that President Goodluck Jonathan was absolutely right when he told us that there were secret members and sympathisers of Boko Haram at the highest levels of his government. The Governor of Central Bank’s rationalisation and attempted justification of the shameful and unacceptable activities of the murderous islamist sect Boko Haram are an eloquent testimony to that fact.

Yet he is not alone. The northern Speaker of the Federal House added insult to injury by saying that Boko Haram should be ”forgiven” for their sins and called to the table for ”dialogue and negotiations”. And this was just a day after the Kano bombings. Mr. President apparantly took his advice because just a few days later he reached out to Boko Haram on CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera, asked them to identify themselves and attempted to open a dialogue with them. In return, and predictably in my view, he was rebuked, spurned, treated with contempt and disdain and told to ”repent and become a muslim” before any form of dialogue could begin. So much for the advice, counsel and rationalisations of the ”insiders” and secret members of Boko Haram within our government. My advice to Mr. President is to identify these fifth columnists, name and shame them publicly and weed them out of his government before it is too late. The longer he waits the more dangeous it will be for him and for a united Nigeria. Let us pray for our country.

________________ FFK, 2012

Winston Churchill once observed that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. The idea behind this is that for someone to make up a claim, and for others to repeat it is very easy, while to compile the evidence and careful argument to show it is wrong is very difficult. So, as long as there are people who want to mislead you, there will likely often be more misinformation than honest information. Farida Waziri outrightly brought shame to the anti-graft task in the country; painfully so she destroyed all the good legacies the pioneer chairman of EFCC (Nuhu Ribadu) left behind. If this government was serious enough someone like Farida should have been in jail by now.

This ugly situation actually prompted me to emphasis on the filthy behaviour of some parasites in government. Telling the truth in Nigeria, as I have now discovered, can be a rather precarious thing to do and certainly does not endear you to people in power or authority. I have been told that I will never be allowed to enter Nigeria again although, as usual, the implied threats are never put down, officially, in writing. I would be devastated if this ban is indeed official because despite the flotsam and jetsam in power, I have a deep respect for ordinary Nigerian people.

 

Just recently we gathered that Supreme Court dismissed the appeal filed by former aviation minister, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, challenging the admissibility of computer generated statement of accounts under the old Evidence Act. The appellant (Chief Fani-Kayode) had, through his counsel, Chief Ladi Williams (SAN) raised objection at the Federal High Court which was upheld. The Court of Appeal, however, set aside the decision of the trial court and admitted the said Statement of Accounts in evidence. Chief Fani-Kayode appealed against the decision of the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court.
Whilst the matter was pending at the Supreme Court, the Evidence Act was amended; and Computer-Generated Bank Statements were made admissible by Section 84 of the new Evidence Act.

Obviously the intent of these vicious characters is to render the law retroactive through the back-door at the expense of the appellant, but it is very clear that this is simply a journey to failure, even a layman in the legal profession will know this. At the same time, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, in exercising his administrative powers, transferred Justice Mohammed from the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court to Enugu Division and the matter was therefore re-assigned to a new Judge, Justice Binta Nyako. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) through its counsel, Mr. Festus Keyamo, therefore, filed a motion to dismiss the appeal before the Supreme Court arguing that the appeal has become academic in that the proceedings that gave rise to the appeal no longer exists.

Consequently, at the resumed hearing of the appeal, the panel of the Supreme Court, after taking oral arguments from parties concluded that the appeal has indeed become academic in that the proceedings that gave rise to the appeal have become spent. The Supreme Court therefore directed Chief Williams (SAN) to withdraw the appeal. The appeal was subsequently dismissed for being academic, while Chief Fani-Kayode was directed to go back to the new Judge, Justice Nyako, to face his trial. However some form of joke was displayed at the open Court when a presiding judge made suggestions to Chief Ladi Rotimi Williams that he knew his client must have given him so much money for consultancy fees, and yet any of such money was never spread to him and his colleagues, my conclusions to such indecency was that, no one in Nigeria is likely to get justice in Nigeria particularly when you believe and hold-on jealously to the merit of your case without the spread of 'legal-tender' among the members of the bench. We are all privy to what happened to James Ibori who was said to be discharged and acquitted in one of our courts, but was later imprisoned for the same charges in United Kingdom, what an irony? A big slap on our justice delivery system.

 

In recent times Chief Femi Fani-Kayode has been talking tough and very brilliantly too over some contentious and topical issues in the country, one of his prominent reactions was on the convocation of sovereign national conference. Chief Femi Fani-Kayode said if a Sovereign National conference was not convened as soon as possible, then “the nation is finished.” Pointing that India, Sudan, and Nigeria were the three main amalgamations by the British Empire and of the three; only Nigeria still exists as one.

 

Barely a week after the National Security Adviser, Gen. Owoye Azazi, accused the PDP of fuelling the rise of Boko Haram due to its politics of exclusiveness, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode equally fingered the excesses of the party as the reason the activities of the sect was rising. This was made public at an event to mark the 50th birth anniversary of the chairman/publisher of Leadership Newspaper Group, Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah, at the International Conference Centre, Abuja. He advised the party to go back to the drawing board with a view to bringing together all aggrieved members of the party, both past and present, for reconciliation. “If you look at the comments of the NSA a few days ago, and for me I think that is the most explosive comment that has been made in the last couple of years. I think we really need to sit down and think about the things that are happening in this country. Let me repeat for the purpose of clarification. He said that the reason why Boko Haram has not been contained and the causes for Boko Haram can be traced to the PDP and the politics of exclusion that the PDP has played in the northern part of Nigeria since the time of the convention. These are very serious words and I believe and I may be wrong but I believe that they are more than true.''
Speaking in an ecclesiastical tone, Chief Fani-Kayode said: “There is only one thing left for this PDP government to do, if it wishes to survive and that is; reach out to those alienated not only within the PDP but outside the PDP too. The fact remains; the excesses of our party, the PDP, are part of the problem we have in this country today. The insensitivity of some of our party leaders is part of the problems we have today. While charging Nigerians to hold the government to live up to its responsibilities, he noted, “Not enough people are putting this government on its toes. Not enough people are being sensitive to the fact that blood is flowing everyday in this country. A situation whereby every day, we hear of people dying and people are being killed and nothing is being done about it. I believe the only way to stop this carnage is for us to sit down and think twice as a country”. One may not be far from the truth that comments like these have caused him quite a lot, he has paid many prices, simply because he was telling the truth, unfortunately that is the society where we live in today called Nigeria.

 

I think it is high time the Nigerian media started embarking on genuine and reasonable investigative exercise in order to ensure that rumours and lies are not misconstrued for news. Although one cannot underestimate the threats local journalists have experienced over many years, and there are those who have ended up in darkest dungeons for telling the truth, so I salute some courageous scribes for their heroic determination to make sure facts surface. Sadly, not all journalists subscribe to that ethos and they opt for something worse than telling the truth - silence. Today I will not name and shame those journalists, columnists, commentators and political attack dogs; they know who they are and they are working in positions of great influence where their words and pictures could easily tell the world about what is really happening on the ground in Nigeria. What I would say to them is that if they are too afraid to tell the truth, or even cover the most basic stories in an open way, then they are in the wrong profession and doing a great disservice to journalism.

 

Journalism is a noble profession and hundreds of those that practice it have paid the ultimate price for trying to get the truth out even in places like Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan; infact, in war and conflict zones across the globe as well as within the most sinister of police states. It is an aberration to see journalist as an extension of a government apparatus which uses fear and intimidation to stop the truth getting out. At the end of the day the truth is there. The Nigerian government might attack it, ignorant individuals may choose to ridicule it, but it will not go away and the truth will definitely play out. To all those Nigerian journalists who have continued to defend the truth, I salute you; and to those miserable individuals who remained silent or twisted the facts, there is a chance to redeem yourselves.

Telling the truth might be an act of courage but it is also a powerful entity, which can open doors, shame governments and mobilise people to fight for what is right and what is just. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but - to paraphrase the late C.P. Scott, editor of the Guardian newspaper from 1872 until 1929 - the truth is sacred. For those that have been fed with so much lies and treacherous deceit, the article in this link addressed all the misinformation that has been spreading like wild fire by the agents of horror: http://thewillnigeria.com/opinion/4692-FANI-KAYODE-THE-EFCC-AND-THE-COURT-APPEAL.html.

However, this scripture has said it all (Proverbs 24:19-22) ''Do not fret because of evildoers or be envious of the wicked; for there will be no future for the evil man; the lamp of the wicked will be put out. My son, fear the LORD and the king; do not associate with those who are given to change, for their calamity will rise suddenly, and who knows the ruin that comes from both of them?''. My advice is that Fani-Kayode should remain steadfast in God because the storm will soon be over; it's just a matter of time.

________________ BT, 2012

When President Olusegun Obasanjo was in power we spent 300 billion per year on the fuel subsidy. Under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan it shot up to 1.3 trillion naira in the last one year alone. Can someone please explain to me how it got so high in 4 years and what exactly they were subsidising with the extra one trillion naira? When the Obasanjo government left power in 2007 the country was no longer in debt and the 30 billion dollar foreign debt that Obasanjo met when he came to power in 1999 was fully paid off.

Today, under the administration of Jonathan, our country is back in debt to the tune of 41 billion dollars (both foreign and domestic) and we are still borrowing. Can someone please tell me what the loans were used for and whether we will ever be able to pay them off? When the Obasanjo administration left power in 2007 our foreign reserves were 80 billion dollars even though when he came into office in 1999 we only had 1.5 billion dollars.
Today our foreign reserves have dropped from 80 billion dollars in 2007 to 33 billion dollars. Can someone please tell me where all the money went? When the Obasanjo administration left power in 2007 23 billion dollars was left in the Excess Crude Account after he built it up from nothing in 1999. Today we do not have one dollar left in that account because the money has been squandered and the account scrapped. Can someone explain to me who spent that money and precisely what it was spent on?

By the time the Obasanjo administration left power in 2007 not one bomb had gone off in Abuja throughout his 8 years in office and neither did we shy away from confronting the evil and dealing a hard blow to the terrorists wherever and whenever it was necessary to do so. Today bombs go off at will all over the north, the President hides in the Villa and churches were targetted on christmas day in Abuja. When Obasanjo was in power we did not remove the fuel subsidy because it would have caused too much pain to the Nigerian people and because there was no safety net in place to reduce that pain. President Jonathan however did not have any such inhibitions or qualms. Just seven days after we suffered the horrendous trauma of the xmas day bombings and probably as a New Year's Greek gift to the Nigerian people, our President finally removed the oil subsidy. He did this knowing fully well that it will lead to untold suffering and terrible hardship for the next few years for the Nigerian people, most of whom still live below the poverty line.

Can someone please tell me why President Jonathan wants Nigerians to cry? Yesterday he not only said that he would "crush Boko Haram" but he also declared a state of emergency in a few local government areas in some northern states. Can someone please tell me why our President could not do this 6 months ago when some of us first advocated it and thereby save many lives? Why has it taken him so long to find the guts to confront Boko Haram and to lead the fight against them with ruthless zeal, strengh, courage and total faith in God? Why has he done so little when it comes to this matter and why has he done it so late? Does he not know that a king is meant to lead his people into battle and if necessary die for them? He has been unable to handle and contain Boko Haram and now he has removed the fuel subsidy which is something that is expressly against the wishes and interest of the overwhelming majority of the Nigerian people.

Can someone please tell me precisely what has happened to this man and what has got into his head? This government is not only weak, it not only lacks direction but it is also insensitive and callous. The removal of the fuel subsidy is the final straw: President Jonathan, the King Rehoabam of our time, has hardened his heart unto destruction, just like Pharaoh once did, and he has fallen into the trap that has been set for him by God and by his enemies. May the Lord save Nigeria from this mess and from this weak man and may the Nigerian people themselves wake up from their accursed slumber and take their destiny into their own hands. The smell of religious war, sectarian violence, regional and ethnic conflict, insecurity, untold suffering, rampant poverty and economic hardship is in the air. Nigerians are divided as never before and our country is slowly crumbling and dying before our very eyes.

Who will save Nigeria? Who will stand up and say enough is enough? Who will pull us back from the brink? Who can we count on to take the bull by the horns and do the right thing? There must be a lawful and democratic change. My God let there be a change.

________________FFK, 2012

When I heard that Major Hamza Al Mustapha was convicted of murder and sentenced to hanging by a Lagos High Court yesterday afternoon I was utterly shocked, saddened and disgusted. And let me tell you why. I was one of those that opposed the late General Sani Abacha's government and fought against Al Mustapha and co. with every fibre of my being during the NADECO days. Given that, if anything, I should h...ave been rejoicing with the many other NADECO leaders, supporters and stalwarts who honestly believe that Al-Mustapha actually ordered the death of our wonderful heroine Alhaja Kudirat

Abiola and who believe that he deserves to die as a consequence of it. However I am not rejoicing with them simply because as far as I am concerned, based on the evidence that was adduced in court, this man had absolutely nothing to do with the killing of Kudirat Abiola. I believe that whatever we do we must always operate within the law and there is no place for the expression of unfettered emotions, vendetta or jungle justice in a civilised country when it comes to the administration of justice. I have been following this case closely for the last four years and I have publically called for the release of Al Mustapha on a number of occasions simply because I found it shameful and unjust that the state could lock up a man in a dungeon for 13 years without being able to prove a case against him.

By doing that they have already almost ruined his life yet there is a presumption of innocence in our law. Now the state has gone even a step further in this whole unsavoury and disgraceful episode and they have convicted a man to hang for something that he knew nothing about simply because they want to silence him and stop him from exposing the truth about the rolen that many of the high and mighty played in the death of Abacha, MKO Abiola and many others. They want to jail and kill Mustapha just as they have jailed and killed so many other innocent men that came before him. Let me make this clear- I hold no brief and I have no sympathy whatsoever for the Abacha government that Al-Mustapha served and neither do I seek to defend their actions whilst in office.

The truth is that they committed many atrocities and till today many find it hard to forgive them for those atrocities. Many of our people in the south-west were killed, locked up and driven into exile by that government as was the late General Shehu Musa Yar'adua and many others from other parts of Nigeria. I myself had to leave the country and go into exile in Ghana in 1996 because of them and I never thought that I would ever return to Nigeria again. Yet despite all that I cannot allow my bitterness and anger with the Abacha regime so becloud my reasoning and sense of justice that I would support or applaud a case of what would essentially be judicial murder.

Yes Abacha's government and even Mustapha himself, as a consequence of his unflinching loyalty to his boss, committed atrocities and violated the rights of many but does that mean that we should do the same to them? Do two wrongs make a right? Are we all to descend into the pit of slaying the innocent and punishing their families simply because we must have our pound of flesh and even where there is no tangible evidence to justify such a course of action? I challenge those that doubt me to look at the evidence and to study the judgement closely as I have done. It is wickedness and it is a travesty of justice. Worse still it sends the wrong signal to an already tense nation that is fraught with regional, north/south and Christian/Muslim tensions. This absurd judgement could not have come at a worse time and I have little doubt that the Boko Haramites amongst us (whether it be the overt or covert ones) will make quite a song and dance of it.

Thankfully Al Mustapha has the right to appeal but the implication of that is that this man's enemies have virtually destroyed his life already and left him with no hope because, unless he is granted bail pending that appeal, he will be struggling with it from the dingy dungeons of Kirikiri prison all the way to the Supreme Court for the next ten years. That is the Nigerian state and ''system'' for you. When you are loyal to your leader, when you speak out in his defence, when you defend him with your life and when you tell the world the truth they come at you with everything that they have got and seek to jail or kill you for it once that leader is no longer in power or is no longer alive. One thing is clear though- those that seek to hang Al Mustapha and silence him forever have forgotten the God factor. They have forgotten that there is a God of justice and mercy who still rules in the affairs of men and who forges the destiny of nations.

For my old adversary and new friend Major Hamza Al Mustapha I will not beg any mortal for mercy and neither will I plead for him. I will only pray to the Living God that if truly this man is innocent, as I earnestly and honestly believe that he is, then he should be eventually freed and completely vindicated. This is especially so because something tells me that our country will still need him. God's ways are not ours and only He sees and knows the hidden things that lie ahead. It is not Al Mustapha that we should weep for, it is Nigeria.

Finally let me restate my position clearly for all to see and for posterity to take note of. I believe that Hamza Al Mustapha is innocent of this crime. As far as I am aware there is absolutely no evidence against him and the only person that said that he ordered him to go and kill the late Kudirat Abiola (Sergeant Barnabas Jabilla) has long since recanted and said that he was induced and compelled to give that false evidence by the authorities. In any civilised country that would have been the end of it but not in Nigeria. In Nigeria it is a case of ''we must get him at all costs'' even if it means bending the law and influencing the courts. One has to ask whether, as a people, we have any fear of God? Is there any justice in Nigeria? Is there any fairness? Can we ever rely on the courts to do the right thing when the state determines to punish an innocent man for his perceived sins against the powers that be?

I am fed up and disgusted with the sort of thing that goes on in this country when it comes to such matters and I just cannot understand how Nigerians are so comfortable with such injustice and wickedness being meted out to their compatriots. Do they not know that tomorrow it could be them or a member of their family? On this matter I stand by Al Mustapha shoulder to shoulder just as I do with every other innocent person that has been unfairly charged to court for political reasons and who has suffered persecution at the hands of a relentless and vicious state that have no fear of God.

This country just has to change. God's wrath is stirred up by such wickedness and insensitivity. You lock up an innocent man for 13 years in the most horrific conditions for something that he did not do, you delay his trial, you wrongly convict him where there is clearly no evidence to justify it and now you want to hang him? God is not asleep Nigeria. Unless God wills it Hamza Al Mustapha will not hang and ultimately he will be vindicated. My prayers are for him and for his family at this difficult time. God bless Nigeria.

________________FFK, 2012

The South Africans are an ungrateful lot. After all Nigeria did for them during the struggle against apartheid, white minority rule and the relentless tyranny of the Boers they have done nothing but treat us with disrespect, disdain and contempt. A glaring example of this is their shameful treatment of our Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, at Johannesburg airport a few years ago when this respected and much-loved international statesman was stopped by the immigration officials, treated like a common criminal and kept waiting for hours simply because he was a Nigerian.

Though Soyinka had a valid visa he was only allowed into the country after the intervention of a high ranking South African government official who was contacted by the Nigerian Ambassador to South Africa in the middle of the night. So unpleasant was that experience for Professor Soyinka that he vowed before the world that he would never travel to South Africa again.

Sadly nothing appears to have changed since then. The deportation and humiliation of no less than 125 of our people (all of whom had valid visas) at Johannesburg airport just a few days ago for allegedly not having valid yellow fever vaccination certificates is just the latest chapter in that sordid catalogue of insults. They did this after Arik Nigeria, our leading airline carrier, faithfully flew our people from Lagos directly to Johannesburg. The South African authorities denied them entry and promptly put the majority of those passengers back on board the plane and compelled Arik to fly them back home there and then. I feel particularly bad about this because as Minister of Aviation a few years ago I was one of those that fought hard for Nigerian airline carriers to secure most of the international routes that they are plying and that our people are enjoying today.

I am particularly impressed by Arik's robust reaction to the incident when they threatened to simply stop flying to South Africa if the authorities were not ready to treat our people and their passengers with respect, fairness, sensitivity and decency. I am also glad that the Federal Government itself has risen to the occasion and has found the courage to reciprocate the South African gesture by denying entry into our country and promptly deporting 75 South African air travellers that arrived at Lagos airport just a few days. They gave the same reason as the South Africans had earlier done for this action. This was an appropriate reaction though it is only a first step. However more steps have to follow and we must go much further than that. Nigerians in South Africa have suffered racial discrimination, unjustifiable incarceration, humiliation, murder, beatings, insults, persecution, unfair trade practices, the most vicious form of racial-stereotyping and all manner of crimes and indignities from the South African authorities and the local population on a regular basis. This has been going on for the last twenty two years, it is institutionalised, it is systemic and it appears to be getting worse.

 

Such cheek and consistently uncharitable acts channelled towards a friendly African country is inexplicable and sickening. This is all the more so when it is coming from a so-called ''rainbow nation'' with black legs, a brown torso, a coloured neck and a big white Boer head and mentality. Can this sort of thing really be happening to our people in the land of the great Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramphosa? Nigeria shed her blood, spent her treasure and made monumental and painful sacrifices for over 40 years for these people and for that land through the darkest years when they were regarded as being sub-human and mere ''drawers of the water'' and ''hewers of the wood'' by their white Boer overlords and compatriots.

Have our South African brothers and sisters forgotten so soon? We may have our own fair share of challenges in this country and we may still be struggling with our own internal differences and contradictions but let those that seek to shame and humiliate our people make no mistake about it- Nigeria is still the giant of Africa and no-one, not even the biggest economic players on the world stage, have ever been able to bring us to our knees. South Africa would be best advised not to provoke a regional conflict whose outcome she cannot predict and which she cannot possibly contain, control, handle or win.

 

The number of South African companies that are fleecing Nigeria today are enormous. In the light of what has happened they should all be closely scrutinised and probed and where they are found wanting they should be kicked out. Enough of these insults from people that are very far behind us in terms of enlightenment, civilisation, culture and education. Nigeria is just too big and too good to be treated in this way. The South Africans may have more fighter jets, tanks and war ships than we do but they do not have the fighting spirit, discipline, courage, ferocity, professionalism and experience of the Nigerian ground forces and infantry. No nation on the African continent does. Our efforts in Chad, Sierra Leonne, Liberia, Somalia, Burma, the Congo, Angola, Mozambique and countless other nations over the decades where we have fought, shed our blood, kept the peace and made our input can bear testimony to that.

The average South African does not have the spirit and appetite for war and aggression and the ability to forcefully resist evil and stand up against injustice that the average Nigerian has cultivated over the last 52 years. Our civil war, in which over two million people died for a cause, is sufficient evidence of that. In any case they are the ones with the massive economic and financial investments in Nigeria whilst Nigerian companies have been effectively and systematically shut out of the South African market right from the outset. In this respect if the conflict widens and it comes to an economic war the South Africans have far more to lose than we do.

The truth is that nothing forges Nigerian unity more than any form of aggression or hostility from outsiders and foreigners. This is because before anything else we are first and foremost Nigerians and we are ready to sacrifice all in order to defend our honour, our land, our dignity, our citizens and our integrity even if it means doing so with the last drop of our blood. The South Africans must not mistake our liberal values, our generous disposition and our friendly and genial nature for weakness or stupidity. Behind our smile lies a proud heart and a resolve of steel.

We do not shirk. We are slow to anger but irresistible in battle. Our history, our lineage, our stock, our ancestry and our strength of purpose tells our story. They should read that story well before going any further. Nigerians are very tough, very resilient and very hard people. We are not just titans but we are the immortals. The South Africans would do well not to not dare us and not to wake up our sleeping sword lightly.

________________FFK, 2012

That the aviation sector is sick is not debatable, i was privileged to have an insight while working for my principal, chief femi fani-kayode who was redeployed by president olusegun obasanjo as the minister from the culture ministry to the aviation ministry in 2006. Prior to this, nigeria had experienced no less than five plane crashes with the attendant loss of approximately 400 lives within a period of one year. Most of these airlines had little or no care for their passengers.. Imagine an airline with one aircraf whilst some have just two or three. Is it a must that they must run an airline? Running an airline is capital intensive yet they are not ready to source for the necessaryfunding.

I recall how fani-kayode was approached by the operator of an airline whose ill-fated aircraft claimed the lives of three generations of the late sultan of sokoto just a few days after the disaster asking for the certificate of his airline. I recall how another one whose airline killed those 60 precious children of loyola jesuit college and the popular televangelist bimbo odukoya. The latter was using an influential presidential aide from the east to mount pressure on the minister for the same quest. Unfortunately, the two were not ready to pay the lawful compensation to the families of the bereaved! Fani-kayode refused to play ball and instead he not only grounded those airliners permanently but he also wielded the big stick asking all the local airlines to recapitalise or fold up and get out of the business. This restored some element of sanity and safety to the sector. Some of them that were notorious for cutting corners were forced to go on vacation. I recall one of them approached my boss promising to give him, his family members and staff free ticketing to go anywhere in the world if the minister could play dirty ball with him. Of course the minister refused to do so and the airline in question was forced to play the game by the rules. The list is endless. The minister and his team with some men of god had to be in prayer and fasting interceding for the airspace most of the time whilst his era lasted and this was how the airspace was secured from those blood sucking demonic group and the crashes stopped. 

Sadly when those that were benefitting from the air disasters heard about and saw fani-kayode's activities, they reported to president olusegun obasanjo that he was turning the airports to churches! The minister was told that unless he played ball he was not coming back and that was exactly what happened! They first thought he was involved in the n19.5b intervention fund scam so they ambushed him at the senate aviation committee public hearing in 2008. When they discovered that he was innocent in that matter and that it was in fact others that held sway at the aviation ministry before him that had committed the offence they did not relent. Instead of dropping the matter and leaving him alone they instead picked on him using farida waziri to arraign him for a crime committed at the ministry of aviation in july 2006 even though he was appointed minister of culture and tourism only in october 2006 and was later redeployed to aviation in novemeber of that same year. How fani-kayode could have been accused of a crime that took place months before he was a minister is a question that still needs to be answered. As a matter of fact he was the whistle blower in the n19.5 billion scam because he investigated, exposed and reported the matter formally to president obasanjo and the security agencies when he took charge of the ministry of aviation. However farida, who told all that cared to listen that she was was operating with ''orders from above'' was not ready to listen to anyone or take cognisance of the truth. She was on a mission of clear political persecution and the facts and truth did not matter to her or those who gave her this dirty job to do. Mr. Tunde ogunsakin, the then efcc director of operations, told farida to her face that fani-kayode had done no wrong and that the only thing they could use him for was a principal prosecution witness. Yet farida waziri  would not listen and for her there was no going back. However eventually, after a few gruelling weeks of back and forth in 2008 and after fani-kayode was unfairly locked up for 10 days at the efcc headquarters and arraigned in an abuja magistrates court for a crime that he had exposed, the commission realised that what they were doing was an exercisae in futility and they dropped all charges on the 19.5 billion scam against fani-kayode. Instead they charged only his predecessor in office for those crimes and some former parastatal chiefs and ministry officials that had worked with him . 

Whilst fani-kayode had been in detention a former senator from his state was asked to appeal to him against challenging his unlawful detention and he agreed but later farida was told by a former secretary to the federal government who was later kicked out of office by the late president yar adua for treachery and betrayal that fani-kayode should not go free and that regardless of the fact that he had done no wrong he needed to be ''taught a lesson''! After that directive and six months after the initial detention the whole saga began again. One thing led to another, efcc picked up fani-kayode once again, locked him up in ikoyi prison in lagos for another 10 days and arraigned him for money laundry before a lagos federal high court in december 2008! They added up all the small deposits in his account made over a long period of time before and after he became a minister and told the world a lie that they had found a total n250m in that account at the time of his arrest. This was just not true. At the time of his arrest fani-kayode had no more than 300.000 naira in his account. I dare any efcc official to fault what i have said here. I have written all this just to make one point: those that are killing this country are not only influential and powerful but they have penetrated even the presidency and those who stand on their way are always in soup.

Recall the intervention fund by the cbn? What has become of it? May god deliver us from these evil people. It is well
With nigeria.

________________BO, 2012

Dim Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was not an ordinary person or one of the run of the mill leaders that we often eulogise after death in Nigeria. He was much more than that. I had read and heard so much about him throughout my youth and in various history books including the bestseller written by Fredrick Forsythe, his old English public ...school friend and biographer, titled ''Emeka'' and another book titled ''The Dogs of War'' which was later converted into a Hollywood blockbuster.

Yet it was only in the late eighties and early nineties that I got to know this man intimately. It was at that time that I approached him to do us the honour of being an Honorary member of the old September Club which was the the leading ''newbreed'' political club and association of that day. Anyone that was anything in those days was a member of that great club and the day that Ojukwu came to address us and have a long discussion with us was indeed a remarkable day. It was a day of revelation and truth and a real eye-opener. We were all thrilled at his eloquence, his passion, his memory for detail and his determination to fight his corner and maintain his cause. I fell in love with him on that day as tears silently came to my eyes when he narrated the plight of the igbo in 1966,1967 and throughout the civil war. I will never forget that day. He inspired us all as he spoke and waived his big white horn (a symbol of his position and authority amongst the igbo) which he held with such tenacity.

Yet it was in the privacy of his Villaska Lodge family home in Lagos, which was located on the then Queens Drive, Ikoyi where he had kindly invited me for tea, that I became utterly enthralled with him. It was almost an obsession. I remember telling him that day that my only ambition in life after leaving Harrow (the famous British public school that I had had the privilage of attending) and Cambridge University was to join the army just as he had done after he left Epsom College and Oxford but that my father simply refused to allow it. I wondered how he had manged to pull it off given the fact that we came from similar backgrounds. He told me that unlike the yoruba the igbo were republican in nature and very independent-minded and that an igbo father could not easily dictate to a son what his career should or should not be. For a brief moment I was overwhelmed and I wished that I had been born an igbo. How different things would have been.

This is the effect that Ojukwu had on me. He was a man that inspired such loyalty and courage by his very prescence. He was a man that risked everything for the lives and liberty of his people. He stood firm when others ran, compromised and did back room deals with their oppresors. He was a great and a proud warrior. A true son of Africa. The strength and pride of the igbo race.

Today I re-echo the beautiful words of King David when he heard about the death of his old adversary King Saul and in a similar way I proclaim - tell it not in the north, tell it not in the south, tell it not in the east and tell it not in the west....''for how are the mighty fallen''. Ojukwu has fallen yet he lives. He is buried, yet what he stood for, the Aburi declaration included, is not buried with him. Those ideals shall live and endure forever and shall be manifested in our lifetime no matter how hard the Nigerian state seeks to deny or resist them. The right to self-determination, the freedom to live in peace with our values and cultural identity unmolested and intact even in a multi-religious and multi-cultural state, the right to be free from genocide, ethnic cleansing, religious persecution and tribal bigotry and oppression and the right to live in a country where all people are equal regardless of their state of origin, religious persuasion or ethnic identity are ideals that Ojukwu symbolised and fought for during the civil war and indeed throughout his life. These values and principles live and are not dead and buried with him.

To Dim Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, whose exemplary life has given me and millions of others in my generation more purpose, strength and determination to continue the struggle than he can possibly imagine, I have only the following to say. You stood firm and fought hard for your people when it mattered the most. Nothing else counts. A product of Epsom College, Oxford University and the illustrious and wealthy Ojukwu family from eastern Nigeria. The father of Biafra. A man of strength, vision and courage. What an extraordinary and noble heritage. We knew your father and your father's father. They also made their mark. They were also great and powerful men. Yet you were the star that eclipsed all stars in the Nigerian firmament. Unlike many of those who have hailed you only in death, you were man enough to stand up and say ''no more'' and ''never again'' when your people were faced with genocide and mass murder. During the civil war the Biafrans fought like great men and lions simply because they were led by a great man and a great lion. We shall continue the fight for liberation where you stopped. The battle has passed to the next generation.

The threats of continous threats of death, destruction, assasination, incarceration, detention, jail, persecution, misrepresentation and the manipulations and activities of the powers that be and the princes and principalities in the highest places in our land cannot stop or intimidate us for ''our weapons are not carnal but are mighty through God in the pulling down of strongholds''. May God bless and protect your precious and gallant soul as you join your ancestors in the great halls of Valhalla where the brave shall live forever. May God watch over your dear wife Bianca and your beautiful children and may your name never be erased from the annals of Nigerian history. Rest in peace, great and proud warrior.

________________FFK, 2012