Last week, armed men in ambush opened fire on Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos, missing him narrowly. Tinubu says he was attacked at 3 a.m. during an inspection of garbage dumps! Now, that is not unusual as governors do strange things. And they should not have to be shot at by anybody. But here is the problem with Bola Tinubu: he is a self-admitted liar and cheat. So, far too many people, even as they sympathize with Tinubu, do not believe his story about inspecting garbage dumps at 3 a.m. What is there to inspect in a garbage dump? The garbage is either there or not. Whatever the garbage situation is, nothing would have changed at 8 a.m. And why would a governor who has a Permanent Secretary, several directors and even a commissioner in charge of the Ministry of Environment take up this sort of assignment at 3 a.m.? The Post Express probably summarized the prevailing skepticism: "What manner of official duty is a governor into by 3 a.m.? Is his wife not complaining about being abandoned in the wee hours of the morning...?"

The paper is out of line and unduly intrusive. Besides, governors in Lagos have been known to work till 3 a.m. before. Granted, none has been known to be inspecting garbage dumps at that time; they are usually home, at all sorts of meetings. There is an interesting subtext, however, to the question of the Post Express: "Governor, we don't believe your story". For good reasons, too. Tinubu is a self-admitted liar and cheat and he may be up to his usual mischief again. His priors stink. For instance, there are very good grounds to believe that Tinubu does not have the basic qualification to run for governor (i.e. he does not possess a high school diploma). He claimed that he attended Government College, Ibadan. But there is no living person who can come forward to substantiate Tinubu's claims: no seniors; no juniors. No teachers. No gardeners. No canteen workers. No principal. Nobody knew Tinubu when he was supposedly at Government College. Everyone who may have known Tinubu is dead. Believe that, and I am Abraham Lincoln.

Of course, the man also lied that he attended the University of Chicago and graduated in a program that does not exist in that University. Later, he said he actually meant the State University of Chicago. Well, that's like saying "You know, I'm sorry I slept with your wife. I mistook her for mine...must be the braids!" All of these were contained in the form Tinubu filled before the electoral commission. After he was exposed, Tinubu claimed that those erroneous information were actually completed by a supporter, Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi. But the Senator himself has a few monkeys on his back. A handwriting analysis of the forms the Senator himself completed to run for office did not jive with the one on the governor's form. And now, we hear that the senator jumped bail in 1989 for an advance fee fraud.

So, it is lies and lies everywhere. And that is why Tinubu is not believed. But he should not have to be shot for that. He ought to be investigated. And exposed. And punished. But that creates another problem. A high court judge has just ruled that Tinubu cannot even be investigated. Nor punished. The high court judge, Wilson Egbo-Egbo, in an astounding misinterpretation of section 308 of the Nigerian constitution, dismissed a suit by social critic/human rights lawyer Gani Fawehinmi asking the court to order the Nigerian police to investigate the allegations of fraud by the governor. Egbo-Egbo ruled that Section 308 implicitly confers immunity against investigation and trial on the governor. But that is nonsensical and an unfortunate misinterpretation of a simple clause. At best, it is beer-parlor ruling.

Section 308(a) states that "No civil or criminal proceedings shall be instituted or continued against a person to whom this section applies during the period of office". Section 308(b) states that such a person so covered "shall not be arrested or imprisoned during the period either in pursuance of the process of any court or otherwise" while Section 308(c) states that "no process of any court requiring or compelling the appearance of a person to whom this section applies, shall be applied for or issued".

Evidently, the intention of this section is to confer immunity on governors against court proceedings, imprisonment or even appearance (in court). Nothing in this section says a lying governor cannot be investigated by the police. The mis-rule by Egbo-Egbo obviously is caused by his confusion of investigation with prosecution. The law of immunity does not (and cannot, in a democratic setting) apply to investigation. And the purpose of investigation is, first and foremost, to ascertain facts, not necessarily to punish transgression. It is totally dangerous to protect a public official with the record of Governor Tinubu from investigation. There is an ironical side to this whole madness. Already, there is a call to investigate the assassination attempt on Tinubu. How can this be done if the principal character-victim is insulated from investigation? What manner of madness is this?

EAS: After the tears and mourning

Truth be told, the EAS crash of May 4 was a testament to our collective disregard for human life and proclivity to cut corners and corrupt good things. For as long as I can remember, our elites who were charged with the responsibility of procuring public goods had consistently put their greed over our safety. Anyone old enough to remember will recall our experience in Lagos with LMTS buses – how some executives went to England to buy us old, disused buses and passed them on as brand new. Of course, it did not take long before those buses began to break down, littering our streets. But what did the executives care? They had already made some money off those transactions.

An American friend of mine put it succinctly the other day. He said if Americans were treated half as bad as Nigerian were – broken-down infrastructure, telephones that won’t work, electricity that’s erratic – then politicians would dare not ask to be voted for. Not us Nigerians. We don’t hold our leaders accountable for their criminal deeds; infact we love them more for it; we salute them more; we patronize them more. Ours is the only country where ex-convicts abroad run successfully for office at home.

We can act surprised all we want and fly our flags permanently at half mast, but, at some point we will have to admit the painful truth: EAS had it coming and, unfortunately, it will happen again if we do nothing after the tears and mourning.

The President has ordered an investigation into the cause of the accident, but who will carry out the investigation? Do we have confidence in them? Will they not be the same crop of damaged Nigerians who had grown up in our “management culture”, the culture that tolerates a “temporary” use of substandard equipment in the absence of a genuine one without regards to the effect on human life. Will these not be the “na the same thing experts” to whom a Cessna part works just as well as a BAC 111 and a Peugeot air conditioning system works just as well in a plane if you have a good “re-wire” who could bypass this cable and that cord?

According to some account, the BAC 111 has crashed at least seven times since 1989: Okada in Port Harcourt on September 1, 1989 and Sokoto on June 26, 1991, Kabo in Port Harcourt on September 16, 1991 and Sokoto on August 23, 1992, Hold Trade in Kaduna on August 29, 1992, ADC in Calabar on July 29 and EAS in Kano on May 4, 2002. Hundreds of lives were lost and, till today, nobody knows specifically why the plane crashed. In our peculiar ways, we buried our dead and chalked it up to God’s will.

In a country where life is respected, a regulatory authority would have immediately ordered in 1989 that all BAC 111 aircraft be grounded until we knew what caused the first crash and how it could be prevented. That’s what’s done in every sane country where the elites do not measure their own level of comfort by how many good people are deprived basic things. According to a research by Bolaji Aluko, my friend and Chairman of Chemical Engineering at Howard University, the first batch of BAC 111first flew in 1963. The “newest” BAC 111 was manufactured in 1982 when production was halted. So, we are talking of some old birds here and Nigeria probably has a big chunk of the 245 BAC 111 manufactured since 1963. Why is it we still do not know why those planes fell off the sky? And who says we will know this time around? And let us say some authority orders all BAC111 grounded, how long would it take for some “big man” to secure an exemption? Ten minutes, maybe? Do we not have engineers who certify substandard buildings once you offer them a bribe?

Personally, I think anyone who travels by air in Nigeria today is playing Russian roulette with his life. Haven’t the President and his deputy had their close brush on Nigerian planes? A Kabo plane that former governor of Lagos, Gen. Marwa was taking to Abuja once had a flat tire on take-off. The spare tire, we were told, was in Paris! I took this Nigeria Airways flight in 1996 from Abuja to Lagos and almost had a heart attack. The plane looked like it had been worked upon by a few panel beaters. The engine sounded like that of a giant scooter. On board, many deck lights were out and only the lucky ones had a cushioned armrest. We all perspired like pigs and fanned ourselves with whatever we found. Mid-air, the plane danced palongo all the way to Lagos. When we finally dropped (for that could not be called landing), folks sighed and thanked God. Many spoke loudly about how good Nigerian pilots must be.

Folks, that’s the lie we have been spreading over the years. How good can a pilot be if he agrees to fly a rickety craft, endangering the lives of innocent people? Personally, I think the President over-reacted with all the half-mast, national day of mourning stuff. For goodness sake, we lose hundreds more on the road and to armed robbers every day. Really, that’s not what we need. What we need are laws that make it easier to sue these airlines, possibly into bankruptcy. They will then learn a simple common sense lesson: pay now or pay (and lose everything) later. If you are greedy enough to buy rickety rejects from Russia or the West and then subject them to creative maintenance, then we should be able to sue you for all you have if your plane kills Nigerians.

Fire for Naira (An Open Letter to Tafa Balogun)

Dear Inspector General:

Accept my sympathies on your recent appointment as Nigeria’s number 1 cop. You have inherited a grossly incompetent, untrustworthy and corrupt police force which is suspected by many and despised by all. I listened to your impassioned plea for support and your clarion call to your officers to act better. I am convinced that you are determined to improve the Nigeria Police, but unless you are bold enough to admit that the whole basket is rotten, then you will fail yakata. Like the semen of a eunuch. You must start by asking yourself a few basic questions:

1. Why are your policemen not liked (or trusted) by the people?
2. Why can’t your policemen stop the increasing wave of crime?
3. Is the present crop of officers suitable for the new police force you are trying to build?
4. Have you ever heard anyone say a prayer for any police officer in Nigeria in the last 20 years?
5. Why are people reluctant to report crimes to your police?
6. Why do you men prefer the darkest and remotest parts of the road when they mount their checkpoints?
7. Why are they more visible and aggressive the day after a public holiday?

I believe that honest answers to these questions will form the bedrock of reform. Ironically, they are also the very reason you will most probably fail in this assignment. And God knows, I wish you would succeed.

Let me make a report to you. The day after Easter holiday, a friend of mine who operates a video entertainment business in Ogba was seeing off his friend right in front of his business. Some people who were driving in danfo and who all, but one, were in street clothes spotted them and suddenly stopped the bus. They approached my friend and asked him to identify himself. He did. They asked his friend to do the same, and he did, too. They followed both of them back into my friend’s place of business where some kids were playing video games. Then, the shakedown began. They told my friend he was under arrest because it was possible for those kids to be using drugs! One lady wondered how many children my friend must have kidnapped and whether the kids’ parents knew they were playing video games. The only one in uniform and who carried a gun had removed his nametag. “Have you heard of fire for fire?” he asked my friend. Who hadn’t heard of your brand new policy aimed at fully engaging armed robbers, man for man, fire for fire? But your men have changed the focus of your crusade even before it begins: it is now fire for naira.

They arrested both men and drove them away. Thanks to GSM, my friend was able to make contact with the outside world! Neighbors went to the police station with money. Right there, to secure their freedom, they asked my friend to pay N3,500 and his friend, who had been so bold as to question the illegality that led to their arrest in the first place, was asked to pay N5,000. Neighbors were ready to negotiate but my friend refused bluntly. His business was registered. He had paid all trade fees and he was a law-abiding citizen whom the police ought to protect, not harass and exploit. They were later released without charge (surprise! surprise!).

Next week, I will tell you what I went through trying to locate my friend and why you would need a total overhaul to even make a dent. Let me make a blunt declaration: Your officers, generally, are rude, unfriendly, undertrained, hostile and corrupt. They have very little self-respect and they give non to the people they are supposed to protect. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you can improve the police force by increasing salaries. You ought to take a trip to Addis Ababa, the capital of one of the poorest countries in the world and observe the professionalism of the police. Your men are damaged from within and reform must start from the top.

Fire for Naira (2) Another Letter to Tafa Balogun

Dear Inspector General Balogun:

Some friends who read the first part of my letter to you (published last week) said I had been most unfair to you, a man that has just taken up a tough job and who deserves the benefit of the doubt and a fair expectation of success. Well, I am sorry, but I have run out of benefits and, judging by the dashed hopes of the past, you deserve little.  We are going to judge you harshly. We will pull no punches and we will judge you by the misdeeds of your officers. So, get used to it.

I asked my friends two simple questions: Do you know of one policeman who is not corrupt? Would you put your child’s life in the hands of a Nigerian policeman? The answers I got were in the negative on both counts. So, you see, herein lies the main problem: If we don’t trust your men, why the hell do we need them or even need to acknowledge or respect them?

One of your major problem is that of credibility. You have been part of the decadent police force that you are now asked to revamp. How do you do that? Could it be that you were never aware that your boys have become blatant extortionists? That they have been known to murder danfo drivers who refused to part with 20 naira? Were you not aware of the brazen corruption in most of your police stations where persons wrongly arrested are beaten, humiliated and forced into parting with some money to secure their release?

If you were not, then how could you not have been? And how will you solve these problems?

Mr. Balogun, if you want, I will send you a few miniature cameras, a little bigger than your button. Wear a camera. Mount some on some danfo buses. Wire a few citizens and let them go out for one hour. You will get the concrete evidence of your officers’ corruption, though I have a feeling you probably do not need this; you already know it.

Like millions of Nigerians, I foolishly thought that our police officers would start behaving well once they were paid well; once we promoted deserving officers. So, I supported the recent exercise: the average policeman now earns N20,000 but he keeps preying on innocent citizens. We are wrong; it’s got nothing to do with salaries and I did not know that until I visited Addis Ababa, the capital of one of the poorest nations on earth. Dow Jones reporter, Vincent Nwama and I were returning from the market one day when, ahead of us, we saw a policeman stop an erring driver. Intuitively, we expected the peculiar negotiation that goes on between drivers and policemen in Nigeria, the sort that usually leads to monies changing hand and the offending motorists being released. But we did not. The driver remained behind the wheel as the officer did his job. This is how police work is done. When a motorist starts to jump, beg, plead and the policeman starts to wave some documents in your face, you know exactly what he is telling you: Your papers are not good, but I can look the other way if you motivate me. Most people will succumb and part with 20 naira or so. Or, the armed police officer would quickly get in the car and order that he be driven to the police station where the driver can be more successfully humiliated and stressed into parting with even more money.

Remember the case of my friend who was illegally arrested in front of his work place the day after Easter? It was in a bid to locate him that I visited five of your stations in Ogba and Agege areas. And, just for the heck of it, I added the Police College in Ikeja. The College looks like a bunch of abandoned buildings with plywood windows and ripped nets all over the place. Walls are falling off and ceilings, I’m told, are following in tow. How can you train self-respecting professional law enforcement officers in this sort of place? You can’t and you don’t.

As for the police stations, all of them share some common abnormalities:

• As you enter, you immediately have this feeling that you have entered a dangerous place and in the presence of very bad people; that you need to be very vigilant.
• In all stations but one (Pen Cinema), officers were rude, hostile and looked like hungry predators.
• Officers openly negotiated payoffs with beleaguered families of detainees.
• All the stations were filthy and looked like criminal enterprises.

So, you see, where do you want to start? When will we see you summarily dismiss (and criminally try) corrupt officers? Or are you content, like the Catholic Church, with just transferring them to alternative stations?  Believe me, sir, you will need a revolution to turn things around. You will need to get rid of as many officers as possible. You don’t need all this rot; you need only a few good men and women.

Enron and the Texas Mafia

If you ever doubted that the poor workers at Enron who lost their life savings to the greed of Ken Lay and his tiny cabal were cooked for good, you ought to have listened to White House Press Secretary Ari Fleisher, fielding questions from the White House press corps the other day. Ari said a government which kicked out $15 billion to resuscitate airlines which lost customers after the September 11 attack, would not come to the aide of thousands of hapless employees who were lied to by friends of the president at Enron.

“There are laws in the books to take care of the fallout from Enron,” said Ari.  That means that those poor fellas had better stop dreaming of a September 11-type rescue package. Ari says it isn’t coming. Ari says their money is gone for good, so to speak.

But Ari’s appeal to laws in the books is hollow and sheer sophistry, and he knows it. For, if those laws were any use, why would politicians in Washington be falling over themselves now to change the laws and enact new ones? Happily, nobody is buying Ari Fleisher’s cockamamie, sorry excuse. If the laws can’t help, then politics will; so off to Washington they’ve gone, asking for inquiries here and there. That inquiry was scheduled to begin on Monday. But late Sunday afternoon, Ken Lay changed his mind about appearing before Congress. As I write this, Congressional committees are issuing a subpoena to compel Lay to testify. But his lawyer has refused to accept the subpoena, lying “I don’t know where Ken Lay is.” Even when he is finally served, Mr. Lay can be expected to invoke his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination: he will not say a word and we all will remain in the dark about this rip-off of the century. Last week his wife said he could not wait to tell the whole truth; today Lay says he ain’t talking. God bless America.

 The fact is that far too many influential people in this country subvert the laws using carefully laid-out loopholes that escape most of us who are not looking to cheat. Although Enron has become the poster symbol for corporate greed and the intrinsic evil of the privileged class, it is by no means the only guilty one. But it is still the most audacious: only people who consider themselves untouchable would dare steal all those millions; avoid paying taxes and turn around to ask for White House protection!

Perhaps, Enron was just asking for a little payback for all the millions of dollars it doled out to the campaigns of President Bush, Attorney General Ashcroft, 88 Senators and 177 Representatives. Four weeks ago, the White House admitted that Enron executives contacted senior officials and asked for a little help and that they were denied. But last week, a more important issue sprang up: was the energy policy of this country impacted by the Enron gang? In other words, did the Bush Administration ask armed robbers to design the floor plan of the Treasury? This is not an idle question.

Just before President Clinton left office, he signed a few executive orders, some of which were intended to make it virtually impossible for rogue corporations to continue to hide revenues in tax-sheltered countries, notably the Cayman Islands. Using thousands of subsidiaries worldwide, Enron had salted away billions of dollars in this manner paying no tax. As soon as President George Bush took over, the executive order that targets those rogue corporations was set aside for two years, enough time for Enron’s executives to cover their tracks and move their money around. So, we’d like to know: Was this action as a result of a direct request by Enron executives when Vice President Dick Cheney contacted them while working on an energy plan for the country? What other demands did Enron make of Vice President Cheney and were such demands met at the expense of the taxpayers of this country? The answers to these questions may be in the notes from various meetings held by the Vice President’s task force with Enron and others. But Dick Cheney says he’s not telling. He says he will not turn over the notes from the meetings in order to protect the rights of future Vice Presidents to conduct their work in confidence. He says the Congress ought not be bothered with specifics and concentrate instead on the reports that his committee has submitted to Congress. But what is wrong with specifics? Let me tell you what’s wrong. Specifics are the nails that democrats are looking for to hammer President Bush’s political coffin at a time that 81% of Americans like him and approve of his work.

But wait till regular Americans learn of the Texas mafia. It is a small powerful group of (largely) Caucasian men, very wealthy and virtually untouchable. The members sit next to each other during Church services on Sunday; they play golf and attend grand children’s birthday parties as if they are some General Assembly’s special sessions. The Bushes may be the most prominent, but in the future you are going to hear about an innocuous looking 75-year old doctor called John Mendelsohn, who was made a director of Enron, and who served on the audit committee that vetted Arthur Anderson’s phony reports.

This man runs the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and received $92,508 from the Enron Foundation and another $240,250 from the Linda and Ken Lay Family Foundation. Of course, it did not matter that he is an Enron director! A couple of years ago, the senior President Bush raised over $10 million for Dr. Mendelsohn’s Cancer Center during his birthday bash.

If he learned nothing from Ken Lay, Dr. Mendelsohn obviously learned how to bail out of the market before the market crashes. That’s what he did with ImClone, a biotech company that he advises. That company has gone belly up, but not before Mendelsohn cashed out of the sinking boat.  But that is a story for another day.

Enron: Ken Lay’s wife begins whining

 Last Monday, the family of that dirty former CEO of Enron, the bankrupt energy empire, began a spirited defense of their head of household, presidential friend Ken Lay who resigned last week but kept more than $110 million that he had made through various immoral manipulation of stock prices.

Listening to Ken Lay’s wife say her husband was “a good, decent, moral man who will never do any wrong” made my blood boil over. She sobbed, she cooed, she cried and she whined, pleading for understanding and asking us to love her crooked husband was the height of effrontery. Though Ken Lay was the CEO of Enron, Mrs. Lay said he was not told everything he needed to know to save the company and its workers’ retirement funds. Of course, that was a lie. The man knew enough to take his own money and run. This woman has given a new meaning to “white trash” – mean, unfeeling, irresponsible. She truly turned my stomach.

This was the wife of America’s most despicable white-collar con artist, the man who presided over a hollow energy empire like a colossus, lying, deceiving, sweet-talking and conniving. As early as August last year, Ken Lay had known that Enron was in trouble. Yet, on September 23, 2001, he assembled his workers and told them exactly the opposite; urging them to buy more shares and lying that third quarter profits would be phenomenal. Like good employees, they listened and pumped more money into the company. But they were merely painting the titanic in fanciful colors: it was going down with everyone aboard.

Ken Lay and his greedy cabal had the facts and a little wicked plan: they would begin dumping their own shares and hire a corrupt accounting firm, Arthur Anderson, to cook up the books at a fee of $1 million a week. That should fool the employees and investors into buying more shares when prices were falling. So, while Enron was bleeding to death, Anderson gave the company a clean bill of health. In October, Ken Lay sent emails to his employees, swearing to them that Enron’s future had not been rosier. But he had begun to sell off his own shares. When that became known and was going to cause a panick, Ken Lay devised a new system: he began to borrow millions of dollars from his own company and rather than pay back in cash, opted to pay back in stock. We will not know how much he has borrowed in this manner until February, when the law requires him to disclose it. But, he would have quit as CEO, by then, anyway. And it would no longer matter.

This, then, is the man that Mrs. Lay told us is a wonderful guy. Speaking from her $7 million condominium in Houston, Linda Lay whined and whined about how close her family was to bankruptcy and how her family had suffered. Poor Mrs. Lay. What are they going to do now? She said they had exhausted all of the $110 million and were now selling off their property. Three holiday resorts, out of four, in Aspen, Colorado will now be sold. Three mansions in Houston will also be sold. Maybe the private jets will have to be sold, too. And the yachts. And the vacations. Just because we are too thickheaded to appreciate wonderful Ken Lay. Poor Mrs. Lay. Can’t we just leave them alone to enjoy the few millions of dollars her broke family has left in peace? Can’t those employees just swallow their losses and shut the hell up? This Mrs. Lay!

I know of 15,000 former employees of Enron, victims of her husband’s greed and mismanagement, who would like to land a jab or two across Mrs. Lay’s over-pampered lips. Ken Lay ought to write a book on “Pipe Dream: How to steal your worker’s retirement funds”.

The man learned a long time ago how to get away with murder: throw money, a lot of money around. Over time, Enron gave over $800,000 to the campaign of President George Bush and $56,000 to elect Jon Ashcroft, our Attorney General. The company also targeted 88 Senators and 177 Representatives in Washington and gave them various amounts of money. Now, they say they are investigating Enron in Washington, but very few people are speaking too loudly. Far too many politicians have received monies made from over-inflated Enron stocks. If they had any shame left, they would return all that money into a rescue pool for the benefit of workers whose retirement money fizzled out from $1.3 million to $7,000 overnight. Yes, the same people Mrs. Lay would just want to disappear and shut the hell up.

Ethnic jingoists at the Nigerian UN Mission

Since October 7, 2001 when I wrote the SUNDAY TIMES lead story on the stewardship of Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Chief Arthur Mbanefo, and how the stature of our country is negatively affected by his conduct, many officers at the Mission have been treating me as some sort of pariah. Well, not exactly. Many Officers still sneak behind to say “kudos” for giving voice to a heartfelt feeling about their boss. Of course, they do this after making sure the new insidious Mbanefo police are not watching.

The new police are a bunch of incompetent bootlicking sycophants who have suddenly developed a new-found love for the ambassador they really couldn’t stand. They are looking out for officers who would dare read the newspaper report. Or dare make photocopies of the report! Months ago, when the king was dancing naked in the market, these were the same officers who told the king that he looked wonderful; that nudity was bliss. They kept quiet when time-honored protocols were breached. They kept quiet when senior officers were rubbished in the presence of their juniors; and at the lobby of the Nigeria House. They kept quiet when insults were hurled at career diplomats. They looked on as respected world diplomats, whose goodwill we sorely need, keep a distance from Nigeria because our ambassador had blasted them. Things were falling apart, yet they looked on: egging on the ambassador and celebrating many dangerous flaws in judgment and policy direction.

Yet, there is absolutely no reason for this at a time when Nigeria’s democracy is favorably looked upon by the world. There is no reason why foreign diplomats should despise our country and why we should not take the support of many foreign ambassadors for granted at this time when President Obasanjo can’t seem to do anything wrong in the eyes of the world. Look, it was never like this.

A few years ago when Nigeria was truly hated by the world solely because of the dictatorial government of Gen. Abacha, ordinary Nigerians, including me, worked very hard to separate the country from its head of state. We asked the world to consider our contribution to international peacekeeping and the friendliness foisted by our leadership in sports. I know this, first hand because I was the Executive Producer of Nigeria: World Citizen the television documentary which celebrated our role in peacekeeping and which premiere was witnessed at the UN Plaza Hotel by ambassadors from 86 countries, including the representative of the Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. This was during a busy General Assembly session! And the special guest was Tom Ikimi, our foreign minister whom very few of the ambassadors liked. But, they may have hated our head of state or his foreign minister, they did not hate our country! How can we squander away the goodwill in so short a period of time? Why are we now been avoided like the plague by diplomats who used to be our friends?

This is the wrong time to be hated at the UN because Nigeria is running for a spot at the Security Council as a permanent member. And unless members of the Security Council see our ambassador as someone they can relate to, unless they truly see him as a friendly colleague, it would be tough for them to imagine him sitting “permanently” in Council. It’s that simple. That’s why that story was important.

But the ambassador’s goons don’t see it that way. To them, it’s all about ethnicity. I did the story because I am Yoruba and Mbanefo is Igbo. Or I was asked to do the story by Ambasador Gambari. Or I did the story because Ambassador Segun Apata pushed for it. Of course, none of this is true, but do this ethnic jingoists care?

Note that they are not disputing the facts in the story, only that I did not come from the same ethnic group as the ambassador!

Now, let’s rewind a few months back to a story I did about the High Commissioner in England, Prince Bola Ajibola, a certified friend of the President and former Attorney General. In that story, titled “Naked Corruption at the High Commission in London” and published by The Punch and Saturday Times, I wrote about the experience of a Nigerian who refused to pay a bribe in order to obtain a passport. I wrote, inter alia:

“There are two lessons here: The High Commission in London provides a classic evidence that Nigeria (in the sense that we hate and despise ---incompetence, corruption and all) exists outside Nigeria.”

Now, Prince Ajibola, like me is an Owu Prince. He is also a Yoruba. Many of the people who are whining today read that story and called it courageous. Before Prince Ajibola, there was also the first indigenous Chief Justice of Nigeria, Sir. Adetokunbo Ademola. More than 15 years ago, my report exposed his duplicitous role as the Chairman of Siemens in apartheid South Africa at the time that Nigeria was at the forefront of the anti-apartheid struggles. Sir Ademola was Yoruba and from Abeokuta, just like me.

At some point, people have to take responsibility for their actions. Ambassador Mbanefo would not claim that he was appointed Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN solely because he is Igbo. Why is it that fair commentaries on his actions have to be seen in ethnic garbs by his goons? Which is why I say to these social dinosaurs: Go to hell and remain there as build a new Nigeria.

The Lynching of Dapo Sarumi

I have seen many weird things in New York where I live. I have seen a bank robber successfully sue the bank which put an explosive in a wad of currency that the robber had stolen. I have seen, in New Jersey, a teenage father cut off his new born baby with a kitchen knife and fed him to the dog because the baby would not stop crying all night. But I have never seen an instance when a surviving passenger in a fatal accident is blamed for the death of the operator of the vehicle which may have been responsible for the accident in the first place. Until December 26, when the Minister of Integration in Africa, Chief Dapo Sarumi got involved in an accident that claimed the life of his driver, Bennet Nwosu and two other occupants, honeymooners, who were coming back to Lagos from Epe. Reading the needless savage bashing of Reuben Abati of The Guardian, you would think Dapo Sarumi was a psychopathic hit and run driver who left the scene of a homicidal accident. Really, what did the Minister do wrong? That he did not die in the accident? That he lost his driver? That he is a Minister? That he would like to be Governor? What did he do wrong?

 I like Reuben Abati, but even a nice columnist can sometime misfire and this is one such instance. You would think that Sarumi married the lady who had shunned Abati years ago, when he was a struggling student. You would think whenever Reuben wakes up in cold sweat after a scary nightmare, the picture on his wall, smiling wickedly, is Dapo Sarumi. Reuben wants the President to fire Sarumi? Why? For not dying in an accident?

I confess that I allowed myself to be briefly poisoned by Reuben. Beyond Abati, I also swallowed the emotive stories in the press: that Sarumi’s crazy driver ran into the car of this nice newly weds who were just returning from their honeymoon. That Sarumi callously left a pregnant woman to die at the scene. For me, as it was the case with most reasonable people, that was the truth. Because the victim’s parents said so.  Who would dare question the story of a bereaved father, who, though was not an eye witness, was faced with one simple objective reality: a pregnant daughter and her husband had died. And that was sufficiently bad. But were the circumstances of their death correctly relayed?

I tracked Chief Dapo Sarumi down in the United States where he is undergoing medical checkup because I wanted to hear the story from an eyewitness. After talking to him for 45 minutes, I now believe that in the post-accident cacophony, truth may have been sacrificed on the alter of passion and emotion. Yet, we must know the truth. Even if the truth fails to set us free, it may loosen the chain of ignorance and confusion that binds us one notch.

“Chief,” I said, not hiding my anger, “how could you leave those people to die after hitting them?” That was classic Abati. Suddenly I realized that I, like my friend Reuben, was also jumping to conclusion. I ranted on for about 90 seconds as the Minister kept quiet. At some point, I almost thought he had left me on the phone. And he would have been right to do so. For God’s sake, this man had just escaped death and I seemed to be questioning why he was alive.

Then, the minister spoke. And I think he told the truth. I think there is ample evidence that we may have jumped to conclusion; that we have joined in the slow lynching of an innocent man, who neither drove the car that was involved in the accident, nor did any of the things we allege.

Sarumi said he was, in a three-car convoy, headed for Epe. As is usually the case with cabinet ministers, he had a lead car in front, followed by his staff car and a backup car. “The Honda Accord hit my car first, which was in the middle, before it hit my back up car. It hit us at the driver’s side with such an impact that the door of my staff car completely fell out. Please, don’t take my word for it. Look at the photographs.”

At this time, I started thinking. If Sarumi’s car truly hit the Honda Accord as we have been told, why was the point of impact NOT the “front end”? Why are we not talking about a head-on-collision? More significantly, why is it that it was Sarumi’s car that was hit on the driver’s side, killing the driver? OK, so you say maybe it was one of the cars in Sarumi’s convoy that ran into the minister’s car. But how can this be? Did the lead car suddenly make a 360 degree turn while in motion? If so, why was the car’s front end not damaged? Did the backup car suddenly decide to overtake Sarumi’s car, hitting the Minister’s car? Why would he do that when its permanent role is to remain behind Sarumi’s car? It just does not make sense. Fair minded people should look at this matter again. Examine the point of impact. Examine the paint that rubbed off on Sarumi’s car.  Ask yourself how a car that was heading to Lagos suddenly found itself on the Epe-bound lane where Sarumi’s convoy was? They will end with the only sensible conclusion. Somebody  ran into the minister. And it was not the lead car (which was not involved in the accident.) It was not the back-up car because, even in the worst case, could only have side-swiped the car.

But then, so what? Who cares about who is wrong or right? Have we not just lost three citizens and a baby in the making in an unfortunate accident? So, why would Sarumi not immediately help the victims in the car that just hit him? At this point, I heard the minister beckon on someone – I think someone called Elizabeth – for his medications. His voice became heavy and emotional.

“The most painful aspect of this episode is the attempt to paint me as a heartless animal. I am a father and I have a mother who I, only hours earlier, had had lunch with. I know how the parents of the deceased must feel because we are not supposed to bury our children. Keep in mind that I had just been saved by the Almighty in an accident that I lost my dear Bennet, who was not a careless driver; who did not ask for the fate that befell him. Immediately, I instructed my lead car, which was not damaged to take the victims to the hospital. Maybe, I should have specified that I meant ALL victims. But, for God’s sake, I had just been involved in an accident that could have claimed my life? Could I have thought of everything at that instance? I started walking on foot towards Epe, when a good Samaritan, who recognized me stopped and gave me a ride to Epe. In Epe, I summoned the DPO and alerted him to the accident. The DPO immediately led a rescue team to the scene of the accident while I arranged for surgery for my staff and Personal Assistant.”

Call me crazy, but this makes absolute sense to me. How many of us would have our faculties intact after walking away from a fatal accident? How many of us would think to start making condolence calls? What if the collision had caused him to behave in a manner that we, who had not just escaped death, would find weird? Does that make Sarumi a callous, heartless man? How do we make the leap from a passenger-victim to that of a murderer?

Now, how about the rumour that alcohol may have been involved in the mishap since a bottle of Thunderball liquor was found in the Honda Accord. I asked Sarumi and almost regretted asking him. I should have known that the fact that liquor was found in the car does not mean the driver was drunk or that alcohol was responsible. He now sounded angry: “Look, whatever was involved, we have lost three fine citizens. And that is the unfortunate fact right now. It is the only important thing right now.”

Maybe so. But we still need the whole truth. Let’s test the alcohol content in the blood of ALL the victims. Let’s have a full investigation. Maybe the culprit is the road. Maybe the Ministry of Transportation is liable. Maybe the Local Government Council is guilty. Let’s lay it all out. Maybe a good can yet come out of this tragedy.

Horror mars Martin Luther King’s Birthday

            On January 15, a day when Americans usually mark the birth of the Civil Rights leader, a crazy teenage boy who police say rarely shows up for school had a different idea for celebration: he sneaked a loaded gun into the Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Manhattan, New York and shot two kids – Andre Wilkins , 15, in the shoulder and Andrel Napper, 17 in the lower back. Both students are receiving medical treatment and are reported to be in stable conditions.

            Police say the incident occurred around 2 pm in a crowded hallway  when students were switching classes.  The crazy boy pulled out a .380 caliber automatic gun and shot the two students. Then, he hastily dropped the gun and disappeared. They are still looking for him.

            Folks visiting from Nigeria might mistake the Martin Luther School Jr. High School for some crowded airport at the wake of a terrorist attack. It has 2000 students, many of who show up in class just to pinpoint their next victims; someone they would like to stab or shoot at some point in the future. In 1995, it was ranked the most violent high school in Manhattan by the Board of Education which had been planning to split the school into two manageable sizes. About 23% of its students pass the math and English regents exams and students’ suspension rates are 60% higher than at comparable schools. This, really, is one huge zoo in Manhattan.

 In the morning, students are made to walk through a metal detector; their bags are thoroughly searched and their trousers patted down. Just like they do at New York airports for fear of terrorists. But students say metal detectors are one huge joke. They say outsiders can find ways of sneaking in knives and guns around the metal detectors or through unguarded side and rear doors. The school is generally associated with violent gang activities, sex scandals and teachers have been known to join students in rebelling against the school principal. As schools go, Martin Luther King is a laughable excuse. Unlike the man after whom it is named.

In 1995, a 45-year old school aide was caught having sex with a student in a broom closet. Two years later, six male students forced a 13-year old girl to perform sex acts as part of an initiation into the Bloods gang. In 1999, a male teacher was accused of having sex with three female students and paying for an abortion for one of them with his Visa card. And last year, a teenage girl was injured when a shoving match outside the school erupted in gunfire. Another girl fleeing the scene was knocked down by a bus. Last October, the security dean could take no more of the madness and he resigned.

Usually, when many Nigerians who appear stranded in this country gather together, an event such as the gunfire at Martin Luther King Jr. High School offers itself as another reason why we badly want to leave this place as fast as we can or send our children to schools far away somewhere, anywhere, where students get revenge by beating the other fella in classwork. It is no longer sufficient to just train your child better; it is not sufficient to tell your child to walk away from arguments and fights. Because somewhere in the United States today, there is always a damaged kid willing to settle a score with gun. And there is a good chance that the innocent will be caught in the crossfire.

Which is why these days, American schools are fortified, not only with books seldom read, but sophisticated X-ray equipment and metal detectors. Today, more than half of New York’s high schools have metal detectors and dozens of security personnel, watching and frisking kids. But determined students still find a way to bring in a weapon: It is the only way they know to settle score with a girl who rejected a romantic proposal or a fellow students who dared return the smile of a prized girlfriend. 

Ige and the sowers of the whirlwind

At the United Nations this morning, colleagues were snickering again about Nigeria’s gradual descent into the abyss the way many spoke that morning when Pope John Paul was murdered by corrupt Cardinals in the name of God. They asked “How could this happen?”, but what they were really asking is “What manner of animals are you people?” It is not a wrong question in Nigeria today in the wake of the senseless assassination of our Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige in his bedroom.  This was the way the Colombian drug cartel targeted key Ministers for assassination: attorneys general, judges, anti-drug activists, all were methodically eliminated because they stood in the cartel’s way of making money and dispensing death. As despicable as those assassinations were, they were understandable: the drug lords killed theirs victims over money, the way an animal kills for food. The killers of Chief Ige have injected a whirlwind into our politics and the hurricane may yet swallow and destroy us. They have killed a god.

 I first met Chief Ige in 1978 as a student at the University of Ibadan. He was a man who wanted to be governor of Oyo State and who needed our help in campaigning; we were the rambunctious pack, who believed in Awolowo and who had a lot of influence with the market women in Gbagi-Dugbe: those women listened to us not because we made sense to them, but because they had faith in the strength of our passion. I saw Chief Ige 23 years later, three weeks ago, in New York. He was in town to lobby for election onto the International Law Commission and the Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the UN had facilitated a reception which I attended, to the annoyance of Chief Arthur Mbanefo, our embattled Ambassador at the UN. That is a story for another day.

Chief Ige won his election and he was scheduled to join his colleagues at the first meeting sometime in January. Of course, he will not. Because, somehow, we have managed to kill a 71-year old man who ran for President, survived the tyranny of military dictatorships and did absolutely nothing to stop any well-intentioned man from attaining his dreams. Chief Ige challenged without discouraging. And that’s his peculiar way of separating the grain from the chaff. At the New York reception, an aspirant for the governorship of Ekiti State, Sikiru Babalola approached Chief Ige and asked for his blessing and support. Chief Ige took one look at Sikiru and asked : “Why is that you people, whenever you decide to enter into politics, you all want to be governor and president? Why are you not running for Counselor?”. That was Chief Ige’s way of saying : “Persuade me you are up to this task”. The typical hustling aspirant would take an offense and begin to peddle tales of Chief Ige’s supposed lack of encouragement. But those who are motivated by a serious desire to serve would see an opportunity for serious political engagement. Those are the ones who end up forging a useful partnership with the Cicero.

While details are sketchy, we know that Chief Ige arrived from Lagos about 8.30pm with his security details. He was killed less than one hour later by assassins while his security men were having dinner! Reports say the killers ordered Ige’s wife to step out before murdering him with a single bullet to the chest!  Now, this murder is too easy not to solve in a hurry. If for some reason, all of the security officers went for dinner at once, did they leave the gate ajar? How did the killer navigate his/her way to Chief Ige’s bedroom? Had he been there before? And why a single bullet to the chest? Was the killer so sure that one bullet would do the job? How about the obvious fingerprints which had to be all over the place?  It’s not enough to go after the guys who pulled the trigger, we must also apprehend those, who, by their utterances and direct action, encouraged the perpetration of this crime. This should not be the typical shoddy investigation by the Nigerian Police after which this crime is blamed on some hapless armed robber who was on the prowl. The events of the last few years clearly point to many real suspects and they must all be apprehended and investigated. There is a time to leave misfortunes to the slow, sure judgment of God. This is not such a time.

Keyamo Versus Keyamo 

I am writing this from Nigeria where I am coping with failed promises and politicians’ arrogance. Between incessant power failure, illegal police checkpoints where citizens are harassed and extortion carried out at gunpoint and occasional sighting of an overweight buffoon in a Peugeot 406, the official automobile of those we have elected to save us from penury but who have chosen to pursue a narrower mandate: personal oaths against familial poverty.

So it was on the day after Easter Monday when I was engaged in staring, somewhat blankly, at the television, wondering how long it would last before NEPA struck when I saw, on NTA 10, a familiar cantankerous face I had seen days ealier on AIT: this was Festus Keyamo, the brother from hell, yelling, threatening and throwing a finger in the face of whomever dared ask him a question.

“I will expose him as a liar. He has been deceiving Nigerians. I warned Lucky to pipe Omisore. I know because I was his personal assistant. I jotted the initial true statement of Fryo and he did not say more than five sentences…” he yelled.

On the face of it, there is a good reason to listen to Festus Keyamo. He is a solid material witness to all the apparent shenanigans that we are getting accustomed to in this unfortunate country of ours where the very obvious becomes difficult and simple matters become complex. If we are to take him at face value, these are Festus Keyamo’s claims: that he is Lucky Keyamo’s brother; that he was Lucky’s Personal Assistant for five years; that the prime suspect in the assassination of Chief Bola Ige, the self-admitted thug called Fryo, made a statement in his presence; that Fryo did not implicate Omisore or the Presidency in the assassination of Chief Ige; that those charges were originally suggested by Lucky Keyamo as conditions precedent before he could take up Fryo’s case.

Frankly, this young man disgusts me. Even if everything he said about his brother were true and if his intention was to “expose human rights activists” , there is this distasteful maniacal zeal about him which betrays a deep-seated hatred for Lucky Keyamo, the brother who reportedly rehabilitated him and saved him from the certain nothing that he was set to become.  But that was what Daddy Keyamo said about Festus. And he, too, deserves to be believed. Daddy Keyamo said Festus had been the black sheep of the family for some time and that he had been jealous of the more famous attorney, Lucky Keyamo, all along. He said that Festus finally became angry after Lucky refused to pay his way abroad.

Of course, Festus, who has a penchant for murdering the English grammar (“Not once did Fryo told us Omisore killed Chief Ige”) denied every charge by his father. He said he is driven by his conscience and “the need to expose all the fake human rights activists”. Then, as though bitten by some unseen demon, he began to yell again: “He is not the only one o! There is one who says he wants to be governor of Ekiti State (an obvious reference to Femi Falana)”.  Festus said he would be running for political office under the banner of APP, as if that party does not have enough problems. The young man is confusing notoriety for popularity. He forgets we are the people who assailed Prof. Olikoye Kuti for revealing the true cause of his brother’s death. Who would vote for a treacherous person like Festus Keyamo? Can he be trusted with state secrets? What would it take before Festus connives with a rogue nation to destroy Nigeria? A quarrel? A disagreement? Why should we trust this boy?

But then there are two vital documents that Festus has provided which tend to suggest that he may have something outside of his crazed crusade to destroy his brother. On AIT, he produced “Fryo’s diary” which, according to him, Lucky had told the police he did not have. “I sneaked the diary away from Lucky,” he told AIT’s Jika Attoh. Then, on NTA’s “New Dawn”, he presented what I consider a crucial document…if it is authentic. Festus read out a letter that Lucky Keyamo purportedly wrote to Davies, one of the journalists who sent Fryo to the attorney in the first place. The letter suggests that it was, infact, Luck Keyamo who asked Davies to persuade “the man you sent to me to implicate those people I mentioned” in order for him to take the case.

Look what they are doing with Mrs. Abacha!

 The other after brooding for hours over an avalanche of 13-inch high snow and how best to clear my driveway without dying of sudden heart attack, I decided to check my electronic mail on the computer. That is when I saw the letter written to me by our former first lady, Maryam Abacha. Her letter to me must have been ordained by some higher power. Or maybe she simply is in love with me.  As you will see in the letter, reproduced herein unedited and in its entirety, Mrs. Abacha wants me to carry out a transaction which will benefit both of us having stumbled on my name while browsing the internet. So there you have it: Mrs. Abacha can use the Internet! She says she has been locked up by Obasanjo since June 8, 1998 and that she was left with a laptop with which she has decided to write me. Anyway, if Maryam Abacha wrote this trash, mistakes and all, then, I am Gen. Colin Powell.   

Anyway, here goes Madam’s letter:

Dear Sparks of God/Allah’s Light.

 Sorry to bump into your mailbox like this, with nothing else to do

 I decided to browse. When I came across your name, something tells me you could be trusted and may help me to carry out this transaction that will benefit both of us. I then decided to write you immediately.

 I have been in house arrest since the death of my husband on June 08th 1998, the government only left this (lap- top) notebook after confiscating other things for my kids I decided to keep myself busy with my kid lap-top.

Thanks to Allah that I know how to use it. I am not allow to go out  and my calls both in telephone and fax are all censored by the inhuman Republic of Nigeria who has chosen the Abacha’s as his program.

2.

Asalamaleku, I am Hajia Mariam Abacha, widow of the late head of state of Nigeria who was killed under mysterious circumstances on June 08th 1998. My late husband jailed the present President for 15years he spent only five years in jail. He was release after the death of my husband, however he contested for election and became the President with some  arrangement by a click of his.

 Family and myself has been the all in all program of the present regime,all our account both local and international has been frozen together with our assets worldwide. Our business has been grounded two of my sons is in jail for financial crimes as allege by the present government.

My first son died mysteriously in a private jet. I am confused and  have to save this only property of ours, for the little once that is growingup. Many friends and family has deserted us. I was forced to give out my three daughters in marriage for security and protection purposes.

I attached photos and publications in the news regarding my family.

 Can you help me please? The only treasure left with me is these sum  Of  $78million USD in coded form which I want you to invest, and be the  Custodian  of it. It will be moved under diplomatic cover to any tax free or little tax rate country either Belgium the European financial capital or to the Netherlands as you may wish. We could have done this our self but for the restriction and the seizure of our passport and the embargo on  the Abacha’s by the international community, who wants to please the present regime by all means because of Nigerian large oil deposits which they are benefiting from. You will be giving 30% of the total sum please state your terms in your urgent reply to me if you are interested. I urge you to treat this message with absolute confidentiality for my  family sake.

Sincerest divine thanks in anticipated reply many blessing to you and

 yours.

Thanks

 Yours truly

 Hajia Mariam Abacha.

 NB: I will send you the attachment as soon as I receive your reply.

 Of course, it was the usual 419 letter which we are bombarded with in the United States daily. I showed an American friend of mine who started receiving his own 419 letters a week after we returned from Nigeria on a film shoot in 1995. He took one long pause before blurting out: “You know, I feel sorry for her. How terrible it must feel to be that helpless”. He did not recover himself till I yelled “Are you out of your mind? Can’t you see this is just another scam?” The problem with 419 letters is similar to the problem with illicit drug consumption: they flourish because consumers abound. Far too many suckers abound in the world who still believe that a simple thing as supplying your bank information would earn you $10 million!

The exponents of this scam employ what I call the Spaghetti theory. You see, when you slap enough spaghetti against the wall, one of them is bound to stick. 419 scam artists would send hundreds of letters out to fools-in-waiting. Usually, one fool is all it takes. And many abound.

How do we ask investors to come into our country if official-looking letters cannot be believed or taken seriously? At www.nigeriatoday.com, we have taken a more aggressive approach to tackling this problem. Dozens of people worldwide who receive these 419 letters now visit the website daily to post them and render additional information which the FBI finds useful. Studies will be made to identify unique characteristics of these letters with a view to developing profiles of the writers. Then, sting operations will be mounted and arrests made.

So, folks, this is fair warning. If your 419 letter finds it way to the nigeriatoday.com website, then, you’d better start counting your remaining days as a free man or woman. They are coming for you.

 Reactions: yinka@nigeriatoday.com

Today, I have asked my 14-year old son to be my guest. I first brought him to Nigeria as a toddler 12 years ago. Four years ago, during a routine visit, I asked whether he would like to attend high school in Nigeria and he welcomed the idea.  Of course, I warned him that because Nigeria was still developing, things were going to be a bit tougher than he was used to. But I implored him to focus, like a laser beam, on aspects of our culture and education which are incontestably superior and to develop his own network of useful friends. I regret that I could not protect him from the scum that makes up our police force. The experiment began last year…

My Disappointment about Nigeria

By ‘Damola Adeyemi

When I came to Nigeria in 1998 and saw armed soldiers and policemen swarming the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Ikeja, I had thought that since Nigeria was not a democracy and its head of state, Gen. Abubakar was a military dictator, these soldiers and policemen were needed to provide security for the nation. But when I saw them asking for and accepting bribes, I knew that they were corrupt and could not be trusted to secure Nigeria. I was only 10 years old then and I recall the scene at the airport everyday.

Two weeks later, my father and I were going back to the United States and I saw another face of corruption in Nigeria. A man was walking towards the terminal gate at the Murtala Muhammed Airport when one security officer stopped him for questioning. I heard him say something was missing and that he would not be allowed to make the flight. Suddenly, he asked the man to remove the gold chain around his neck. He took the chain from him and permitted him to go. Even me at my young age knew it was wrong. Then came our turn. My father had some traveler’s cheques and his brother’s old expired passport, which he was carrying to Atlanta where my uncle lives. My uncle had called to request that we bring his expired passport as he was having problems applying for a new Nigerian passport.  That same security officer then confronted my father. He told me to go to the terminal while he talked to my father. He may have thought I was older since I was about 5ft 5in tall at the time. No doubt he wanted a bribe or something, but my father said he would rather miss his flight. Soon, another security officer walking by recognized my father and intervened and we were let go.

I also recall a time when my father, uncle, my two cousins, and I were driving somewhere. We had in possession my granny’s old VCR which my father was taking for repairs. We stopped at a store to pick up drinks and we were approached by armed policemen. When they saw the VCR, they asked for a receipt. My dad told them that he did not know he had to carry a receipt for an old VCR. One policeman said he was going to seize the VCR and my father said it would not happen. An argument soon ensued and one of the policemen threatened to shoot my father.

            When I came back to Nigeria last year, I expected everything to be improved because I heard that the new democratic President had made many reforms and that things had changed. When I first arrived at the airport, I saw an improvement from what I saw 3 years. The airport looked much more modernized than before. It looked very clean and efficient like a real airport of international standard. The officials were not corrupt and they all did not look like they were wicked and had cold hearts. Maybe it was because my father’s ID showed him to be a journalist, but we went through the customs speedily without anyone asking my father for money. But since I came to Nigeria 2 weeks after Osama bin Laden and his people struck the United States, it is possible that the security officers at the airport may have been engaged in watching out for terrorists instead of pestering people for money.

            But as the months went on, I read about past reports of brutality by the Nigeria Police. As in the case of 3 officers burning a bus full of people so they could collect the money inside. Luckily two of the passengers escaped and reported them. The 3 officers were sentenced to death by firing squad. I also heard a lot of times that the crime rate among policemen is almost as high as that of the criminals themselves.

            It is a pity that Nigerians are forced to rely on these kinds of people for security. I have to admit that there are a lot less corrupt policemen than there were before, but there are still some that still ask for bribes; they threaten citizens with guns and in some cases shoot them. These people do not deserve to be trusted by Nigerians. I can see why no citizen would run to the Nigerian Police when in trouble. Maybe they are afraid that the policemen they depend on for security maybe criminals themselves. Or maybe the policemen themselves realize that they cannot protect the people with what they have. It is a shame when a country with a population as high as Nigeria’s has a police force that has weapons considerably weaker and less advanced than the average criminal. Something is seriously wrong when bank robbers deliberately attack the special Anti-Bank Robbery Forces because they know their weapons are superior to the police. Because of problems like this, policemen die everyday. And those who do not die prey on the innocent citizens.

As much as I would love to live in Nigeria, closer to my grandma, I am not sure I want to get used to the idea of the police as a criminal as is the case in Nigeria today.

Naked Corruption at the High Commission in London

 (Geneva, Switzerland): If you want to see the principle of extra-territoriality in action, just take a trip to London and dare ask the High Commission for national passport. Maybe you will survive the trip. Maybe someone would not put you in jail. Maybe But you would return to wherever you came from with a sour taste in your mouth. You would leave Fleet Street wondering whether you were really in England and whether these people who are yelling at you and shaking you down are really human beings. Then, you would wonder whether the High Commissioner himself, Prince Bola Ajibola, is aware of the rot upon which he presides. And because you are a Nigerian, given to a little cynicism, you would wonder whether Prince Ajibola really gave a damn. Two weeks ago, Prince Ajibola ordered an investigation into the allegation of corruption, and dozens of memoranda coming in from hapless Nigerians who have had to make several trips to the Consular Section at Fleet Street and paid hundreds of pounds to secure a passport form that should never be paid for.

Three days ago in Geneva, I met one of the victims of the Nigerian High Commission. Mrs. Jobi Makinwa works in Geneva. She needed a new passport for her 17 year old son and had been trying to get one from Switzerland without any success. The popular joke around here is that the Nigerian Embassy in Berne, Switzerland, has not issued a new passport in almost two years. Staffers readily tell you to “Try London”.

So, Jobi thought she would buy a ticket and hop a plane across to London, where she hoped to get a passport. Just to be on the safe side, she brought with her a letter of introduction from a senior foreign affairs officer in Geneva. She thought that should take care of her problems. She thought wrong. Infact, Jobi is still undergoing medical treatment as a result of the abuse she suffered in the hands of mealy-mouthed, hustling, corrupt workers at the Consular Section. Don’t take my word for it. Ask Swissair Officials in London. Ask them to tell you about the Nigerian lady they almost did not fly to Geneva on account of her sickness.

“Your problem begins at the entrance,” Jobi said, “where the Security man has perfected his struts and the art of wasting other people’s time. This man misdirected me purposely to an address that does not exist. He has a standard refrain: ‘There is nobody in the office to attend to you’”

But somehow, Nigeria could not be spending all that money (including a Rolls Royce for Prince Ajibola) if nobody is ever available to do anything. So, Jobi decided to produce the introduction letter she had brought from Geneva, upon which the Security man reluctantly allowed her in.

But her troubles were just beginning. When she got to the window where she was to obtain a form, a crypt, dismissive voice came from a little, unhappy woman who must have confused a simple task of processing passport forms, for some high-tech diplomacy: “No forms. Try next month. I am not promising you o. But just try next month”. That was it. But somehow, forms were surfacing here and there. Someone, who must have seen that Jobi was a JJC then called to teach her the drill. “You see,” the fella said, “many of us here have been coming for more than one year to hear the same excuse. You can always get a form if you offered the hungry looking woman in the cage some money”. But Jobi is a lawyer and would not offer a bribe to get a passport. She thought she would just be patient. But the open space where Nigerians were herded was deathly cold. Although it was winter, our Consular Section did not think Nigerians deserved a heater in the waiting room. Maybe it is deliberate. Maybe that goes into the calculation: make them uncomfortable and they’d do anything to get their passports.

That was how Jobi got sick. And that is why she is still sick till today.

There are two lessons here: The High Commission in London provides a classic evidence that Nigeria (in the sense that we hate and despise ---incompetence, corruption and all) exists outside Nigeria . The second lesson is that Nigerians who live in the United States can now realize how good life really is. The Consulate General in New York is where you walk in and get your passport in 30 minutes to 2 hours. You pay no extra dues; you bribe nobody.

I don’t know what would become of the Commission of Inquiry set up by Prince Ajibola and headed by the Defense Adviser, Maj-Gen Abel Akale. I don’t know whether dogs will eventually eat dogs. But I know this: Victimized Nigerians are taking care of things in their own way. They are taping Consular crimes with hidden devices. And they have resolved to send the tapes directly to the President. Maybe, just maybe, these scumbags would then be fired.

Nigeria House in New York Loses $60,000 monthly from property misuse, Estate Managers say

By Yinka Adeyemi, New York

The Permanent Mission of Nigeria in New York is throwing away $60,000 monthly by not properly utilizing the 22-floor Nigeria House which it oversees, Estate Managers who toured the cash-strapped building at the urging of DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, have concluded.

The pricey property, widely acknowledged by experts as one of the most beautiful in the United Nations area was built in April 1993 on a 100,000 square feet and minutes away from the United Nations headquarters and the famous Trump Towers, where a penthouse was recently advertised for $11.9 million and comparable space attract more than double the rent paid at the Nigeria House.

“For the building to be self-sustaining, you would need to reduce space allocated to nonpaying occupants and rent out more space to those who would pay,”  Roger Percy, the leader of three consulting estate agents said in a report to the DAILY TIMES SATURDAY. 

About 30 per cent of the habitable space in the building is currently leased out to the United Nations, IMF and three private firms for a total rent of $75,000 monthly while maintenance costs of the building stands at $100,000 monthly.

The Permanent Mission and the Consulate General of Nigeria moved into the building on April 7, 1993 and immediately took over 13 floors - the Mission occupies six floors, while the Consulate occupies seven floors.

Dikko Sada, The President of the International Management Resource Corporation (IMRC), which has been managing the building since 1993, concurred with the findings of the DAILY TIMES SATURDAY experts. His company, which oversees the cleaning, engineering and security services in the building, is routinely owed hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Permanent Mission.

 “The financial crisis within Nigeria House is based on the limited income generated by the property in comparison with the cost of maintenance, and we will not get out the crisis unless we take some bold steps” said Mr. Sada.

 Mr. Sada said in order to guarantee the “integrity and high quality” of the building, a minimum of 50% to 60% of the retail space in Nigeria House has to be leased. “If the Permanent Mission and the Consulate General were to pay rent for the space they occupy, they would be paying approximately  $150,000 per month or $1.8 million annually,” he said.

Since these two government agencies are unlikely to pay rent, Mr Sada suggested that they relinquish five floors between them. “The release of 5 floors for leasing would free about 20,000 square feet that could generate about $60,000 per month or $720,000 per annum which would be sufficient to maintain the building,” he said.

The Nigeria House has been hit by a financial crisis which has crippled the maintenance of the building and led to nonpayment of  many essential bills. Less than two years ago, the building was thrown into darkness for three days when engineers who had not received their salaries for two months stayed away from work. Carpets on many of the floors contain year old stains and cleaning of the glass windows which cover the entire building was last done more than a year ago, leaving a dusty overlay on an edifice which, once upon a time, sparkled in the New York sun.

Of course, something has changed

Something funny happened two weeks ago when I arrived Nigeria on a short visit: the SSS did not harass me or take me away or seize my passport or lock me up in a dark room somewhere at the Murtala Muhammed Airport for hours while “awaiting clearance” and finally ordering me to report at 15 Awolowo road, the same place where a lot of people had visited in the past, never to be heard from again. And while I approached the Customs officials at their shabby station, I was not sweaty and did not need to throw a few names around in order to escape extortion. Of course, I saw instances of a shake-down here and there; but they were spotty and not as carefree as they used to be. Customs Officials are now looking scared. That’s good news.

Before now, I always felt apprehension and anger whenever I arrived Nigeria. Somebody would take my passport, look at it intensely then ask the question that always signals trouble. “What paper do you work for?” And I would say “I do syndicated columns for any paper that can pay for it.” On December 6, 1997, my luck ran out. I had arrived from New York with my nine-month old child to cover the elections for my internet-based publication, nigeriatoday.com  and for my son to meet his granny, when some skinny Yoruba guy (and I thought all of them were from the North!) approached me, feigning friendliness. “I have to ask you some questions”, he said. Then, he went over the usual questions that I had gotten accustomed to over the years. You are a journalist? What paper do you write for? When last were you here?. Then, he added a new one, pointing to my little boy: Where is his mother? I told him the mother was home in New York. And you would have thought I peed into this man’s coffee!. He hissed and suddenly looked angry. “Too bad,” he said. “I would have taken you away. But who will take care of the boy?”

Then, I bombarded him with a few questions of mine: Who the hell are you? Why are you holding on to my passport? Take me where? Why? Then I turned to Kenny Ojo, my friend who had come into the arrival hall to help with my luggage and kid: “Tell my mother that this SSS man is taking me somewhere”. I said it loud enough for everyone to hear and look at the agent’s face. Hey, these were the Abacha years and only a fool would take chances. The agent later told me there was an order to intercept me on sight for anti-government activities. And when I argued that there must have been a mistake, the man just said it was unlikely and that he had to detain me until he got clearance. He took me a few flights up stairs at the airport and put me in an unlit room, guarded by a man with terrible underarm odor. Every hour or so, he would come to let me know he was still waiting for clearance from Abuja. And I would sweat some more, swallow hard and start imagining life somewhere in Makurdi without my wife and children.

My problem probably began around 1991 when I launched numerous vociferous attacks on Babangida and many obvious corrupt officials of his time who plundered our economy and turned Nigeria into a hollow zero. While many good people were spellbound by IBB and his antics, calling him Maradona in an adoring manner, I had the nerve to call his tendency for unpredictability a character flaw. I spoke about our missing billons of dollars stashed in European banks. My weapon was the very popular Stranded by Choice, the column I wrote for Nigeria Homenews the flagship London-based paper published by veteran journalist Tunde Fagbenle. I did not spare Ibarahim Tahir when he lied that the fire that gutted the NET building was a mere accident. Because I remembered Tahir’s anger and affirmations about the possible arsonists who set the place on fire as well  as their motivations. I was there, I think with AFP’s Ade Obisesan, and I was proud of Tahir’s determination to fish out the criminals. Until years later in England, when Tahir said something like “Nigerians like to attribute every incident to somebody. Like that NET fire. It was not set by anyone; it was an accident.” And I took on Yakubu Gowon. And even MKO Abiola who was a major financier of our paper. Those were my “anti-government activities” for which I was facing incarceration, maybe death, in the hands of the SSS.

I had the scariest time of life in detention and was relieved when my tormentor asked me to go home, even if I had to report at Awolowo Road the next Monday. Because I too had one or two buttons I could press before Monday. So that I was not locked up for asking about our stolen billions. Or killed over a simple newspaper column. What use, afterall, is a dead columnist? Well, I had an experience I will never forget at Awolowo Road. But while I did not die, I had an appreciation of liberty and how close I was to getting killed. Until June 1998, I was probably the only Nigerian who was carrying around a Security advisory, informing my potential captors that I was indeed harmless and should not be harmed. I have the note till today, and, if I leave for another 200 years, I will treasure the note.

So, when I arrived two weeks ago and was not whisked away, you know something has changed. While we are all impatiently waiting for the return of the good old days, let us not lose sight of the very important changes that have already taken place; changes that would have been unimaginable a couple of years ago! We have gotten rid of two crooked Senate Presidents and a Speaker of the House of Representatives. We have stuck on Gbenga Aluko, like white on rice, over our misappropriated 74 million naira. And those thugs who mount illegal checkpoints are thinking twice before they extort money at gunpoint from motorists. For the first time in our history, a panel investigating human right abuses is unmasking scumbag in our corridors of power. We are learning about how officers in the military summarily ordered the murder of upright citizens. The Oputa Panel remains the strongest evidence that something major has changed in the way we do things. At the end of the day, we should learn who killed MKO, Abacha, Kudi Abiola, Pa Rewane, Dele Giwa and hundreds more unknown citizens. We should also find out, once and for all, those worthless citizens who actively advocated and participated in the processes that have made us the pitiable caricature that we have become. For instance, we should find out how our refineries were killed so that we could order petroleum products from a refinery in Brazil owned by a former Petroleum Minister and a former First Lady. It is important to know these things because these people will soon be back, asking us for our votes so that they can complete our killing and the pillage of our country.

Those who say nothing has changed are not looking deep enough. Of course, there are still thieves in power in many places. But, remember who voted for the thieves? Look in the mirror and you’ll see the voter. That would be wrong because the fact that we are talking loudly about those thieves and tongue-lashing them is the very foundation upon which further changes will spring.

Osoba Vs Adeyemi!

The other day, I turned on the television and caught the Governor of Ogun State lying through his teeth about my brother. I live in the United States and I know politicians have a penchant for bending the truths. But on this day, Segun Osoba made Clinton look like the Pope.

First, a little background and full disclosure. The subject of this story, Prince Dapo Adeyemi is my brother and an elected member of the Ogun State House of Assembly. Last June, my brother decided to jump the sinking ship of AD, which now has two factions: the one that is recognized by INEC is not supported by the party leadership and the faction that the AD leaders love is not recognized by the electoral commission. In politics, that is confusion de facto. The poor candidates like my brother who won elections on AD platforms are now resigned to an uncertain future. They can get stung if they support a faction favored by the party leadership but find that INEC refuses to clear them for election. Yet, if they wisely associate with the faction that INEC recognizes, they face rabid attack from spoilt, overfed party chieftains – closet tyrants from the Abacha era who never saw anything Babangida did that they did not like!

Smart politicians who have spines know when it’s time to move on. That’s what Prince Adeyemi did. But as soon as he decamped to PDP, 17 of his colleagues in AD quickly passed a motion “suspending” him from the party and declaring his seat open. That is clearly an illegal action as even morons know that members cannot oust an elected representative. But this is the state of Osoba and crass dictatorship and illegality are the stock in trade. Old habits die hard.

In the dying days of the Babangida’s administration, you may still remember Osoba’s infamous address to the nation on behalf other Babangida governors: “We, as chief security officers of our respective states, have decided that it is in the national interest for Babangida to remain as President until the year 2000”. Many journalists still remember the story of Osoba as an Executive of Daily Times. According to the story, IBB had telephoned Osoba to complain about some unflattering story published in the newspaper. At his end, Osoba sprang to his legs, at attention, as it were, telephone pressed to the ear. “Order me, General. Order me,” Osoba said into the telephone handset. If IBB had said “Get rid of the reporters”, Osoba would have done it in a New York minute.

So, when on October 3, I saw Osoba addressing the press and trying his old IBB trick of deceits and lies, I thought I’d pay some attention. That’s when I heard him speak about my brother and his illegal expulsion from his seat.

Probably thinking he was speaking to fools, he produced the Nigerian Constitution and lied that the document supported the illegal action of the House of Assembly. He read part of a section and suddenly stopped. But, reporters in the hall also had the same document and someone asked Osoba to read the rest of the paragraph. Suddenly, he got rattled the way a liar does when he’s caught red-handed. What Osoba read out loud stressed the material exemption: if a legislator leaves a party that is already divided and is in disarray, then that legislator shall not forfeit his seat. The Constitution supports my brother and that is the law.

 Fully cornered, Osoba descended into sheer sophistry. First, he said there was no division within AD. Then, he said PDP had more divisions than AD. “Look what PDP governors and their deputies are doing to one other,” Osoba said. Of course, that is a nonsensical analogy and Osoba knows it. The division that is obvious within AD is not manifested in disagreements between governors and deputies or Bola Tinubu and Kofo Bucknor would constitute the sole evidence of confusion within a party. There are two irreconcilable factions within AD; there is no such thing in PDP, simplicita.

Then Osoba told another lie: “He went to court and the court ruled against him and in favor of the House (of Assembly)”. By saying that, he created the impression that the Court had ruled that Prince Adeyemi properly lost his seat and that the House of Assembly was correct in removing him. That was not what happened. The Acting Chief Judge of the State, Judge Somolu, curiously, but not unexpectedly, refused to grant an interim injunction ordering Prince Adeyemi to take his seat pending the determination of the substantive issue. Instead, he asked him to make plans to commence his substantive case. That is a cheap, two-bit, trick some judges play. Justice Somolu knows that the case would never come up for hearing till Prince Adeyemi’s term runs out in about two years. He knows, from experience, that cases like this would take 3-5 years to  complete. So, what better way to deny justice! Infact, the Chief Judge revealed either his bias or a stunted understanding of a simple process when he turned to Prince Adeyemi and asked: “Why did you decamp from AD?” That was a premature question which properly belonged to the substantive stage of the case.

Then, there is another issue. In a sane country, people like Justice Somolu would have excused themselves from the case. He is an appointee of Osoba and he is in an acting capacity. He wants so badly for his appointment to be confirmed and, when Osoba pleases, he will have to forward Somolu’s name to the same members of the House of Assembly which Prince Adeyemi sued. Good judges in this situation would not want the appearance of such impropriety. The Chief Judge acted like one cognizant of the role of Governor Osoba and the votes of House members in  his own future career.

But the god of karma is already biting Osoba. In Abuja, a Senate resolution has barred him from contesting reelection on the ground that he has held the same office twice. And Osoba is not happy about that. He has been ranting and raving: “They can’t do this. They can’t interpret the Constitution. Their job is to make laws. I have not seen anywhere in the world where the Assembly will take a decision to affect only four people. Yada yada yada…” Osoba should simple look through his Office window and he will see,  right under his nose in Oke Mosan, an Assembly that has INTERPRETED the Constitution in order to punish only ONE person. So, the Senate cannot do to Osoba what the Ogun State Assembly (with Osoba’s support and encouragement) did to Adeyemi? Give me a break.  

Pakistani Tenant Takes Nigeria to Court in New York

By Yinka Adeyemi, United Nations Correspondent

Yasmine Wasti, a Pakistani Tenant at the luxurious Nigeria House in New York has taken the country to court for alleged breach of a 5-year lease agreement under which her company, House of Travel, pays $750 monthly rent in a real estate market where comparable space could attract up to $10,000 a month. Until recently, the Mission was unable to charge commercial rent due to its diplomatic status. That situation changed in 1998 when the State Department appoved Nigeria’s application on the basis that it pays taxes on all commercial rents. 

Wasti told the Sunday Times in New York that she had been forced to get an interim order from the courts because Nigerian officials had given her 20 days to vacate the office. The case comes up for hearing at the Supreme Court in New York on January 8 in New York.

“I signed a lease in June of 1997 when there was no tenant in the building and it is in force till May 2003. Now, that they have gotten tenants who are prepared to pay a lot more rent, they want to throw me out” said Wasti. House of Travel shares a floor with IMF, another tenant which is planning to move out at the end of its current lease.

But Mission officials in New York said the ejection notice given Ms Wasti had nothing to do with money. “The fact is that since the September 11 terrorist attack, it has been important to be more sensitive to our security in the building. All manner of people walk into the building under the guise of going to buy tickets from House of Travel. This sort of thing cannot be tolerated in any diplomatic establishment, especially after the terrorist attack,” said a Senior Official who knows the details of the case. He said a Nigeria security firm, Prime Protection, which shares the same floor with Ms. Wasti has been similarly asked to leave for the same reasons. That firm has been working with the estate agents of Nigeria to secure an alternative place.

Ms Wasti’s attorney, Mona Shah says the issue is strictly one of a potential breach of contract. “You cannot claim any diplomatic status when you are charging commercial rent.”. Reminded that her client was not paying a commercial rate because in 1997, the State Department did not clear the building for such, Ms. Shah says “We stand by the lease.”

The Pakistani said she had been visited twice by UN workers who said they had come to survey the office after being told that it was available immediately for rent. The UN occupies three floors and currently pays about $75,000 monthly in rent.

Mission Officials say they have offered to help Ms. Wasti relocate to a comparable alternative office but that she continues to be uncooperative. Ms Wasti told SUNDAY TIMES that the lease only allows for relocation within the building and that she had been relocated once, to pave way for the United Nations. But she also admitted that there was no limit to the number of times she could be relocated.

Dikko Sada, the President of the International Resource Management Corporation, which runs the building says Ms. Wasti’s House of Travel occupies up to 400 rentable square feet. In Manhattan, a square foot is rented for between $30 and $35 a month.

Government lawyers will try to convince Judge Diamond on Tuesday that security consideration was strong enough to cancel the lease.

Pretty Stupid Pageant Girls

The next time this newspaper wants to sponsor the Miss Nigeria pageant, maybe we should publish a little caveat: “Morons need not apply”. Thanks to some of the pretty girls who competed in the last pageant, the world now fully appreciates one conventional wisdom: not only does beauty have a thing to do with common sense; it may even be antithetical to intelligence.

I watched this year’s Miss Nigeria pageant outside of my New York base, away from my unforgiving friends and colleagues at the United Nations who have a penchant for monitoring Nigeria and its daily maladies if only to have a laugh at my expense. A few years ago, when Gen. Babangida colluded with Alhaji Alhaji to appropriate the Aluminum smelting plant to themselves, my friends were the first to throw the Financial Times story at me and ask: “What manner of people are you Nigerians? What will it take to get you to stand up against barefaced corruption?”  When Speaker Na’aba began his global junkets to Trinidad and elsewhere, squandering millions of dollars and mastering the boring art of speaking three words per minute (the perverse mark of a Nigerian “big man”), my friends did not spare me. When ousted Senate President Chuba Okadigbo arranged a lucrative street light contract for himself and Senator Gbenga Aluko sold us cheap personal computers for millions of naira through a company he controls, my friends did not spare me. They laughed and laughed; they snickered and shook their heads. This has been going on for over 15 years and I have grown accustomed to it. Afterall, our reputation for corruption is legendary and time-honored, so much so that CBS’ 60 Minutes dedicated an episode, “Corruption Incorporated”, to our genius. In that episode, the world saw how, within minutes, septuagenarian television reporter, Mike Wallace, obtained an illegal Nigerian passport and a brand new name: Omowale Wallace. We also saw Customs officials demanding illegal payments from the CBS crew and other new arrivals. Happily, some of those officers caught red-handed later committed suicide and those who were too shameless to commit suicide later got fired.

So, you see, while the world has for a long time seen us as a country where corruption reigns, we have never been known as a stupid people. Yet, if you watched those pretty girls who competed in the Miss Nigeria pageant, you would never have known that. I have never seen that many beautiful illiterates on one stage! Hear them:

Question: Name two rivers in Nigeria.

Pageant girl: No idea.

Question: Name two countries which share a border with Nigeria.

Pageant girl: No idea.

Question: What are your hobbies?

Pageant girl: I am not married.

This is real, people, or I would have joined you in laughter, too. I am not making this up and those responses actually came from breathing adult Nigerian girls whose brains have not been surgically removed or manipulated. These are the responses from people who would be Miss Nigeria, people who say they are university students. These are people who would then go on to compound our cycle of shame by daring to represent us in international pageants where they are sure to stand next to bona fide honors students who are aspiring astronauts. If our girls can’t name two rivers in Nigeria, how would they answer questions on global history? What manner of fools are these?

But maybe this is another wake up call for us to appreciate how bad our schools have become. For years, we have looked away as certified retards bribe their ways into our reputable universities, contaminating them and distracting a faculty that is already reluctant and intellectually lazy. Now, the chickens have come home to roost and it will only get worse. In time, many of these pretty dummies will find their way into the national assembly; making laws that will govern us. And, like good Nigerians that we are, we would just shrug our shoulders and thank God for little mercies. We would say: “Afterall, they are not armed robbers.”

STILL RAMBLING ABOUT FLORIDA

Maybe Dick Chenney has every reason to have a heart attack. The Republican Vice Presidential nominee checked himself into the George Washington Hospital about 6 am on November 22, incidentally on the 37^th anniversary of the assassination of President J.F. Kennedy, for chest pain. Dick is the guy Governor George W. Bush had picked for Vice President. And only two weeks ago, he had thought that he would become the Vice President as he and his running mate had won the Presidential election. Until Florida began its magic.

Now, Dick is not a particularly healthy man. He is overweight and not crazy about physical exercise. But he has learned by now to trust his body the same way a pilot learns to trust his instruments; even if his head is telling him something different. Dick has learned to check out every chest pain he experiences having suffered three heart attacks before he was 50 years old. Infact 12 years ago, the man who was Defense Secretary during the Gulf war, had a triple heart by-pass surgery. Yesterday, the man had another one.

Maybe he had every reason to. A few hours earlier, the Supreme Court of Florida had unanimously ordered that the Republican, widely partisan, Secretary of State of Florida should hold certification of ballots result for the very crucial Presidential vote until 5 p.m. tomorrow. Or, if the Office of the Secretary of State decides not to work on Sunday, then the Supreme Court says to announce the winner of Florida at 9 am Monday morning. That means if we are lucky, we may know the next President of the United States on Monday. The ruling, of course, was music to Gore’s ears as it meant that all those funny looking ballots which the counting machine had discountenanced, would now be counted. And Gore would be President. But, somewhere in the Republican State of Texas, the State that assassinated JFK 37 years ago, Governor Bush was saying “In your dreams!”.  He told lawyers to file an appeal in Washington at the Federal Supreme Court charging that the Florida Supreme Court had “over-reached” and had contravened the important principle of separation of powers. In short, that the Supreme Court had legislated!

But Dick is no fool. He has been in Washington too long and knew that the Democrats were at their usual game again. They were going to steal this election the same way they had stolen JFK’s election against another Dick (Richard Nixon) from California. In that election, the Republicans believed that Democrats had stolen the vote in Texas, that pushed JFK over the top in electoral college tallies. And they were about to do it again. Dick Cheney must have told himself: Not on your life! So, he decided to have a small heart attack.

If only he had known what was to happen two hours later in heavily democratic Miami/Dade County, he could have saved his heart attack for a better day. By the order of the State Supreme Court, the Miami/Dade County knew it had three days to recount 700,000 votes. And who needed all that aggravation over a Son of a Bush and the man from Tenessee whose ticket Republicans now call Sore/Loserman Of course Al Gore and Joe Lieberman do not find this funny one bit. Make no mistakes about it, the votes that Al Gore need are solidly in the recount. So, when the County decided not to proceed with the recount afterall, Gore ran quickly back to Court asking it to order a resumption of recount. The court said “Hell, No!”. Gore begins to sweat. Bush begins to smile. And Cheney’s heart begins to heal.

Of course, we here are already fed up with all the mess. It really does not matter who later becomes President, anymore. These two men, have successfully humiliated the United States. Saddam Hussein is laughing. Fidel Castro is chuckling. And India, the world’s largest democracy, is sighing with relief in the knowledge that Indians, afterall, are not alone in electoral confusion and democratic magic. And in Nigeria, you should excuse us if we are not falling off our chairs.  As they say here, “we’ve been there; done that”. We wrote the book on election rigging and the Americans ought to grant some visa to a few Nigerians for training. There is an unwritten rule amongst our politicians: If you must rig an election, do it where you are influential and powerful. So, in an atmosphere of equal opportunity stealing, the best thief wins. And because every one knows what the other person did during the elections, there is a conspiracy of silence. The loser scratches his head and moves on to steal another day.

Hey, why do you think it is impossible for INEC to recall anybody in an election in Nigeria? Because INEC would have to account for every vote cast for the offending politician facing a recall. And INEC cannot do that. Because many of the votes are stolen. Period.    

By the way, I hope those 17 or so INEC officials who came here to observe the American election learned a thing or two. They have, yet again, wasted our money on a senseless exercise. And there was nothing to learn because the student really wrote the book.

The story of Bukola: Dead in Turkey

 Lekan Soetan, New York based Social Worker retuned from a two-week tour of Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece seething with anger and frustration. He had gone in search of the body of Bukola Falaye, his sister in law, who had died while trying to walk through bush paths and mountains to Greece from Turkey in search of a quality life that eluded her in Lagos.

The story of Bukola’s untimely death is, itself, one for the books. She and eight other illegal aliens had found Turkey economically strangulating and decided to migrate to neighbouring Greece, in search of greener pastures. The nine reportedly embarked on the journey on December 8: it was supposed to be a ten-hour trek through the slopes and bushes of Turkey; the same paths that were familiar to hundreds of illegal aliens, who take them daily. Alien smuggling is big business. At $1000 per person, “tour guides” take dozens of people across the border weekly. Bukola group’s guide was another Nigerian called Britico. He is today wanted by police.

Midway through the journey, Bukola began to complain of exhaustion and sickness. Soon, she told her co-travelers that she was unable to move on. Then, decision time: Should they go back with a sick Bukola in their hands or should they forge ahead? It was an easy business decision for Britico: To him, Bukola was just a thousand dollars; nothing more. To the rest in the group, Nigerians, who themselves had gotten tired with subhuman living in Turkey, it was about to become “everyman for himself”. They left her behind in the bush; they left Bukola to die while they proceeded on to Greece.

That Bukola was in Greece was, in itself, testament to the pervasive hopelessness at home. At 32 years old, she was a struggling self-employed fashion designer in Lagos. Business was tough and survival was even tougher. Like many before her, she decided to pack up and leave the country that was slowly strangulating her.

Bukola’s family members say she tried to secure a visa to the United States or Canada or Great Britain without success. At the time she secured a visitor’s visa to Turkey, she was ready for any county but Nigeria; she thought any place would be more bearable than Nigeria. About six months ago, she left the country.

But Turkey proved to be the other side of hell. Soetan said he saw Nigerians living in shacks that would have been unfit for dogs in Nigeria. He said he saw Nigerians scramble for remnants of meat in market dumps. From what he saw, he said it was a miracle that anyone could survive two weeks in Turkey. Bukola had tried for five months before deciding, with her husband, John Akinniyi, to brave the tortuous journey to Greece. Akinniyi said their plan was for him to join Bukola at some later date. It was not to be. Bukola’s body was found in Macedonia by a search party organized by Soetan with the help of  local Turkish police. But it was not that easy, especially when Nigerian officials at the Turkish embassy had refused to assist Soetan in the search for this dead Nigerian citizen.

As soon as he got to Ankara, Soetan said he visited Nigeria’s Ambassador to Turkey, Alhaji Munir who said he was on his way to Nigeria and would not be able to render any assistance. He however asked Soetan to speak to the Consul General , who, instead of tangible assistance, bored Soetan with self-flagellating stories on how bad Nigerians resident in Turkey were.  Soetan said, at the least, he had expected an Embassy welfare officer to assist with language translation or even to join the search party. “Afterall, it is a Nigerian who was dead and these people’s primary function is the welfare of Nigerian citizens, even those who have overstayed their visa in Turkey”. No help came from Nigerian Officials. That’s why Lekan Soetan is angry.

Bukola’s badly decayed body was eventually found, positively identified and buried in the country where she had gone in search of a better life. How many more shall we lose? How many more shall we throw into utter despair by the sheer greed of those whose job it is to make a better society for us?

Terrorists show Americans a new 419 scheme

Many Americans woke up last Tuesday to a news report that the US Senate had knowledge of since 1998 but did nothing about: we have been underwriting the bills incurred by people who are sworn to kill us and attack this democracy. Now, four years later, we are finding out that many nice American manufacturers had been inadvertently sending millions of dollars to people with definite connections to organized terrorist groups; monies that have been used in terrorizing us. It is a simple, neat scam that should make crooked Nigerians who have been bombarding this country with stupid 419 letters green with envy.

As you may know, in this country, one of the ways they make you buy things in the store is the provision of discount coupons which come with many Sunday newspapers. These coupons usually have a savings inducement on them: for example, one may tell you to buy Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and present a coupon that will save you $1 off the original price. The savings add up: many housewives here save a bundle just by presenting coupons at supermarkets’ cash registers. But we are beginning to look at those coupons in a different light. Investigators here say over the years, people with close ties to terrorism illegally redeemed between $100 million and $125 million annual by merely cutting those coupons and submitting them for payment.

Here is how it works: A storeowner simply goes through newspapers and clips dozens of coupons which he crumbles to make them appear old. Then, he scans the bar-coded coupons to register “a sale” of a particular product. To the manufacturers, the scan is a foolproof way of  knowing how fast their products are moving. The storeowner ideally accepts the coupon from a customer and reduces his price by whatever amount is shown on the coupon. But, you see, there is no sale, in reality. There is only a store owner who “buys” from himself, “saves” himself money and, weeks later, gets a cheque in the mail for the total discounted amount he gives himself on behalf of manufacturers of the products he “sells”. That’s how crooked people have been milking the system over the years. A private investigator with the Peregrine Group in Miami, Ben Jacobson, says he’s sure that coupon frauds contributed to the September 11 terrorist attack. Since that date, investigators have uncovered numerous low-risk and high-reward petty crimes including cigarette smuggling and credit card fraud - which funded terrorist operations.

In 1998, Jacobson, who is a former New York City police detective testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on this issue and said he had uncovered a direct link between coupons and the people who turned out to be the perpetrators of the first bomb attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

Jacobson had been hired in 1987 by NCH, the country’s leading Consumer Coupon Clearing House to uncover fraud in the New York area. He said he had thought he would end up reeling in a few crooked storeowners. Instead, he caught Mahmud Abouhalima, the terrorist who is serving 240 years for masterminding the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Abouhalima was the manager of a Brooklyn video store which was the center for processing the coupons and the millions of dollars they brought in. He also found that Omar Abdul Rachman, the blind New Jersey Sheik who is serving a life sentence for his role in that attack, had a coupon operations on the second floor of a mosque in Jersey City. They are not alone.

In 1987, dozens of grocery store owners were caught in a sting operation which resulted in six convictions. The leader of the Florida coupon fraud ring, one Adan Bahour, later claimed in a hidden camera recording that he had ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Former Broward County  Sheriff, Nick Navaro, said he tried to warn law enforcement agencies about the terrorist connection but that no one paid any useful attention.

Recently, it has become even easier to get those coupons on-line. An investigator told the ABC morning show, Good Morning America, that he was able to get 1000 pre-cut coupons worth about $700 for just $5.

Bud Miller, a representative of companies victimized by coupon fraudsters showed how he was able to buy dozens of coupons mailed to his office on the internet auction website, eBay.  With an investment of $10, Miller said he could make $1000 easily. So could any potential terrorist who can use a computer. Monies that will be useful in underwriting the next terrorist attack. The future is rosy for these scams.

Manufacturers will keep offering these coupons in order to give their brands a needed edge in a very competitive market, especially if they believe the loss sustained due to these frauds to be negligible when compared to the benefits. And the FBI does not appear to consider coupon frauds a priority in a country where a crime occurs every few minutes.

Which is why nothing has been done to curb it since the 1998 testimony by Jacobson. Yet, one of the people who heard Jacobson’s testimony was Senator John Ashcroft. Today, he is our Attorney General.

The beginning of another end for Nigeria

As a Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government a few years ago, I correctly predicted the military putsch that ushered in Gen. Sani Abacha and the beginning of the end of Nigeria during a faculty roundtable. Days after the coup came to past, I became a sort of an “expert” who could read social-political dynamics correctly, analyze them and predict one of the biggest undercurrents of underdevelopment in Africa: military coup d’etats. Colleagues wondered how I “knew of” the coup and whether I did not have a hand in it. Others, in typical Ivy-League fashion, read more into it than I was ever prepared for: “If you can do this, to a certain level of certainty,” a colleague said to me, “may be we can construct a scenario that will forestall military coups and bring about development.”

But Nigeria is not usually that complex to understand, if you know where to look. Typically in Nigeria, whenever the seemingly unimaginable begin to happen against a background of intense social dissatisfaction, abject poverty and a total failure of government (reflected in the inability to foster a sense of security and faith in the future), we embark on a descent to a military takeover. It is a pattern that never changes: we become so angry with government and elected representatives that we forget the pains and deprivations of the past. We forget how we got here; how hundreds of innocent people were picked up, jailed and killed; how billions of dollars of our monies took flight.

It is a new season of the unimaginable. A few weeks ago, our attorney general was assassinated in his bedroom by persons who conveniently by-passed/disarmed his security officials. By official accounts, they were not wearing masks and one of them apparently ordered the wife of the attorney general out of the room before they executed her husband with a single shot to the heart. As cut and dry as that case is (with all the eye-witnesses), it remains unsolved till today. Government says it is investigating and the people snicker “We have heard that before”.  Fundamentally, there a clear disconnect between government’s arrogance and the temperament of the governed. Why should a government that has failed in providing basic social amenities expect understanding when it claims to investigate crimes?

Then, another unimaginable. On January 27 on a Sunday evening, ammunitions that had been safely stored at the Ikeja Cantonment since the end of the civil war 32 years ago suddenly began to explode. Thousands, fearing a coup, started fleeing towards the border. Editors and erstwhile civil rights leaders, who have been successfully co-opted into silence in the present decay, ran for cover. The Commander of the Armory worsened situations when he blamed the explosion on a market fire. But it was a Sunday and there was no market fire anywhere near the armory. Then, he blamed the condition of the armory, which, he said, had been ignored for 24 years. But, how can bad buildings detonate bombs?  

The end begins for Moussaoui

For alleged conspirator in the terrorist attack against the United States, Zacarias Moussaoui, today, January 2, 2002 is the beginning of the end. In a 31-page indictment, the United States is set to prove that the Moroccan-French man conspired would have been on one of the planes seized by the hateful scumbags who crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It is circumstantial case but it is winnable.

A few minutes ago, asked to take a plea in a case that is sure to earn him a spot on the death row if found guilty, Zacarias told a Federal judge: “In the name of Allah, I do not have anything to plead. Thank you very much”. Now, that is as stupid as it gets.  That’s not what the 33-year old man told his mother, apparently. Because only last week, his mother was appearing on every television program in the United States with a nice looking photograph of Zacarias before he became damaged. In French, she told anyone who would listen: “My son has told me he is innocent of these charges and I believe my son.” That was an absolute “not guilty” plea, by way of the mother. So, in court today, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema said she was taking that speech as “innocent of all charges”. Zacarias could care less and he remained silent. But one of his lawyers, Frank Dunham, concurred with the judge. So, does Zacarias’ mother. Of course, what mother doesn’t believe her son? If she had her way, she would yank the son away from the jaw of impending death and take him home to Morocco or France, somewhere. The problem is the FBI does not share the mother’s faith in Zacarias.

And maybe when the mother finally hears the evidence against her little sweet boy, she would start thinking differently.

Weeks before that day, Zacarias had been arrested by authorities on immigration charges when he arose suspicions at a flight school in Minnesota. Attorney General John Ashcroft  called Zacarias an active participant, along with the 19 terrorists who killed more than 3000 people. He carried out similar activities as the guys who carried out the acts. Remember the guy who approached a flight school and said he neither wanted to know how to take off or land a plane but merely to steer it? That was Zacarias. After he was arrested, the FBI searched his home and found evidence that Zacarias had been inquiring about crop dusting (with biological weapons) and buying flight deck training videos.

In a classic mother-style, Zacarias’ mother would probably say “So, what? My son likes video games and he wants to be a farmer. That does not prove him guilty”

But there is more in the FBI evidence kitty. In July and August, Zacarias received money from Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, a former room mate of Mohammed Atta who led the attack on the United States and a member of a German terrorist cell. FBI believes that Ramzi was also planning to be on one of the suicide missions.

They also allege that Zacarias was present at the al-Qaida-affiliated Khalden Camp in Afghanistan. By the end of September 2000, he was already in contact with many of the hijackers and discussing his flight lessons, crop-dusting interests and training videos.

Trial has been set for October 14 and jury selection will begin September 30. Defense lawyers would try to find 12 people who either have not heard of the September 11 terrorist attack or who can still give Zacarias the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was only learning flight simulations on videos as a way of relaxing. Maybe he was trying to pursue a PhD in dust-dispersal (he has a Masters degree, afterall, from England). And the money he received from that terrorist in Germany, maybe it was merely a wedding gift from a friend. Maybe he merely has some bad friends. How can that be a crime? Abi?

Here is one little detail Zacarias’ mother may not like to hear. The man faces 6 counts; four of them carry a death sentence and “In the name of Allah” would not cut it with an American jury. Because we all have seen Cardinals murder Pope John Paul in the name of God. And we have seen damaged kids commit suicide in the name of Allah. So, if this man has any facts on his side, he’d better start talking to someone. And pray that he gets 12 jurors who were away to Pluto on September 11 and who have never heard the names Osama bin Laden and Mullar Omar. Stranger things have happened.

The looming danger at Murtala Mohammed Airport

On October 20 at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, I could have carried a dozen knives and machetes aboard Sabena flight 632 to Brusselles without a problem. Forget the plethora of uniformed personnel who mill around, many predatorily. Forget those questions they ask you absentmindedly. Forget the skinny little guys in oversized clothes who pull you out randomly and ask to see your passport: knives are not kept inside passports. At the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos, you could carry an elephant in your pocket onto the plane. And you may never be asked why.

Because we have a national preference for fire fighters rather than preventing fires, I am hoping a disaster would not have to happen before we take security seriously at this airport. Let me tell you about October 20 at the Murtala Mohammed Airport.

The charade begins at the immigration post where one Security Officer checks your name (i.e. the name on your passport) against the names on a monitor concealed under the table. If you are not on the list, he passes you on to the Immigration officer seated next to him. And you are on your way. But that is the first weak link. The name on your passport may not be your true name. Everyone, including CBS’s Mike Wallace knows how easy it is to get a Nigerian passport. Mr. Wallace himself got one within two hours, in his new African name – Michael Omowale Wallace! It could have been Joe Martins or Tony Montana! So what’s the value in checking a name that really does not exist in the first place? Besides, most of the names on the SSS Look-Out list were assembled during the tyrannical years of Babangida and Abacha. They were people like me charged with “anti-government” activities for our anti-military writings. I got the honors in 1991 after I did a column titled “The Babangida Flaw” for the London-based Nigeria Homenews newspaper. Six years later, on December 6, SSS officials finally picked me up on arrival at the airport, seized my passport and ordered me to report at the dreaded Awolowo Road headquarters. Nothing has changed. The SSS officials at the airport are not looking for Osama Bin Laden. Or Muhammad Atef. Or Mustafa Fadhil. Or the Kenyan Ahmed Swedan. Or the Tanzanian Ahmed Ghailani. Their lists contain not these names, but those of people who stood up to IBB.

But there is a weaker link. Every piece of hand luggage is supposed to be put through the x-ray machine and suspicious ones are pinpointed for careful hand-check. That was where I saw the shock of my life. The eagle-eyed lady at the x-ray monitor pinpointed six pieces of luggage, including mine, and motioned to her colleagues to do a hand-check. One man was ahead of me. “What’s that?” the lady who was supposed to hand-check asked? The man answered “Gas Mask” and I looked on in shock as the lady told him: “Safe Journey”.

Next, me. I opened my bag and she saw my portable printer. “What’s that?” I told her it was a printer and that was good enough for her. If I had a time bomb embedded in the printer, was I expected to have told this woman “Oh, there is a little dynamite where the cartridge used to be. As soon as we are 39,000 feet above, I am going to press this thing on my belt that beeped when I walked through the metal detector, but which you ignored, and I am going to blow this thing into pieces”?

As I walked along towards the aircraft gate, the “Gas Mask” guy still ahead, I kept thinking about our delusion of security and wondering whether I was not walking into an ambush. What would a guy be doing with a gas mask aboard a plane? Was he planning to release something gaseous, anthrax, maybe, while saving himself with the mask? We were approaching the final security checkpoint and I foolishly thought someone would raise an eyebrow. You give your passport to the Belgian Station Manager who then sends you to another table where three Nigerian cargo handlers were expected to thoroughly check the luggage. This was the weakest link. One guy fiddled with the zipper on my luggage, found it difficult and simply gave up. “Safe Journey,” he said. Any airline which trusts the security of its aircraft to those people I saw in Nigeria is dancing with disaster. Since the airline would eventually be held liable, it ought to have the right to secure its aircraft with personnel well trained to handle life and death matters.

The gas mask guy was already on the plane. Which was why I asked for a couple of cognac as soon as I settled down and went to sleep.

The President’s self-inflicted problems

The very influential New York Times on Sunday dealt a bad blow on President Obasanjo. On its front page, the paper characterizes the present Administration as “an elected government seen as ineffective, uncaring and dangerously fragile”.  As unfair as the president may believe these characterizations to be, they are fast becoming the way he and his government are perceived in Nigeria and abroad. And it is not important that they are wrong.

This president has done so much as to strut proudly. His privatization program has been largely responsible for the improvement in telecommunications. His anti-corruption crusade, as truncated  as it may be, has led to the indictment of many hitherto untouchable elements in the society. For the first time, ministers who formally saw their appointments as a key to the national treasury are experiencing painful disappointments and the president has made examples of his closest aides: he has fired people like Doyin Okupe and Patrick Dele Cole because of the appearance of impropriety, sending unmistakable signals to folks who are not as close to him. The president has also made the greatest health/development challenge of our time, HIV/AIDS, a cardinal priority. His leadership led to the Abuja Summit, which is the springboard for international action against the dreaded virus. But the greatest success is the reconstruction of international goodwill that Nigeria lost under Gen. Abacha. Businesses and foreign investors no longer see Nigeria as a no-go territory and our embassies abroad are inundated with requests for visas from businesses which would want to get in on the ground floor. How a government that has accomplished so much within a short period of time can be so hated at home and derided abroad is still a perplexing phenomenon. It is a testament to the total absence of a cohesive communication strategy and public relations.

As I wrote sometime ago, the President is caught in a web of logical fallacy: the naïve assumption that good work is sufficient and will eventually shine through. It is not. The popular joke in New York and Washington DC is that the President does not believe that he needs PR people to call attention to his good work; that sincere people worldwide will eventually appreciate his good work. The president is dead wrong. Lies work and damn lies work even better. The way you solve that problem is to attack it head-on by anticipating it and getting the people, the non-politicians, on your side. In the past, the president would irk our gluttonous national assembly by refusing to play along with their graft and greed, and he would deftly leak to Nigerians the reasoning behind his actions. This was how Nigerians got to learn about Speaker Na’aba ‘s multi-million dollar trips to Trinidad and the million naira a month of our money the Speaker spends to feed his damn lions. That was how we learned about Okadigbo ‘s street light contracts and Gbenga Aluko’s $6000 computer frauds. That’s how he had the people’s confidence even as the national assembly was whining.

He must go back to that, contextually separating himself from the greedy, rapacious pack of Abuja politicians as he courts his primary audience: the restless, impatient millions of Nigerians. He must focus on making life better for Nigerians and be seen to be doing it. Not tomorrow. Not in the near future. Today! If folks are going to have to endure some tough times, the president should make them partners in the decisions that will impact their lives. The tendency would be for the president to do this through the “elected representatives”. But, as the President himself knows, there is a huge disconnect between the people and the so-called elected representatives who have done little more than amass wealth and learn new ways to slam the door in the faces of their erstwhile confidantes.

So, the president should bypass these people and take his message directly to the masses. But you can’t do this through mere information; you achieve it with strong communication campaigns. The president confuses these two concepts, so he hires very good information people who invariable end up little more than talking heads. They talk and talk and talk until they bore you out of your mind. In the past Doyin Okupe and Co. would watch the president walk into a PR landmine and insultingly explain afterwards “You know the president: he is like that”.  Translation: The president is a loose cannon; he is out of control! And Jerry Gana would attempt to explain why it makes sense for Nigerians, who have not been paid in months, to pay more for petrol and public transportation! Information does not work in this circumstance: who really wants to be informed about pain?

There is a way out. The president should immediately open a 3-man Communication Office whose job it would be to prepare the public, well in advance, for actions, laws, etc, that may adversely impact on their lives. For example, if the president wants to cut fuel subsidies, this team would have started working the fields nine months in advance, measuring the tempo, making the arguments, clarifying policies, considering all options and sincerely involving the masses in the process in a careful, strategic manner. This is how tough policies are embraced by the masses.

Lastly, if the president is in a hole and he’s trying to get out, he must stop digging. He must revert to his pre-Abuja self that some of us know: attentive, caring and courageous. He must listen more and talk less. If his aides cannot insulate him from PR disasters, he should fire them. If his aides have a penchant for misinforming him; they should be dropped immediately. There is nothing as painful as seeing Obasanjo described as ineffective and uncaring as the New York Times did. But he has the power (and responsibility) to change the perception.

Their selective Talibanism

 Those poor fellas in Kano who have developed a sudden admiration for the name Osama should consider adding to their list the name of another wacky teenager: Charles Bishop. Bishop was the 15-year old boy who, last week, flew a Cessna plane into a 42 story building in Tampa, Florida. He left a suicide note in his pocket indicating his support for Osama bin Laden and the knuckleheads who crashed into the World Trade Center. So, these Kano fellas, who have made Osama the most popular name for a new born in that part of Nigeria now have a better sounding combination which signifies confusion and a warped state of mind: Osama Charles Bishop.

But they should not stop there. I would love to see them go all the way.  Let them all wear 24- inch beards which they trim at their peril. Let them be forbidden from taking pictures or keeping the photographs of their living children or grandfathers in their houses. Let them be forbidden from cheering their favorite sport teams at the stadium or be beaten. Let them be forbidden from smiling or laughing in public and be beaten to a pulp if they express any sort of happy emotion publicly. And if their wives wear a little make-up, let them be taken to the stadium and flogged like stray dogs.

That’s not all. Let them be refused medical attention unless approved by some senile eunuch Mullah who they have never met and who does not care a damn about them. Let all the barbers in Kano and all the fellas who make a decent living from clean-shaving beards throw away their clippers, blades and razors. Let all the glittering lights on Kano streets be removed and let men in oversized black and green turbans walk the streets and harass hapless citizens. Let these bullies yank off all transistor radios which took years of savings to buy and let them set them ablaze. And should someone be found in Kano who dares ask someone else to believe in Jesus Christ, let such a person be taken to a public arena and shot in the head after a ten-minute trial. Let them also close every school where worldly distractions like Medicine, Architecture, and Political Science are taught. And like the Taliban, let them withdraw all girls from schools; let them be confined to their homes in purdah or “Kulle” and be dominated shamelessly by dinosaur men who can barely recite the alphabets, even in Arabic .

When these people start doing these things, then we will all know how big their love is for Osama bin Laden, the Talibans and al-Qaeda.

But chances are that these Nigerians love their liberties and their transistor radios and their athletes and they draw a line between pronouncing a skin-deep support for the man who hates the country that most of them would give their right eyes to live in. Which is why they would never opt to move to Taliban’s Afghanistan. Maybe they ought to. So the rest of us can move on with our lives.

Our slain attorney general, Chief Bola Ige was right when he said that many of the crap that leaders get away with, especially in the north, will cease once the citizens are educated and enlightened about their basic human rights. Dr. Haroun Adamu, bona fide Northern leader, former Yale and ABU graduate, agrees with Chief Ige. So, all hope is not lost.

Maybe Haroun ought to send copies of his bold book, The North and Nigerian Unity to Alhaji Abubakar Rimi  and the governor of Zamfara, who has elevated confusion to a political level. In that book, these two men will find a reasoned presentation of intellectual argument on many important tenets of Islam which are frequently misunderstood and always misinterpreted by those who seek to take advantage of the widespread ignorance of their people.

For Haroun, commonsense is the key to understanding many of the verses in the Koran from which many fundamentalists purport to derive authority and justification.  Take the issue of purdah and seclusion of women, for instance. Citing the enabling Surat 33, Dr. Adamu convincingly argues that the requirement to keep women in seclusion is not sanctioned by Islam; rather it is “no more than a code of behavior for the Prophet’s wives to be emulated by other Muslim women.” He concludes: “Thus, physical seclusion of women such as is practiced today in most parts of Northern Nigeria has no place in the religion of Islam.” There are political implications, too: for a long time, before universal adult suffrage, only men voted in the North. And it is one reason the education of girls still takes the back burner.

THEY DIED OF AIDS

I am back in New York, my euphoric abode where I no longer have to worry about NEPA-induced darkness or petrol scarcity or cowardly scumbags who prowl the night harassing already burdened hapless Nigerians. You see, it’s not that we don’t have our share of scumbags around here. But, if you have the nerve to break into somebody’s home when he is there, then you’d better be ready for war. But thieves are essentially cowards; they don’t want wars. They want to come in, do their thing and leave quietly.

Quietly. The way my friend’s cousin died four weeks ago of AIDS in Nigeria. The way millions of Nigerians are dying daily in a country where folks still foolishly indulge in risky, deadly behaviour that will result, sooner or later, in painful, slow death. The way I heard it, it was obvious that my friend’s cousin had contacted HIV a while back. She had all the symptoms; everything plus the ugly skin lesions and the loss of more than 60% of her pre-HIV body weight. But she would not see a doctor. She would not get tested. She probably knew what she was carrying; that her days were numbered. But she did not say a word to her family and friends who could have learned a lesson or two by her fate. She did not tell them she had AIDS. And even when an uncle insisted that she be taken to the hospital, she would not have any of it. Blood test? Hell No! She told her family a bullshit story. She said she had borrowed some money from somebody and had not been able to pay back. So, the person decided to get her back in this manner. But that does not make sense, and the family knew it. Why should a creditor decide to kill the debtor before the debt is paid? Who, then will pay off the debt?

So, rather than seek medical help, she urged her family to take her case to some traditional healers, who of course, saw her predicament as the handiwork of some evil forces which needed to be appeased with, sit down for this, a human life from the family! That was a smart one from these phony people. Now, who would choose to die in other to save another person whose CD4 count would have been so hopelessly low that death was only a matter of time. But it was going to come early. This lady lost one last opportunity to do good; to cause people to alter their behaviour; to save lives.

Two days after I returned to New York, a friend called me to inform that our mutual friend, highly visible at the Nigeria House in New York, had died of AIDS. He lived large, and never got married. Till today, his emaciated body lay in a New York morgue awaiting the kindness of friends who must pool together to ship him back home for burial. Like my friend’s cousin thousands of miles away in Nigeria, my friend in New York did not say a word to anyone about his HIV status. Not to his closest friend. Not to his brother who lives in the Bronx. I saw him about two years ago in Nigeria and was shocked at his condition. Of course, the big mouth that I am, I asked what the hell was wrong and he promptly told me he had diabetes.

Those who saw him a few months ago said he had developed the skin lesions and was a skeleton of his past robustness. I am told that he had a few sexual partners within the Nigerian community; even at the Nigeria House. And you know that these poor girls are scared to death. Maybe if this fella had disclosed his HIV status as soon as he found out, he would have been able to save a few lives. He would have brought the lesson home to many foolish Nigerians who still engage in unprotected sex; people who say “Well, you’ve got to die of something”. These are the foolish, selfish people who have never seen an actual AIDS victim. Because once you see one, you would never need anybody’s pleading to start insisting on a condom. Because if you don’t, you will die. It’s that simple. Romans is dead now

We have lost valuable time in Nigeria to curb this dreaded virus. In 1983, I wrote my first column on AIDS for The Guardian Express at the time we thought AIDS was a problem solely of homosexuals. In 1984, I attended the first International Conference on Virus-related Cancers in Dakar Senegal, along with world authorities including Robert Gallo (who co-discovered AIDS) , Prof. Epstein Barr (after whom a Virus was named) and Prof. Willimans, who at the time headed the OAU Scientific Commission. I remember being so scared to death that, on my return to Nigeria, that I started pressuring the Health Minister Prof. Ransom Kuti and the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research to take this virus seriously. They would not. They said our priority was malaria and the World Health Organisation appeared to agree when its regional office for Africa said Nigeria had only 11 AIDS cases in 1989. Fifteen years later, Prof. Ransom Kuti’s brother, Fela, died of AIDS and the Professor has become an AIDS activist of sort. Better late than never. But almost 6% of our population is now infected because our policy makers dropped the ball. Because of their neglect, many more will suffer; many more will die. And we all know why.

WHAT OBASANJO MUST DO…

Here is the problem with President Obasanjo: he inherited a 40 year old rot, epitomized by totally crumbled infrastructure, official corruption, high unemployment and crime in an environment of despair and hopelessness. Almost nothing was pure anymore. Doctors were deliberately misdiagnosing and/or under-medicating in order to assure that their patient returned to pay another fee which they need to survive. The university system had collapsed and anybody could secure admission into any program for a small fee. In my days at Ibadan, we bragged about almost every program, from Philosophy to Political Science; from Biochemistry to Medicine. We were “best in Africa; best in the world” And we were quick to challenge anyone who went to those substandard American schools to an intellectual duel. My friends, the table has turned. Our schools are the object of international ridicule and many of the graduates we turn out are a monumental embarrassment. It is a wicked cycle: these mediocre graduates are not employable and they bring little value to enterprise. So, they stay unemployed; they remain poor and despondent. Even for students who are exceptional, the lines are getting blurred increasingly. They, too, can’t get jobs. How can? Think all the jobs that can be created with monies stolen and stashed away by selfish, thieving officials. If only we had selfless leaders who are not consumed in their own past encounter with poverty and a resolution to reverse their poverty state (and guarantee a life of luxury for their children). Think all the good that could have been done with all the billions of dollars missing during IBB and Abacha years. What if a fraction of that had been spent to fix our hospitals? Would Adamu Ciroma have to fly to Europe for medical attention? Would Jemibewon have to? What if a fraction of the stolen money had been spent to fix NEPA? Would Cadbury’s Bunmi Oni have to spend 15 million naira monthly to power his production? Think how many more Nigerians Bunmi could hire with a floating additional budget of 15 million naira monthly! It goes on and on. This was the pathetic situation Obasanjo inherited.

His election was a cry for help by Nigerians who had begun to skip a meal here and there in other to survive the next day in a country where almost everyone had become unsure of what tomorrow might bring. The mandate, therefore, was for Obasanjo to return Nigeria to its lost glorious days, the way we were before half-baked morons ran it aground. Nigerians don’t want to have to skip one meal in order to feed their children. They are tired of being harassed by police and armed robbers. They are tired of an ineffectual NEPA and Water Authorities staffed by extortionists. They are tired of being a laughing stock of smaller African countries. That’s why they elected Obasanjo. And, understandably, they do not have 40 years to wait for results. But do we really expect a total reversal in two years? I don’t think Nigerians are that foolish. See? Nigerians are not impatient; they just want to see some signs of a turn-around. What I hear on the streets is “Nothing has changed. We have not seen any changes.” In my business, Public Relations, when your erstwhile supporters are saying this sort of thing, what it really means is “Show me what you have done. Show me why I should keep hope alive.”

In essence, that is what Obasanjo needs to do. He must show, rather than tell. He must pursue policies that are calculated to make life better in the short run, while pursuing loftier goals that have long term, more durable consequences. This is because oppressed people have developed a healthy distrust for officials and only an immediate relief will suffice. All the while, the president must explain policy strictly on the basis of its goodness to human Nigerians. This is more difficult than it sounds because often, we tend to get carried away with the intrinsic goodness of a policy that we expect everyone to readily appreciate that goodness. And we fail to show how it benefits humans. For instance, unless you can show Nigerians why paying more for a product is good for them, then all the fancy  theories about the benefit to the economy become nonsensical. Because to the average Nigerian, the term economy refers to his immediate family unit. So, he is bound to ask Jerry Gana and Doyin Okupe: “How the hell is paying more money good for me?”

So, the president must recapture the massive public support that heralded him into office by carefully clarifying policies and explaining how they are good for us. And he must continue to firmly and deliberately respond to every shred of lies concocted by those who stand to gain from confusion and stagnation. That is how you construct public goodwill and sustain it. And goodwill is what the enemies of the President fear most.

But President Obasanjo is a victim of three fallacies: like many people who embark on good work as the solution to decay, he believes that sustained goodness will eventually overcome the pervasive evil in our society, leaving in its trail, a better and morally sound society. The president also seems to believe that damn lies (especially told about a righteous, well-intentioned man) would be too obvious to be taken seriously by anyone. He also seems to believe that good policy is all that is needed to spring-up a comatose country back to life. Get rid of corruption; lead by example and hope will return to Nigerians.

The president is wrong. Damn lies work. Evil people triumph and good policy usually fails. But there is a way out yet. The President urgently needs a Communication Office which will be charged with the task of showing rather than telling his policy initiatives and actions. This is the Office that will gauge public tempo and pre-test policy initiatives months before they are read in newspapers; long before they fall on Jerry Gana’s plates. It’s job will be the construction (and maintenance of) public goodwill for the President and the Administration so that he is not distracted by mindless diversions which we see often in Abuja. The Office will also pay attention to the content and texture of the president’s various publics. For instance, a good Communication Office would have prevented the embarrassing situation which led to the flogging of a Security Officer by the President in Kogi. And a few other incidences which presidential aides like to glibly explain off as the manifestation of the president’s military background rather than accept their own failure to adequately protect the president. That is why they like to say “But you know the president, now. He is like that!” How dare these people portray the president as some sort of loose cannon. If they know him that well, why are they not protecting him from PR landmines. Or maybe, as the president suspects, many of these people are thinking about their own political future.

The  president is his best salesman. I have seen him field questions in New York from ardent Awoists who only minutes earlier had blamed him for the failure of Awolowo to become the President of Nigeria. Today, those people are some of his most loyal supporters. The president has a way of speaking, even when his mouth is not moving; he inspires anticipation and is capable of grabbing his audience’s attention easily. He is his best salesman. But he needs a branch office, as it were. He urgently needs a Communication Office.

Why we continue to lose at the UN

(UN Headquarters, New York) There is an apparent arrogance in the manner Nigeria sometimes conducts its business at the United Nations today. We take things for granted. We are forever un-prepared and we look unserious about important matters.

On February 26, only a couple of days ago, Nigeria lost another important election into the Monitoring Body of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child affirms the rights of children to special protection, opportunities and facilities for healthy, normal development. The monitoring body, which Nigeria wanted to join would meet regularly to oversee the progress made by countries and make suggestions to governments and the General Assembly on ways to meet the Convention’s objectives.

Of course, I know you are already snickering in disbelief. What nerve would drive Nigeria to even think of running for election into such a body? Were we not only recently indicted by the UNICEF for beating up a rape victim as we allowed the rapists to go free? Did we not recently humiliate a pre-teen boy, who was raped by an adult, by asking the boy to show his anus in court in order that the judges would see for themselves how the rape was carried out? What kind of perverted justice is this? What physical evidence were these people expecting to see that a medical examination could not convey on a piece of paper? Do these people get off on this sort of thing? How about the three year old who was raped by her father who is now on the lam? And the 60-year old Lagos buffoon who impregnated a 10- year old?

Now, it is not that Nigeria is unique in the arena of transgressions. We do not hold the patent on scumbags and social misfits. But our tribulations arise from the fact that we have been unable to protect our children from preventable damage. We have failed to use the law in the defense of our children.  By this failure, we send open signals to closet perverts to come and damage our children some more. Yet, we want to be respected by the international community. We fool ourselves, my friends.

Now, in the best of circumstances, a country without such a questionable track record on children would work harder at all levels to secure the goodwill and support of the international community. The country would send a high level delegation to the UN to aggressively lobby for support. That was what Saudi Arabia did. That was why Nigeria lost and the Saudis won. So, you see, it is not the Sharia law per se. It is the sheer poor taste exhibited by those who see themselves as its custodians. The Saudis have proved that it is possible to adopt Sharia law and not offend public decency; that it is possible to apply a little common sense in the administration of law. Saudi Arabia probably does the same thing Zamfara does. But, when was the last time you saw Saudis strut on account of beating up a rape victim or humiliating a teenage rape victim? They probably still stone adulterers in Saudi Arabia or behead drug traffickers? But you would never know it. Therefore Saudi citizens are not looked upon as animalistic elements of humanity. Nigerian children, overall, probably enjoy better protection than Saudi children. But how do you explain officially sanctioned aberrations which victimize children?

If member states could laugh loud at the effrontery of a country, I think they would have died laughing at Nigeria on that Election Day. The way you laugh at a convicted pedophile who has the nerve to apply for membership of a Babysitters’ club. First, most serious countries which had an interest in running for election had been in the United States a couple of weeks earlier, meeting delegates, hosting dinners, making contact at the highest levels. Even using their economic resources as a tool of bargaining and negotiation. The Saudis have oil and they used it.

Not Nigeria. Our delegation arrived United States on Sunday evening for an election that was to take place on Monday. Don’t blame the delegates, though, as they were unable to secure a visa to the United States on time. Again, that points to the disdain with which our country is treated and which our leaders seem to tolerate. But then, who knows how late we applied for visa? Who knows how late approval was given for the delegates to travel? 

The delegates came to tout the First Lady’s Child Trust Fund and the commitment of our President to children as veritable evidence of our commitment to the right of children. But that is not how this game is played. You have to cure the sore thumb that would make people think you have leprosy. The international community is bound to wonder: So why did bad things happen to your children inspite of the efforts of the President and the first lady’s project?

All that is not important now for two reasons: First, we never learn from our mistakes, anyway, so we never seek to correct them. Besides, for the next four years Qatar, Italy, Thailand, Brazil and Saudi Arabia would monitor how the world treats its children. Maybe we would have scored another first by then: maybe we would have publicly beheaded our first teenager for stealing a candy.

Gov Abubakar Audu and his Lokoja Editors

Lest Governor Abubakar Audu thanks his stars for too long over the sudden overthrow of his case from the front burners (first by Obasanjo’s much awaited, well-expected, declaration to run for re-election; then Tafa Balogun’s experiment with “Fire for Fire” and the fatal crash of the EAS flight), let us return to that chapter in our history when audacity eclipsed greed and the generational faith in the young is, again, destroyed.

Here is the story sequence the way I see it. Sometime just after Abubakar had been elected governor, he most likely made up his mind about appropriating a few million dollars belonging to the people of Kogi. And he was going to do it as creatively as possible. But first, he had to embark on some important state work – like naming every damn building in Kogi after himself. And if the people of Kogi wanted potable water, well, what’s the River Niger there for? They are perfectly free to go to Lokoja and get some!!! Why should they expect bore holes in the first four, make that eight, years of Abubakar’s terrorism in Kogi.  Yes, terrorism. In my books, any elected person who betrays his promises of a better life for his people; who, instead, embarks upon a systematic pilfering of public funds, is a terrorist. And we ought to be as watchful of them as we would terrorists who threaten our way of life.

Abubakar must have thought Nigerians were stupid. What he did was simply modify a system popularized by Okadigbo, the technique called “anticipatory approval”. When it came time to declare his assets, he fraudulently declared that he already had a few houses in the United States. Of course, he did not have any; he merely planned to buy a few, using questionable funds from the coffers of the state he swore to develop. That is what we call anticipatory assets. If this man is what the so-called newbreed has to offer, then, maybe we should resign ourselves to our Hacogen recyclables; those whose frame of reference remains Lord Luggard and some innocuous events from World War II; those fine septuagenarians who add little value to the state of things.

Anyway, the man bought a couple of houses, ostensibly with illegal public funds. And when he was exposed by an American publication, the Kogi governor quickly lied that he had purchased those houses before he became governor of Kogi State. He reminded us that he was a Kogi Prince who was friends with Prince Charles of England. Excuse me, but is Kogi that prosperous that Princes from the state can afford million dollar houses in Maryland? Of course, the Sunday Times knew he was lying and soon presented evidence which showed that the governor acquired those houses only last year! Ostensibly with public funds.

If the man were Japanese, he would have committed suicide the following day. If he were American, he would be in jail right now. But he is a Nigerian and unfortunately in our country such behavior is condoned, even rewarded. The governor knew all he had to do was manipulate public opinion and pray for something huge to divert national attention from him and his betrayal. To achieve the first goal, he invited ten senior editors to Lokoja, many of them managing editors in whose hands the integrity of journalism in Nigeria is entrusted.

These editors knew what was coming; they knew the drill. The governor was going to ask for their help in clearing the air and making him look good again. They were going to be enlisted in a potential war against the Sunday Times. And in return, the governor was going to show his appreciation the Nigerian way. That was why those shameless editors chose to drive to Lokoja to “cover the story”, even when most of them had full time correspondents covering the governor and the State.

On that day in April, the governor doled out 250,000 naira to each of the unethical, greedy editors. But they never thought that their little secrets would be known outside of Lokoja. Didn’t someone say we had an anti-corruption tribunal in Nigeria? Doesn’t the NUJ have a role in this mess? Should someone not ask these Lokoja editors to return the blood money or face exposure and humiliation? And this governor ---is he going to get away with these thefts? Does anyone in Nigeria pay for breaking the law anymore?

The EAS crash gave the governor the diversion he was praying for. But that is over now: we have buried our dead and some French attorneys are getting ready to sue the pants of the Executive Air Services. So, why is the Kogi governor still strutting around?

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