Opinion

Opinion

The unspiritual side of Aso Rock|By : Femi Adesina

Let me begin with two clarifications. Aso Villa is not my home, I am just passing through. Even this world is nobody’s home; we are just birds of passage. So, let nobody turn up his nose in derision, and say; “he’s writing like the landlord of Aso Villa, defending a place where’s he’s just a tenant.”

Yes, nobody is landlord in the Villa, not even rational presidents. They can only live there for maximum of eight years, if Nigerians so decide. And for me, my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels only need to beckon me from Heaven’s open door, and I wouldn’t feel at home in this world anymore.

The second clarification. Let nobody, particularly on social media, begin to insinuate that Femi Adesina is at war with Reuben Abati, his immediate predecessor as presidential spokesman. This piece you are beginning to read is not about Abati as a person; it is about his spiritual ideas and convictions, which I think need some appraisal, as they are rather unspiritual.

Abati and myself have been professional colleagues for almost 30 years; we have a lot of mutual friends, and know how to reach each other when necessary. So, this is not a case of Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman being at war with Goodluck Jonathan’s spokesman. What for?

In his piece in The Guardian of October 14, 2016, Abati wrote under the headline, ‘The spiritual side of Aso Villa.’ What were his conclusions? For the benefit of those who did not read the highly entertaining piece (in fact, there were moments I had my two legs in the air, laughing, as I read), let me do a brief summary.

Call it ‘gospel’ according to Abati, and you would be right: There is some form of witchcraft, which causes occupants of Aso Villa to take weird decisions. Working in the Villa makes you susceptible to some sort of evil influences, because there is something supernatural about power and closeness to it. Some of those who lived or worked in the Villa had something dying under their waists (for the men), while some of the women became merchants of dildo, because they had suffered a special kind of deaths in their homes.

“The ones who did not have such misfortune had one ailment or the other that they had to nurse. From cancer to brain and prostate surgery and whatever, the Villa was a hospital full of agonizing patients,” Abati posited.

Reading the piece through, you would think Aso Villa was nothing but what Godfrey Chaucer called “a thoroughfare of woes.” In fact, Abati submitted that the Villa “should be converted into a spiritual museum and abandoned.” Holy Moses! Jumping Jehoshaphat!

If Aso Villa was such a haunted house, why then do most occupants like to stay put, right from the first tenant, Ibrahim Babangida, who was virtually forced to step aside in August 1993? And why did Goodluck Jonathan, Abati’s principal, spend money in trillions (in different currencies of the world), just to perpetuate himself in a house that consumes its occupants?

Being a literary scholar, Abati would remember the doctor in Macbeth, that work for William Shakespeare, who was detailed to cure Lady Macbeth of the neurosis that afflicted her, after she had been party to the deaths of King Duncan and Banquo, so that her husband would be the king of Scotland.

A spiritually troubled Lady Macbeth sleepwalked every night, trying to wash her hands of the innocent blood that had been shed. The doctor was so fed up with the terrifying atmosphere, that he said to himself:”Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, profit should hardly again draw me here.” Did Abati ever say the same of the Villa, a place where men became women “after something died below their waists?”

We do not have it on record that Abati showed a clean pair of heels, or that he would not have stayed if Dr Jonathan had won re-election, and had asked him to continue in his position as adviser on media. Or was it the case of eternal fascination for the thing that repelled and terrified you? Mysterium tremendum et fascinas, as it is called in Latin.

For me, what Abati did in the October 14 piece was simply a glorification and deification of superstition, something that attempted to elevate works of darkness above the powers of God. The writer merely fed the cravings and propensity of people for the supernatural, in a way that stoked and kindled the kiln of fear, rather than that of faith.

Let’s take the issues one after the other, and look at them against true spiritual principles. Christianity is the one I am most familiar with, and that would be my benchmark.

In Aso Villa, houses were haunted, people were oppressed into taking curious decisions, they fell ill, died, or suffered the losses of loved ones, so Abati claimed. Are such peculiar only to the presidential villa? Should all those who live or work there automatically enjoy immunity from the vicissitudes of life, simply because they walked the corridors of power?

Wasn’t President Umaru Yar’Adua right inside the presidential villa, when he told us on national television: “I am a human being. I can fall sick. I can recover. And I can die.” That was a practical man for you.

Abati unwittingly wants his readers to believe that once you operated in or around Aso Villa, you became a superman. No. You are as mortal as can be. The Holy Bible does not even give us such leeway. “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man…” (1 Cor 10:13).

There are certain things common to man, and they can happen to you wherever you are. At the White House. At 10, Downing Street. Buckingham Palace, Aso Villa. Wherever. “But such as is common to man…” Let no man feed us with the bogey that such things happen because of where you live or operate from. There are some things that are just common to man, and which may happen to you as long as you are on this side of eternity.

I lost my sister in a road crash last year. She was a professor of Dramatic Arts at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife. Abati knew her well, as they both did post-graduate studies at University of Ibadan in the 1980s. Abati was among those who called to condole with me. My sister never visited the Villa in her lifetime. Even if she did, that could never have had anything to do with her death on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

To believe and teach otherwise is to carry superstition to ridiculous level, and venerate the Devil, granting him omnipotence, an attribute that belongs to God only. For the Devil, doing evil is full-time business, and whether you had anything to do with Aso Villa or not, he continued with his pernicious acts. Does that then suggest that mankind is helpless before evil? No. God still has ultimate powers. He can spare you “as a father spares the son that serves him.” (Malachi 3:17).

If you are under the pavilion of God, sleep, wake and operate daily in Aso Villa, you are covered, no matter the evil that lurks around, if any. There is a better covenant established on greater promises, and that is the canopy under which you should function. God can spare you from all evils, and if He permits any other thing, it is “such as is common to man,” and not because of Aso Villa.

If houses catch fire in the Villa, how many conflagrations occur in other parts of the city? If some men in the Villa suffered erectile dysfunction in Abati’s time, doesn’t the Journal of Sexual Medicine tell us that about 20 million American men have something that has died under their waists? It is one thing that became prevalent in the last two to three decades, due to modern lifestyle. Causes range from age, to stress, depression, anxiety, alcohol, medication, and several others.

Even, a study showed that watching too much television kills something under the waist. So why does Abati make it seem as if it is a copyright of Aso Villa?

Now, another clarification. Don’t I believe in demonic infestation and manifestation? I sure do. I wouldn’t be a student of the Holy Bible if I don’t. Jesus talked of the man who got delivered from demonic possession, and because that man did not yield himself to a better influence, the evil spirit that inhabited him came back with seven more powerful spirits, and the end of the man was worse than his beginning. Abati wrote of persons in the Villa, “walking upside down, head to the ground.”

Let me share this story I heard over 20 years ago. There was this young Christian who gave scant regards to demons and what they could do. In fact, he almost didn’t believe demons existed. One day, as he walked along the ever busy Broad Street in Lagos, God opened his spiritual eyes. Some people were walking on their heads! And not only that, as they passed by other people, they slapped them with the soles of their feet. If you got so slapped, you developed an affliction, which you would nurse for the rest of your life. Yet, you never knew where it came from.

As the young man saw that vision and got its spiritual explanation, he began to s-c-r-e-a-m. Was that in Aso Villa? “Such as is common to man…” Evil exists everywhere. Trying to source and locate it in Aso Villa is disingenuous. You need God everywhere. In Europe, Asia, America, Oceania, Aso Villa. There is evil everywhere, and we need not make fetish of any place as being more evil infested than other places.

Since Satan got thrown out of Heaven due to his inordinate ambition, evil had resided in the world. “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” (Isaiah 14:12). The Devil lives in the world, but God is never helpless before evil. He will never be. Let the Devil commit suicide if he is not happy about that fact. God rules!

If every principal officer including the President and his wife suffered series of tragedies as Abati claimed, and he himself had breathing problems, and walked with the aid of crutches for months, it was ” such as is common to man” and not necessarily because they were in Aso Villa. But of course, if such people put their hands in evil, possibly to gain some things in power or perpetuate themselves beyond the time heaven granted, then “he who rolls a stone, a stone shall be rolled back to him. He that digs a pit, shall fall into it.” That is what the Good Book says. You can then hardly blame Aso Villa for such payback time, can you?

To avoid getting sucked into what Abati calls “the cloud of evil” that hangs around power, what to do is to hold ephemeral things loosely. Know that they are temporal, and will truly end. Power is one of such things. Will anybody be a permanent landlord at Aso Villa? It would be foolhardy to have such mindset.

A couple of times I’d had some private discussions with President Buhari, and he had lamented the state of the nation, he invariably ended with the statement, “while we are here, we will do our best.” It shows a man who knows that he’s not a permanent landlord at Aso Villa, and can never be. He would use the opportunity he has to do his best for Nigeria, and then move on. That is a good mindset, and a safety valve from getting sucked into “the cloud of evil.”

Daily, I tell myself that I am just passing through Aso Villa. And while there, just like my principal, I will do my best. It could be long, it could be short, depending on God and the man who appointed me, but one day, it would be over, and some other people would come in to do their bit. It is inexorable. The real treasures are laid somewhere beyond the blue.

Abati says we should pray before people pack their things into Aso Villa. I say not just Aso Villa, but everywhere. Pray before you pack into any place, because there are some things “such as is common to man.” It is only God that keeps from such. And He is sovereign in terms of what He prevents, and in what He allows. Ours is to pray, and believe. Prayer works.

“Aso Villa is in urgent need of redemption. I never slept in the apartment they gave me in that Villa for an hour,” wrote Abati. Well, different strokes for different folks. Hear what the Good Book says: “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so he giveth his beloved sleep.”

Here am I. For over one year, I have lived in the house allocated to me at the Villa. I sleep so soundly, I even snore. In fact, I snore so loud that at times, I wake myself up with the sound.

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Opinion

The Demons Of President Goodluck Jonathan | By: Sonala Olumhense

PARIS, FRANCE - DECEMBER 6: Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan arrives for a dinner with the French President as part of the Summit for Peace and Security in Africa at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France on December 6, 2013. (Photo by Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Few articles in print can be as troubling as “The Spiritual Side of Aso Villa,” published by former Nigeria presidential adviser Reuben Abati on October 14.

Mr. Abati’s account portrays the Nigerian seat of power under Mr. Goodluck Jonathan as having being under spiritual bondage, and suggests that performance was impossible.

The situation was so bad under Mr. Jonathan that staff were always falling sick, according to the account.  Men routinely reported they had become impotent, and their wives comforted themselves with sex videos and toys.  Mysterious fires were common in homes of villa staff.

It was so bad that someone warned the writer that he was “coming to the villa using Lux soap, but that most people around the place always bathed in the morning with blood. Goat blood. Ram blood. Whatever animal blood…He said there were persons in the Villa walking upside down…”

A pastor told Abati the villa was full of evil spirits and too much human sacrifice.  Someone always died.  People “lost daughters and sons, brothers and uncles, mothers and fathers…”

Faulty presidential aircraft, one enduring a bird strike in Kenya.  In Norway, a helicopter bearing President Jonathan almost crashing.

Abati, who twice in the article claims not to be superstitious, fields far-reaching conclusions: “When Presidents make mistakes, they are probably victims of a force higher than what we can imagine…When the President makes a speech and he truly means well, the speech is interpreted wrongly by the public…”

His most important one is probably this: “Should I become President of Nigeria tomorrow, I will build a new Presidential Villa: a Villa that will be dedicated to the all-conquering Almighty, and where powers and principalities cannot hold sway…in the United States, Presidents live like normal human beings. In Aso Villa, that is impossible…No Nigerian President should be in spiritual bondage because he belongs to all of us and to nobody.”

That last point seems to be an effort to make Nigerians accept that the squalid picture the writer paints of the Jonathan presidency applies to Muhammadu Buhari, who assumed power famously declaring that he belongs to everybody and to nobody.

Abati’s article’s should have been written in 2011, somewhere between June and November, that first half-year in office when he discovered it was impossible for Mr. Jonathan to succeed.  This is the import of his story.

Since neither he nor any of his so-called troubled colleagues found the strength to quit, his dissertation is laughable, at best.  A lot of Mr. Jonathan’s initiatives were well-received.  He did not run into trouble because they were poor.  The devil, pardon the imagery, was always in his failure to implement.

The Freedom of Information Act, for instance, was one of his early, and celebrated efforts.  But in practice, neither he nor any of his senior officials honoured it.

Similarly, in July 2011, Mr. Jonathan announced an anti-corruption “war,” saying he would begin with a comprehensive audit of the finances of all Federal Government ministries, departments and agencies, with effect from 2007.  For four years thereafter, he never implemented it.

This was not new.  That year, I documented how Mr. Jonathan, in an effort to win the election, bathed every nook and corner of Nigeria with promises. Not only did he fulfil none of them, in November 2014 at the launch of his presidential campaign in Lagos, he lied that he had fulfilled ALL of them.

In February 2015, Abati himself, in response to The Economist’s dismissal of Mr. Jonathan’s re-election hopes, backed that position, claiming Mr. Jonathan had “worked very hard to fulfil all the major promises he made to them on assumption of office.”There is a comprehensive contradiction between the energies Mr. Jonathan and his staff spent in trying to remain in power and the claim that uncontrollable forces was preventing them from exercising that power.

The truth is that power is a strange aphrodisiac which lures the unwary into forgetting that its flip side is responsibility.  Ibrahim Babangida, Aso Rock’s first occupant, didn’t want to leave, neither did its most prominent occupiers so far: Sani Abacha and Olusegun Obasanjo.  Are we to take it that the same gremlins that encouraged them to underperform and to betray also insisted that they must be forced to leave?

Jonathan is known as Nigeria’s luckiest politician.  He virtually sneaked into the presidency, unnoticed.  But by his own admission, even as vice-president, he declared his assets in 2007 only because President Umaru Yar’Adua forced him.

And then he found in his hands presidential power, that is: the opportunity to transform his country forever.  What did Jonathan do with it?

“A colleague called me one day and told me a story about how a decision had been taken in the spiritual realm about the Nigerian government,” Abati writes.  “He talked about the spirit of error, and how every step taken by the administration would appear to the public like an error.”

Error?  Jonathan swore never to declare his assets. He didn’t give a damn. He conferred respectability on stealing.  He granted state pardon to the corruption ex-convict, Dipreye Alamieyeseigha.  He armed the National Security Adviser (NSA) with slush funds. Arrogant and deliberate howlers, obviously but in no wise spiritual.

Jonathan’s embrace of corruption enhanced the decay of our military.  The disaster of Chibok was magnified because the Jonathan government first chose to deny the abduction.  Was that supposed to appear to the public as though it was a wonderful decision misunderstood by the public?

Jonathan was not hampered by extraneous forces, but by a lack of vision, motivation and strength.  He ran a bazaar, not a responsible, responsive outfit.

For example, Doyin Okupe was appointed Special Adviser in 2012 because Abati himself was said to have demonstrated no ability to “defend” the First Lady from critics.  For that position, the former medical doctor explained last July that NSA Dasuki gave him N50m upon his appointment, another N50m in October 2014, and N10million monthly.  To do what, you wonder.

Okupe also said he had a staff of 23, of which about half had at least university graduate degrees.  How did one attack dog multiply so darkly and expensively?

People were sick in Aso Rock?  Sorry o!  But people are sick all over Nigeria, their miseries of diabetes and hypertension and cancer compounded by incompetent and malicious governance.  Unlike Aso Rock, they often lack diagnosis or treatment, and cannot travel to Germany.  Families are dying of hunger, and in road crashes, robberies and kidnappings.

Let us be clear: Bad governance is not a victimless crime.  It is a weapon of mass destruction.  Bad policies are bad policies, such as Buhari not identifying powerful looters and speedily prosecuting them.  Nigeria should not erupt in joy because he is trying to sell only two executive jets instead of at least five.

Leaders should not spend power on themselves and their inner circle, and when it is gone, attribute their failure to people who walked on their heads.  We like to cite the US, while conveniently forgetting that in that country, the licence Nigerian leaders take in Aso Rock would put the president in jail within one week.

And our people have a saying: If the man who slept indoors says he saw a ghost, what should the man who slept outdoors say?

Credit: PUNCH Newspapers

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Opinion

The Room President Buhari Really Needs Now |By : Gimba Kakanda

 
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At first, like every sane Nigerian, I took President Muhammadu Buhari’s response to his wife’s criticism of his government as a joke. And even agreed with Mallam Garba Shehu’s description of it as such on Twitter, that “(President Buhari) was obviously throwing a banter.” But the president’s unnecessary restatement of that misogynistic caricaturing of his wife in a subsequent interview, clarifying that indeed “she belongs in my kitchen, my living room and the other”, was devastating. And this was done as guest of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, a woman who manages a country more prosperous than his and ranks higher than him in the global political equation. Yet that wasn’t a clue to keep his patriarchy to himself.
 
The tragic thing is, what Mrs. Buhari said wasn’t even damaging. It was an explicit praise of the president, which was why I endeavoured to understand her interviews on BBC in Hausa and then in English as a PR stunt developed to exonerate the husband. For what could be a more convenient inference from her claim that the government has been hijacked by strangers and opportunists? I even likened her guts to that of her fictional American counterpart, Mrs. Claire Underwood, reputed for audacious ambition and manipulation of events to secure her husband’s political capital. “House of Cards” fans will get this analogy.
 
For a president serially accused of nepotism and parochialism, Aisha’s interviews, in my initial interpretations, seemed like strategic PR for President Buhari. Her criticism only portrayed him as he once described himself, that he “belongs to everybody…” All the things she said, intended to be a criticism of her husband, only projected a favourable image of the man.
 
For a fact, Aisha wasn’t speaking for me, probably not for anyone outside her circle of partisan elite. She was speaking for those who deserved or expected rewards for supporting Buhari. The hunger addressed in the BBC interview isn’t really that of the masses, but that of a part of the Nigerian elite who aren’t eating as they had anticipated. So, following her logic, democracy is intended to be a grand house party for friends and family of the celebrant – the president.
Shouldn’t this have been explained by the president’s media managers as validation of the man’s famous declaration of belonging to nobody even though he belongs to all? Aisha Buhari’s argument could’ve been valid if she hadn’t based a point on Buhari inviting strangers and opportunists to his government. She painted her husband as naïve, and that his government has been hijacked. Before him was an opportunity to describe her outrage as a misunderstanding of his magnanimity.
Perhaps the president was not disturbed by the media backlash that trailed his initial degrading response to his wife because patriarchy is a way of life in his country, and expressions as his aren’t interpreted as wrong and unacceptable here. We shouldn’t be fooled, millions of us like this male-privileging social order, even if we can’t make the delusion of that grandeur public. Amongst ourselves, and deep within us, there’s a maddening patriarchal tendency obvious in our reactions when we see a car badly driven, a lady living alone, a lady over 30 who is unmarried, a lady heading a big public institution. Like all privileges, men see this patriarchy as birthright, something hard to unlearn. Like that racist who can’t imagine a world of all equal. And it would be foolish to praise the president for publicly shaming us all.
Buhari has goofed by degrading his wife in the eyes of the world, and he should apologise to her. But her outrage over his approach to governance was harmless. There’s nothing wrong with the president of Nigeria appointing citizens he didn’t know, or had never ever met, which seems to frighten his wife the most. That’s a partisan concern, not a national problem. If anything, we should commend the man for refusing to reward only those who supported him as expected by his wife and her ilk. It’s one thing to say Nigeria isn’t functioning as promised by the APC, it’s another to say it’s so as a result of existence of “strangers” and “opportunists” in the government.
As we await the next episode of the first family’s rumble, the president needs a retreat to reflect deeply on the legacy he intends to leave behind, and the impact of this politically incorrect example he advertised in his reaction to his wife. Buhari used to be a flawless model to some partisans, and their intellectual allies could have written the story of his struggles and named it “The Best President Nigeria Never Had” if he had lost the 2015 Presidential Elections.
 
Today, he’s falling down the popularity bar, and the speed with which this is happening is the only motivation he needs to sit up. It’s likely he may not have company in the “other room” soon, so what he really needs is a space to reflect—a Reflection Room. May God save us from us!

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Opinion

Opinion: The spiritual side of Aso Villa | By: Reuben Abati

People tend to be alarmed when the Nigerian Presidency takes certain decisions. They don’t think the decision makes sense. Sometimes, they wonder if something has not gone wrong with the thinking process at that highest level of the country. I have heard people insist that there is some form of witchcraft at work in the country’s seat of government. I am ordinarily not a superstitious person, but working in the Villa, I eventually became convinced that there must be something supernatural about power and closeness to it. I’ll start with a personal testimony. I was given an apartment to live in inside the Villa. It was furnished and equipped. But when my son, Michael arrived, one of my brothers came with a pastor who was supposed to stay in the apartment. But the man refused claiming that the Villa was full of evil spirits and that there would soon be a fire accident in the apartment. He complained about too much human sacrifice around the Villa and advised that my family must never sleep overnight inside the Villa.
I thought the man was talking nonsense and he wanted the luxury of a hotel accommodation. But he turned out to be right. The day I hosted family friends in that apartment and they slept overnight, there was indeed a fire accident. The guests escaped and they were so thankful. Not long after, the President’s physician living two compounds away had a fire accident in his home. He and his children could have died. He escaped with bruises. Around the Villa while I was there, someone always died or their relations died. I can confirm that every principal officer suffered one tragedy or the other; it was as if you needed to sacrifice something to remain on duty inside that environment. Even some of the women became merchants of dildo because they had suffered a special kind of death in their homes (I am sorry to reveal this) and many of the men complained about something that had died below their waists too. The ones who did not have such misfortune had one ailment or the other that they had to nurse. From cancer to brain and prostate surgery and whatever, the Villa was a hospital full of agonizing patients.
I recall the example of one particular man, an asset to the Jonathan Presidency who practically ran away from the Villa. He said he needed to save his life. He was quite certain that if he continued to hang around, he would die. I can’t talk about colleagues who lost daughters and sons, brothers and uncles, mothers and fathers, and the many obituaries that we issued. Even the President was multiply bereaved. His wife, Mama Peace was in and out of hospital at a point, undergoing many surgeries. You may have forgotten but after her husband lost the election and he conceded victory, all her ailments vanished, all scheduled surgeries were found to be no longer necessary and since then she has been hale and hearty. By the same token, all those our colleagues who used to come to work to complain about a certain death beneath their waists and who relied on videos and other instruments to entertain wives (take it easy boys, I don’t mean nay harm, I am writing!), have all experienced a re-awakening.
Everyone who went under the blade has received miraculous healing, and we are happy to be out of that place. But others were not so lucky. They died. There were days when convoys ran into ditches and lives were lost. In Norway, our helicopter almost crashed into a mountain. That was the first time I saw the President panicking. The weather was all so hazy and he just kept saying it would not be nice for the President of a country to die in a helicopter crash due to pilot miscalculations. The President went into a prayer mode. We survived. In Kenya once, we had a bird strike. The plane had to be recalled and we were already airborne with the plane acting like it would crash. During the 2015 election campaigns, our aircraft refused to start on more than one occasion. The aircraft just went dead. On some other occasions, we were stoned and directly targeted for evil. I really don’t envy the people who work in Aso Villa, the seat of Nigeria’s Presidency. For about six months, I couldn’t even breathe properly. For another two months, I was on crutches. But I considered myself far luckier than the others who were either nursing a terminal disease or who could not get it up.
When Presidents make mistakes, they are probably victims of a force higher than what we can imagine. Every student of Aso Villa politics would readily admit that when people get in there, they actually become something else. They act like they are under a spell. When you issue a well- crafted statement, the public accepts it wrongly. When the President makes a speech and he truly means well, the speech is interpreted wrongly by the public. When a policy is introduced, somehow, something just goes wrong. In our days, a lot of people used to complain that the APC people were fighting us spiritually and that there was a witchcraft dimension to the governance process in Nigeria. But the APC folks now in power are dealing with the same demons. Since Buhari government assumed office, it has been one mistake after another. Those mistakes don’t look normal, the same way they didn’t look normal under President Jonathan. I am therefore convinced that there is an evil spell enveloping this country. We need to rescue Nigeria from the forces of darkness. Aso Villa should be converted into a spiritual museum, and abandoned.
Should I become President of Nigeria tomorrow, I will build a new Presidential Villa: a Villa that will be dedicated to the all-conquering Almighty, and where powers and principalities cannot hold sway. But it is not about buildings and space, not so? It is about the people who go to the highest levels in Nigeria. I really don’t quite believe in superstitions, but I am tempted to suggest that this is indeed a country in need of prayers. We should pray before people pack their things into Aso Villa. We should ask God to guide us before we appoint ministers. We should, to put it in technocratic language, advise that the people should be very vigilant. We have all failed so far, that crucial test of vigilance. We should have a Presidential Villa where a President can afford to be human and free. In the White House, in the United States, Presidents live like normal human beings. In Aso Villa, that is impossible. They’d have to surround themselves with cooks from their villages, bodyguards from their mother’s clans and friends they can trust. It should be possible to be President of Nigeria without having to look behind one’s shoulders. But we are not yet there. So, how do we run a Presidency where the man in the saddle can only drink water served by his kinsman? No. How can we possibly run a Presidency where every President proclaims faith in Nigeria but they are better off in the company of relatives and kinsmen. No. We need as Presidents men and women who are willing to be Nigerians. No Nigerian President should be in spiritual bondage because he belongs to all of us and to nobody.
Now let me go back to the spiritual dimension. A colleague once told me that I was the most naïve person around the place. I thought I was a bright, smart, professional doing my bit and enjoying the President’s confidence. I spelled it out. But what I got in response was that I was coming to the villa using Lux soap, but that most people around the place always bathed in the morning with blood. Goat blood. Ram blood. Whatever animal blood. I argued. He said there were persons in the Villa walking upside down, head to the ground. I screamed. Everybody looked normal to me. But I soon began to suspect that I was in a strange environment indeed. Every position change was an opportunity for warfare. Civil servants are very nice people; they obey orders, but they are not very nice when they fight over personal interests.
The President is most affected by the atmosphere around him. He can make wrong decisions based on the cloud of evil around him. Even when he means well and he has taken time to address all possible outcomes, he could get on the wrong side of the public. A colleague called me one day and told me a story about how a decision had been taken in the spiritual realm about the Nigerian government. He talked about the spirit of error, and how every step taken by the administration would appear to the public like an error. He didn’t resign on that basis but his words proved prophetic. I see the same story being re-enacted. Aso Villa is in urgent need of redemption. I never slept in the apartment they gave me in that Villa for an hour.
Credit: guardian.ng
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Opinion

A New Axis of Power: Women at the Top | By: Tony Ogunlowo

In less than a months’ time the Americans will be heading
to the polls to elect a new President. And unless Republican contender, Donald
Trump, can pull a last minute trick out of his hat or resort to more dirty
tricks, the front runner, Hilary Clinton, is most definitely going to be the
next President of the United States of America.
Not only
will she become the first female leader of the World’s most powerful nation
she’ll be joining two other female leaders – Theresa May of GB and Angela Merkel of Germany –  to form a
new axis of power. This will mean that a third of the G8 nation leaders will be
women. Already Christine Lagarde
heads up the International Monetary Fund and for a while Diezani Alison-Madueke was the President of the all-powerful OPEC
organisation.
The joke
currently circulating around political circles is that the women are coming in
to clear up the mess made by the men. Perhaps.
We are beginning
to see a new breed of female leaders ready to take on the world in a move never
before seen since the Thatcher era. Traditionally women are better leaders (-
sorry guys but its true!) They are strong, decisive and pull no punches. They
are also not as scandal-prone as men, having little or no skeletons in their
cupboards. The Margaret Thatcher era of 1979 – 1990 turned a bankrupt and
floundering Great Britain into one of the most prosperous and powerful nations
that we know today. During her regime she battled the unions, introduced
capitalism across the board, whilst at the same time showing Britain’s military
might in facing off the Argentines over the Falkland and taking the country
into the First Gulf War. Under her rule Britain was a key player on the
international scene earning her the nickname of the no-nonsense ‘Iron Lady’.
With women at the
top of the three most powerful nations in the world we can expect a lot of
change in the world in the coming years. Even though President Hilary Clinton
will initially have her hands full with domestic issues we can expect changes
in areas such as world trade, migration and terrorism. All three are not
novices when it comes to governing a nation and performing on the international
scene: Angela Merkel has been the Chancellor of Germany since 2005, Theresa May
is a former Home Secretary and Hilary Clinton was Secretary of State in
President Obama first cabinet. Collectively, with their joint experience, they
can steer the world on to another course.
As any married man
knows fully well you can’t argue with a woman; they are better at putting an
argument across( and getting their own way!), they are better negotiators, more
thick skinned and are a lot better at dealing with(or ignoring!) criticism
levelled at them. Without a doubt there will be feminists out there who’ll
think it’s time to dust off their placards and take to the streets – they’ll be
wrong! These new leaders are not bra-burning feminists but competent leaders
who have proven themselves in a predominantly male-dominated chauvinistic
environment. They don’t have’ to prove themselves any further to make a point
or statement.
Women leaders,
unlike their male counterparts, tend to think of the bigger picture and as a
result their policies will be more diversified. They also well known for their
ability to negotiate peace deals – something the world desperately needs right
now with all the trouble hotspots.
Women
leaders are not scared to fight when necessary; Margaret Thatcher fought the
Argentines over the Falkland’s and when PM Theresa May was asked whether she
was prepared to authorize a nuclear strike, if need be, that could potentially
kill over a 100,000 men, women and children with a nuclear bomb she replied
with a curt ‘yes’.
Women leaders are prepared to fight just wars if need be-
when there is no other option. They won’t rush off and fight an unjust war like
Blair and Bush did. Having said that one of the areas they are bound to focus
on will be the turbulent Middle East – and they won’t be afraid to use military
force if necessary. Dealing with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea will also
be high on the cards.
There are
currently twenty-two female leaders in the world today running their countries
in the capacity of President, Prime Minister or Monarch (the Queen of England).
With the exception of ex-President Dilna Rousseff of Brazil who was recently
impeached all the other leaders are running their countries comfortably.
Come next
year it would be very easy to see Clinton (if she wins) sitting down with
Merkel and May discussing ways on to how to solve the worlds growing problems.

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Opinion

Power, Stewardship and Accountability | By: Isaac Aluko Ademoroti

From what one has seen of late, it now appears that our leaders and politicians are mainly driven by a certain crave for filthy lucre and an uncontrollable lust for power and earthly glory.  All the grandstanding about service to the people has proven to be a mere ruse after all.
Well, you can judge for yourselves.  Fifty six years after wrestling power from the British and serving their people, these leaders have truly excelled in leading the people aright.  This is why all our roads are now motorable and are no longer death traps.  It is why we now have twenty four hours of uninterrupted electricity supply daily in our homes.  It is also why relevant laws are being enacted by our hard working legislators and such laws are always being promptly enforced by the law enforcement agencies.  This also explains why these leaders of ours are now compassionate having finally learnt to lead by example.  At last, our leaders have been able to bring about an agricultural revolution as a result of which sufficient food is now being produced for the people.  It is certainly because our leaders love serving the people that they have created millions of jobs for the teeming population of job seekers in our cities.  This love for service has also compelled these leaders to manage the finances of the country prudently thereby cutting out wastes.  The leaders have also made adequate provisions for the security and safety of the people.
In reality, with the possible exception of the formidable triumvirate of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Dr Nnamdi Azikwe, most of the leaders we have had since independence have been products of crass opportunism.  It will actually not be out of place to describe these leaders as dealers.  Being merchants of power, they have always traded with the lives and destinies of the people and with the resources of the country.  Without any doubt, these are ominous end-time situations whereby souls of humans have become merchandise.  In their ruthless quest for power, these politicians, like a blinded Samson, would rather pull down the whole house over themselves and others than do what is right.
Our people, however, have often deluded themselves by believing the mantra that power belongs to the people.  This, though, may actually be true in theory.  In practice, certainly, we all know that real power belongs to the gang of politicians who simply found a way to manoeuvre themselves into positions and situations where they are able to exercise absolute control over the lives and destinies of the people and over the resources of the nation.  These leaders appear to have gotten themselves empowered by the people so that they could waste the lives, the destinies and the resources of the very people who empowered them.
It is now certain that our political leaders do not see themselves as stewards of the power which they exercise and which, sadly, they have chosen to abuse.  This is why they seem to feel that they are not accountable to the people.  Surprisingly, the people live in excessive awe of these leaders who are supposed to be their servants.  People need to be informed and be properly enlightened, principally by the Press, so that they can always remind these leaders that they are mere stewards who must always be accountable to the people.
One disturbing trend noticeable in our politics is that a large number of these politicians who seem to have the ability to rule the country are proven thieves.  On the other hand, those among them who appear to be honest and genuinely interested in the welfare of the people often fail to prepare themselves for the challenges of power.  Our people must therefore wake up and earnestly begin to show real interest in those who aspire to govern the country otherwise Nigerian politics will continue to attract mostly criminals or idiots.   
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Opinion

Black Lives Matter in Naija Too! | By Tony Ogunlowo

Recently there has been an international uproar at the number of black people being shot dead by the police in America. The situation has become so bad that an organisation called ‘Black Lives Matter’ has been set up to draw awareness to the problem. Endorsed by a number of top black American celebrities the group is working hard to prevent further extra-judicial killings through peaceful protests.
Far away from the shores of America, and the attention of the world media, the same thing is happening in Nigeria too: trigger-happy policemen – mostly SARS operatives – are shooting and killing innocent people on a daily basis. In most recent months well-documented cases of extra-judiciary killings by the police include:
·         Two workers were shot dead by the police at a rally in Nasarawa state in July.
·         Two protesting youths killed in Umomi in Kogi state in August.
·         Lagos SARS mistakenly kill a 20-year old student while chasing a suspected fraudster in Setember.
·         In September, the blogger Chukwuebuka  Isidore, better known as Ghostmode, was shot dead by the police in Port Harcourt.
These are just a few cases that are documented and mentioned in the press, many others go unreported with only the families of the deceased knowing they’ve lost a loved one. Sadly there is no justice for the victims or their families as the guilty police officers are very rarely reprimanded. There will be no inquiry; no court trial and most offending officers are back on the streets within hours.
Most notorious for extra-judiciary killings is SARS – the Special Anti-Robbery police Squad – set-up to combat violent crime. Adequate firearms training is not given to police officers who carry guns and further psychological tests would reveal that a great many of them are not mentally fit to be in possession of a firearm – there are even unconfirmed reports that many of them operate under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
In other countries extra-judiciary killings by the police are taken very seriously but not in Nigeria where their superiors tend to turn a blind eye.
How can people have faith in the police when they know they’re likely to be shot dead for refusing to give a trigger-happy policeman a bribe? And the police, themselves, knowing they’ll never be prosecuted will carry on killing innocent civilians. And it’s not just shooting people they’re guilty of; because they wear a uniform they seem it fit to beat innocent people to a pulp, punishing others – kicking, punching and torturing – in ways one would not expect a police officer to behave.
A recent Amnesty International report entitled: ‘Nigeria: You have signed your death warrant’ points out that the Special Anti-Robbery Squad(SARS) are ‘…subjecting people to horrific torture methods including hanging, starvation, beatings, shootings and mock executions..’ whilst at the same time getting rich by extorting bribes. Armed with guns they become a law unto themselves and use their weapons with impunity. The question on everybody’s lips is how long are they going to go on killing innocent people before the government steps in to do something about it.
The police in their defence will probably argue that there are a lot of armed hardened criminals out there that need to be dealt with properly hence the reason to use lethal force and weapons. This understandable if they’re dealing with armed robbers but not unarmed civilians. If they can’t shoot straight, and are always hitting bystanders, they should be taught how to and if they can’t see properly perhaps they need to take eye tests – there is a big difference between an armed and unarmed person!
But yet again the Nigerian Police are well known for their legendary use of excessive force (- and abuse) when dealing with anyone they deem to be a suspect.
Everybody is innocent until proven guilty and killing people at random doesn’t constitute justice – it’s an unlawful killing whichever way you want to look at it. Armed police should be trained to use their weapons wisely – returning fire only when fired upon is understandable but shooting – dead – unarmed civilians is not tolerable behaviour in a supposedly civilized society. Beating up people for minor misdemeanours or refusal to give bribes is not also acceptable behaviour.
Most Nigerians support and follow #blacklivesmatter in America, condemning the deaths of innocent black people over there, but what about what’s happening on your own doorsteps? They do say charity begins at home. Perhaps it’s time to start a new movement in Nigeria – #blacklivesmatterinnaijatoo!
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Opinion

The Real Trouble with Nigeria | By: Tony Ogunlowo

In his acclaimed publication ‘The Trouble with Nigeria’ published 33 years ago, in 1983, the late Chinua Achebe pointed out that the ‘ the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership’.

Thirty-three years on this is still true but with an added ‘but’.
Nigeria is a very difficult country to govern: if not the most difficult in the world to govern. You have three major tribes with god-knows-how-many sub-tribes. Three major languages are spoken with over four hundred dialects. There are supposedly two major religions – Christianity and Islam – and again god-knows-how-many different heathen gods that are also worshipped.

Again you have over a hundred and eighty million inhabitants, most living below the poverty line and largely uneducated.
So many people to think of; of different tribes, religions, political affiliations and languages under the umbrella of one nation to be governed by one-person – a President.

Being the President of Nigeria is nothing in comparison to being the President of say, Ghana or the United States of America. The people in these countries are not so diversified.

A President of Nigeria has the near impossible task of trying to keep everybody happy which as I have previously mentioned is impossible because the latter in his best efforts (-or not!) to keep everybody happy will be accused of everything from tribalism and nepotism to favouritism.

In the past thirty years we’ve seen the ‘Buhari-IBB-Sonekan-Abacha- Abubakar’ governments and also the’ OBJ-Yar’Adua-Jonathan-Buhari’ governments. Some were dictators whilst others were elected.  It doesn’t matter where there is an APC or PDP Federal government there will still be moaning and groaning. Especially when you still have disillusioned fantasists like Chief Femi Fani Kayode still holding on to the now defunct belief of North-South, Christian-Islam divide. Nigeria has evolved over the years and its current predicament has nothing to do with the North-South, Christian-Muslim divide. 

Nigeria is a mess as a result of poor leadership, going back for decades, lack of foresight and the lack of accountability on behalf of everybody – from the humble market porter to the President. It’s easy to criticize, judge and condemn others without taking a good look at our very selves in the mirror. To borrow a Christian phrase ‘first remove the plank from your eye before you proceed to remove the speck of dust from brother’s eye’. We are all guilty of bringing the country down to its knees.

With the exception of the military juntas that have ruled Nigeria since independence every civilian government has been voted in by the people – NPC-NNDP, NPN, PDP, APC….

When you have a political system where 99% of those in government are corrupt and inept, or intend to be, you have a problem. Money and harmony go hand in hand. If there is no money to go around because someone has pilfered it there will be general dissatisfaction and even if God was President he won’t be able to run the country and keep everybody happy.

For those who still remember the oil-boom years ( Udoji awards, car and housing loans for graduate workers etc.) of the 70s and early 80s when money was plentiful and corruption was minimal the Head of State of the day had no problem running the country. There was little or no talk of religious or tribal differences as everyone got on with what they were supposed to do – honestly.

That was then. Nowadays the President has to struggle to run the country. He has to deal with the politically-correct brigade who’ll accuse him of playing the North-South, Christian-Muslim game. He has to deal with corrupt fellow politicians, current and past, who hide behind fancy lawyers and Section 308. But most important of all he has to deal with the mind-set of the people. As a race Nigerians are stubborn and don’t take to change very easily. 

We want things the way we want it and not the way it’s supposed to be. As a result because we’re stuck in our ways the way forward becomes clouded. Gone are the days when the military boys used to issue decrees forcing us to do things. Now we have democratic governments and everything has to be done by the vote opening the door for us to get up to all sorts, rarely doing the right thing.

If we want change we all have to change. Not just the President at the top of the food-chain but everyone.  Ditching our age-old habits won’t happen overnight as Rome wasn’t built in a day but a will to start will be a step in the right direction.

The failure of leadership in Nigeria is not just down to one person, the President, not doing his job, but our collective responsibility to do the right thing.

It’s one thing to blame the country’s woes on the lack of competent leadership over the years but what about the governed people themselves? It takes two to tango. If everybody is doing what they’re supposed to do, the right way, then the leaders would have no option but to follow suit.
We condemn our leaders but at the same time our mind-sets allows them to continue with impunity. Isn’t Nigeria the only country in the world where we celebrate corrupt and inept politicians? You salute them, praise them, worship them and give them chieftaincy titles and your daughters – the same very people who have STOLEN YOUR MONEY plunging your country into recession, lawlessness and uncertainty!
The mind-set of the average Nigerian encourages the leaders to do what they want because the people, as a whole, are not righteousness enough to condemn them. If a small country like Ghana can consider impeaching its President for accepting a gift (bribe?) of a car what does that say of Nigeria? We have laws and a constitution but some people believe they are above the law – like Patience Jonathan (who wasn’t even voted into office) – and the people let them get away with it – even protecting them!

We may have bad leaders but we also have a bad populace. If the populace that puts them in power demands (I’ll stress the word ‘demands’) accountability they must account for their actions. If any politician has a clear conscience why hide behind lawyers and section 308? It’s not until you have something like the Arab spring before leaders are forced to change their ways – vote them out! 
There are sections of the Nigerian Constitution that can be implemented to impeach a President, a Governor, a Senator or anybody who holds a public office. The sad thing is it’ll never be done. Why? Because we as a people are happy to live of the crumbs of their illicit gains : happy to keep them in power to satisfy our religious or tribal status quo; happy to think ‘someone has chop im own’ from public funds whilst at the same time hoping and praying we ourselves can get into public office and ‘chop our own’.

And when we don chop everything finish wetin go remain for future generations? Nothing!

Now we’re at square one again – no money in the country and a biting recession – and we’re wondering where it all went wrong.

Don’t just blame the leaders, blame yourselves too!

The people who fought and died for this country’s independence didn’t do so in order for a future generation of over-rated imbeciles to come and loot and plunge the country into darkness.
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Opinion

Unlearning: The Top Secret to Being Successful | By: Tony Ogunlowo

Photo credit: realsuccess.net

We all want to be
successful in life; whether it is in our professional or private lives.
We want successful
relationships’, successful careers and we want to be seen as being successful
in everything we do in the eyes of the world.
Schools of thought will
have us believe that to be successful you need to harness your talent; work
hard and it’ll all work out.

They are wrong!

The true secret to being
successful in life is to un-learn everything you think you know.
Un-learning means breaking
with tradition and setting off on a different tangent on your own. Everything
we’re taught at school, college or university doesn’t mean you’re going to be a
mega-success in life – even though it’s a start – no knowledge is wasted! You
might earn more being a graduate or something but the real success only comes
when you strike it out on your own.

From a very early age we
are indoctrinated. We are taught the differences between right and wrong, what
society expects of us and not. Our very lives are moulded in such a way that we
have to conform – or be damned. As a result we find ourselves trapped in a
system that determines what is best for us rather than the other way round or
what we can do to improve the system.

To escape the
indoctrination, that we have been subject to since birth, we need to think
outside the box – perhaps even betting the farm on what we believe is right.
Life’s greatest thinkers,
innovators and entrepreneurs did not get to where there are today by toeing the
line – they gambled and took a leap of faith into the unknown……

When Bill Gates set up
Microsoft in a bid to change the way everyone in the world accessed computers,
the cheapest computer cost over $100,000 and was the size of a room. Apple,
under the tutelage of the late Steven Jobs, introduced us to out-of-this-world
high tech devices we can’t live without. Even Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of
Harvard to gamble everything he knew on a platform that would change the social
media interaction forever. People like Richard Branson didn’t become successful
by following the ‘norm’. He only became successful as a result of him being a
maverick that stood up to the establishment (and still does) and did things
differently.

To be successful in life
most of the things we’re taught at home, in schools, colleges and universities
is sometimes totally irrelevant. Read the biographies of the ten richest men
(and women), in the world today, and you’ll find they are either university
dropouts or people who have stuck a finger up at the establishment and opted to
follow their own gut instincts.
How can you be successful
when you’re following the same path – like goats being led to the slaughter –
like everyone else? You need to be different. You need to be able to push
boundaries and challenge the order of things – not forgetting hard work and
inspiration.

Only a brave maverick
becomes successful in life.

To be successful in life
you need to think outside of the box. You need to be brave to be able to go
rogue, bet the farm, and follow your gut instincts. People, without any doubt,
will laugh at you, put you down and criticize you and why won’t they? They will
because you’re the only one who’s brave enough to venture out into the unknown
– and stake your reputation and everything you have on it.
It doesn’t matter what
talent, financial backing or connections you have if you’re not prepared to
un-learn everything the establishment has taught you over the years, believe in
yourself and what you’re doing, and strike it out alone following your
gut-instincts you’ll never be successful.

Now the next step is to
discover your niche – something you’re good at doing. Everybody was born with a
unique talent of their own. It could be playing football, music or acting.
Others are talented in science, teaching, banking or being political maestros.
Everyone has something they’re very good at.
Once you’ve discovered your
niche – work on it! Rome wasn’t built in a day! The mere fact that you’re the
world’s greatest programmer does not mean you’re going to build the next
Facebook or Microsoft without putting in the hard work of which most of it will
go unrewarded – initially! 


There will be distractions. People will laugh at you
and put you down – a young David Beckham was once advised to go and learn a
trade like bricklaying or motor mechanics instead of kicking a ball around!
You will need to be
disciplined. If you can dream it you can achieve it. To be successful you have
to follow a rigid pattern of hardwork-hardwork-hardwork-hardwork – there is no
rest until the objective is achieved. There will be unlimited sacrifice – the
loss of your social life, for instance, lack of sleep – perhaps even financial
and relationship problems – all of which must be surmounted.

Statistics show that out of
every hundred people who start out in life only five will be successful by the
time they retire – the other ninety-five would have fallen by the wayside. So
which category do you want to be in? Among the successful five per cent or the
ninety-five per cent who didn’t make it?
Do the maths! 
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Opinion

Patience Jonathan and her $31 Million Skye Bank Accounts | By: Tony Ogunlowo

The former First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, has written to the Chairman of the EFCC claiming the ownership of more than $31 million found in various Skye Bank accounts. In an affidavit sworn before  the Federal High Court in Lagos she claimed the money was for her medical expenses.

So Mama Peace claims the money was for medical expenses?  Even though the whole of Nigeria finds this difficult to believe I don’t – she really needs a lot of money for her medical condition(s).
The sum she quoted for medical expenses is understandable when you realize she needs a full-time language therapist ( trying to teach someone to say ‘are you the only one who came?’ instead of ‘na only you waka come?’ can take forever!); an anger-management specialist( since she’s known to fly off the handle frequently); a travel-sickness specialist( since she spent most of her tenure as First Lady frequently jetting between Britain, Germany, Abuja and Bayelsa); an etiquette specialist and a relationship expert(after all she’s married to ex-President Jonathan Goodluck, PhD).

Now how she came about the money in the first place is still a mystery since the First Lady doesn’t earn anything and being a Permanent Secretary in the Bayelsa state civil service, at the same time (she was a superwoman who held down two jobs, one in Abuja and the other one two hundred kilometres away!) doesn’t pay that much. But yet again she could have dipped into her husband’s savings since she wore (and still wears!) the trousers in the house.

The EFCC claims the monies found in her account are the proceeds of gratification – a gentle term to describe the proceeds of fraud, money laundering and bribes.
Considering the fact she believes that if ‘somebody come dash you something shay na payment be dat?’ she’ll have a hard time explaining to the EFCC boys who actually ‘dashed’ her such a colossal sum that enabled her to own a magnificent hotel and several luxurious properties. And what could she have done for this person or persons that they were so grateful to ‘dash’ her so much to spend on her health. As the First Lady of Nigeria wasn’t she entitled to free medical care anywhere in the world? Why did she have to, allegedly, pay for it out of her own pocket? And what treatment was she receiving abroad that cost so much? With the money found in her account she could easily buy a clinic in London or Bonn!
If she was ‘dashed’ this money she could have put it to good use since she obviously didn’t need it being the President’s wife. She goes on about how charitable she is and she could have donated this money to the under-funded IDP camps or to the Nigerian Health service.
If $31 million dollars has been found in accounts belonging to her meant for her medical expenses how much is going to found in other accounts, yet to be found or unearthed, for her travelling expenses?
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