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A President Under Fire

As the nation edges closer to the 2015 elections, President Goodluck Jonathan has a difficult task leading his Peoples Democratic Party to victory, write Shola Oyeyipo and Ojo M. Maduekwe

In January 1, 1964, the late Tai Solarin, one of Nigeria’s foremost social activists, wrote an essay in the Daily Times newspaper, titled, ‘May Your Road Be Rough’. It was a saying that could be mistaken for a curse in a religiously obsessed Nigeria, but ironically, the title of the essay has become widely accepted and greatly quoted.

Solarin's great quote has come handy as campaign for the 2015 elections intensify, albeit surreptitiously. Although politicians are not mounting the soapbox yet to canvass for votes, what they are doing is to launch a perception war for the minds of the electorate.

The two leading political parties in the country, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) and their allies have engaged in grand campaigns to position their parties in the minds of the electorate so that when the elections come in 2015, they might be sure of victory.

It was in this light that many have seen last week's attacks on the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan from different quarters. 

At no point in his now embattled political career had the president been faced with open critical appraisal of his stewardship and character than in recent times. In a space of two weeks, notable and respected Nigerians such as Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal; the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and former President Olusegun Obasanjo, had passed damning verdicts on the Jonathan administration.

The salvos that were fired at Jonathan by critical stakeholders who feel he is not leading the country right  were based on accusations, basically against the backdrop of allegations of corruption, ineffectiveness as a leader and propagation of ethnic politics as well as dishonest leadership.

Penultimate week, Tambuwal had castigated the president at a public lecture, for allegedly encouraging corruption through his body language. He said the president was encouraging corruption by not dealing decisively with allegations of misdeeds affecting top officials of his administration.

According to him, instead of taking firm steps to tackle the issue, the president has resorted to red herring by setting up administrative committees to investigate corruption cases instead of allowing anti-graft agencies to do their work.

Tambuwal, who was the guest speaker at the 2013 international anti-corruption day organised by the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) anti-corruption committee, predicated his position on some cases of corruption where the president's action seemingly provided protection for top officials of his administration faced with corruption allegations.

Such instances, according to Tambuwal, included the recent N255million bulletproof cars scandal involving the Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah; the multi-million naira pension scam and the rot in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The speaker also said the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, was being used by the president to persecute perceived political opponents.

His comments generated accolades from Nigerians, especially the opposition parties. As Tambuwal and Jonathan come from the same political party, despite their known political differences, the APC found his position all the more interesting, and according to it, a rise above crass partisanship.

“Hon. Tambuwal and President Jonathan belong to the same political party, but this did not deter the speaker from rising above crass partisanship when the issue involved borders on national interest. This is the stuff of good leadership,” said the party, in a statement by its interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

Still grappling with how to react to this allegation that came from an actor who is believed to be high enough, as the nation's number four citizen to know what is going on in government, the presidency was hit again by more damaging allegations. The next indictment of the administration came from Sanusi.

Sanusi, in a letter dated September 25, 2013 and addressed to Jonathan, made some startling revelations on how the nation's resources are being mismanaged under the president. 

The CBN governor indicated that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) did not remit $49.8 billion to the Federation Account, being proceeds from crude oil sales between January 2012 and July 2013. The money was 76 per cent of the value of crude oil lifting, within this timeframe, put at $65.3 billion. According to Sanusi, the NNPC had only remitted $15.5 billion, which is 24 per cent of the total value of $65.3 billion.

Though the NNPC refuted the allegation, saying Sanusi misunderstood the process for remitting crude oil sales revenue into the Federation Account, as being practised in the oil and gas industry, the Sanusi disclosure elicited reactions from many Nigerians, who demanded accountability from the president, who is fast gaining the reputation of a leader that encourages corruption.

While establishing that the audit of the transaction traced the monies to third party accounts, Sanusi also stated that the CBN would be willing to help in case the president was determined to unravel the alleged corruption in the NNPC.

Human rights lawyer, Fred Agbaje, while reacting to the revelation by the CBN governor and the speaker, said the president had never shown any willpower to fight corruption.

“In fact, corruption is fighting this government. The media team of the president was quick to react to the statement made by the speaker, but is this letter from the CBN not confirming what Tambuwal has said? Will they also accuse the CBN governor of being partisan?”

The main opposition party, APC, said the Jonathan-led administration had not shown the willingness to fight graft. APC described the non-remittance of proceeds from crude oil sales by NNPC to the nation’s coffers, as an indication that the president was building his war chest towards the 2015 polls.

Reacting, Socio Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), asked   Jonathan to urgently query the NNPC over the allegations. The organisation also asked the president to “publicly announce to Nigerians what he is doing to find the missing funds and to bring suspected perpetrators to justice,” adding that “this case provides the president a rare opportunity to show that he is truly committed to the oft-repeated fight against corruption.”

While the rumpus over the twin attacks from Tambuwal and Sanusi was yet to die down, Jonathan came under a blistering criticism of his administration and leadership style by one of his "political godfathers" and one of his predecessors, Obasanjo. The former president, in an 18-page epistle dated December 3, 2013, which detailed Jonathan’s ineptitude, accused the president of working towards destroying Nigeria.

Instead of taking steps to advance the country's interest and improve the standard of living of Nigerians, the former president said Jonathan had rather “betrayed God and the Nigerian people that brought him to power,” adding that he has been “pursuing selfish, personal and political interests based on advice he receives from self-centred aides.”

The former military head of state who became a civilian president in 1999, decried that Jonathan through his kind of politicking was polarising the country along regional and religious lines and bringing Nigeria to ridicule among the comity of nations and destroying his own party, PDP.

He attributed Jonathan mismanaging of the party affairs, through his cronies in PDP, to the defection of five PDP governors to APC.

He noted that PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, should not be blamed for the crisis in the party as he was only doing the bidding of the president. Tukur, he added, was been egged on by the president to    instigate division among the party hierarchy for political expediency.

Obasanjo also accused the president for failing to stick to his promise not to seek a second term in office; an action he said was the real reason for the tension within the PDP and the country.

According to him, Jonathan had indicated to him before the 2011 election that he would not seek a second term, adding that the president’s refusal to act by his words portrayed him as a man without honour.

“It is fatally morally flawed for Mr. Jonathan to contest in 2015. As a leader, two things you must cherish and hold dear among others are trust and honour both of which are important ingredients of character. I will want to see anyone in the office of the presidency of Nigeria as a man or woman who can be trusted, a person of honour in his words and character,” he said.

  Jonathan’s unspoken second term interest aside, Obasanjo went ahead to accuse Jonathan of anti-party activities by supporting opposition parties’ candidates in the governorship elections in Lagos, Ondo, Edo and Anambra States against PDP candidates. This was a pointer that validated the rumour that the PDP and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) went into an agreement before the 2013 governorship election in Anambra State, which the opposition party won.

On security, Obasanjo said the president was yet to address the real causes of the Boko Haram insurgency, which has turned some parts of the North into a no go area. While he reiterated the need for Jonathan to explore a ‘carrot and stick’ model in addressing the lingering crisis, Obasanjo maintained that the current “conventional military actions based on standard phases of military operations alone will not permanently and effectively deal with the issue of Boko Haram.”

On the resort to ethnic and sectional sentiments to advance a second term of office for Jonathan by his South-south kinsmen, Obasanjo said he was making a huge mistake. “For you to allow yourself to be possessed, to the exclusion of most of the rest of Nigerians as an Ijaw man is a mistake that should never have been allowed to happen.

“Yes, you have to be born in one part of Nigeria to be a Nigerian if not naturalised but the Nigerian president must be above ethnic factionalism. And those who prop you up as of, and for Ijaw nation are not your friends genuinely, not friends of Nigeria nor friends of Ijaw nation they tout about.”

Obasanjo was apparently referring to the duo of former militant leader, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, and former federal commissioner for information, Chief Edwin Clark, both of whom have led the campaign for Jonathan’s second term that is anchored on ethnic sentiments.

Obasanjo also made bold to allege that Jonathan has placed over 1,000 Nigerians on political watch list and accused him of training snipers and other armed personnel secretly. He did not stop at that, he added that he was clandestinely acquiring weapons and was working towards returning Nigeria to the year of terror under regime of the late Gen. Sani Abacha., adding did ad that he was “training his snipers where Abacha trained his killers”.

Obasanjo who said the letter was in the interest of Nigeria, tasked the National Assembly to rise up and take decisive action on the revelation by Sanusi that the NNPC has failed to remit billions of dollars in proceeds of crude oil sales to the Federation Account. He said the issue must not be swept under the carpet by non-action, cover-up, denial or bribing of investigators.

“Please deal with this allegation transparently and let the truth be known. The dramatis personae in this allegation and who they are working for will one day be public knowledge. Those who know are watching if the National Assembly will not be accomplice in the heinous crime and naked grand corruption. May God grant you the grace for at least one effective corrective action against high corruption which seems to stink all around you in your government.”

Indicating that he was prepared for whatever backlash the letter to Jonathan would provoke from the presidency, Obasanjo categorically stated that he had passed the stage where he could be “flattered, intimidated, threatened, frightened, induced or bought,” adding that “death is the end of all human beings and may it come when God wills it to come.”

There are questions regarding the genuine interest of those accusing the president. While both the CBN governor and House speaker could be viewed making their comments based on their interest in ensuring probity and accountability in government, political experts view Obasanjo’s letter as reeking of frustration and hypocrisy.

Reacting to Obasanjo’s claim that his letter is in the interest of the nation, the National Publicity Secretary of the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, cautioned Nigerians to be wary and not allow a set of retired generals who have the antecedents of resolving the Nigerian crisis to sooth their personal purpose a leeway in the present matter.

“If Obasanjo, who happens to be a retired general, is now beckoning on fellow retired generals and at the same time inciting Nigerians against a sitting president, something untoward must be going on. Obasanjo referred to former generals like Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar and others in his letter. There is the need for caution.”

Punching holes in Obasanjo's accusations, Odumakin spoke of the issue of corruption, stating: “The former president has no moral justification to accuse the president because corruption was at its peak under his (Obasanjo's) regime. Political murder was not as bad or rampant ever in the history of this nation like we all witnessed under the former president regime, while as a matter of fact cases of rigging of elections were unprecedented during Obasanjo's regime.”

Whatever the case may be, political watchers are of the view that as the nation approaches 2015,   Jonathan has many hurdles to cross not only in leading his party to victory, but also in realising his second term ambition, which has so far declined to acknowledge.

Many are of the view that his road was bound to get rougher, unless he could prove to Nigerians that he is not corrupt, by precisely tackling corruption head on and swiftly addressing the many issues raised by Tambuwal, Sanusi and Obasanjo   in the nation's interest.

The Monday Discourse: A President Under Fire, Articles | THISDAY LIVE
http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/the-monday-discourse-a-president-under-fire/166646/

IS GOD PUNISHING AFRICANS FOR THE SIN OF SELLING THEIRIS GOD PUNISHING AFRICANS FOR THE SIN OF SELLING THEIR PEOPLE INTO SLAVERY?

Ozodi Osuji

       Looking at the fallen house that is Africa one is tempted to ask whether God is punishing Africans for the sin of selling their people to Romans, Arabs and Europeans. Seriously, has any African asked if God is punishing Africans for their ancestors’ sin of not loving and respecting their people hence capturing and selling them into slavery?

      I am assuming that there are some Africans who are introverted and introspective and do think or are all Africans happy go lucky extroverts who do not think about why things are the way they are?

      Africans roamed around their world, hunted down their people, captured and sold them to all interested buyers. Just thinking about this incredibly evil behavior makes ones stomach turn. How could they have done such dreadful thing? And having done it is there a consequence for their criminal behavior?

     Is slavery sin? And if it is sin do Africans feel that their ancestors sinned for selling their fellow Africans? 

       If you talked to contemporary Africans they certainly do not feel that their ancestors sinned in selling their people. However, they are usually very quick to blame the white man for slavery. 

     They will glibly tell you about the evil committed by Europeans who bought and used Africans to develop the two Americas. Some would even go as far as saying that in carting African young manhood to the Americas that Europeans prevented Africa from developing hence Europeans underdeveloped Africa. Such persons would cap their amusing thesis by telling you that Europeans need to pay reparations to Africans for under developing Africa.

     How about paying reparation to those they sold, African-Americans?  Apparently, those are not Africans concern. 

      The wanting of other people to pay them reparation for capturing and selling their own people betrays Africans self-centeredness, their inability to think about the effects of their behavior on other people but instead see themselves as victims who other people hurt. They want payment for what was done to them while they make no payment to those they hurt. They hurt African Americans by selling them and don’t want to do anything about it but want those who along with them, white folks hurt African Americans to pay them reparations; this is the audacity of evil. 

      In human terms, those who sold their people are more evil than those who bought them, for the buyers do not who those they were buying are and could have believed that they are not different from mules with which to work but Africans knew their people and ought to know that they are human beings who feel pain and resolved not to inflict pain on them by not selling them.  Africans ought to have had strong emotional bonding with their people and that ought to have prevented them from selling their people.

     The salient point is that the Africans who jabber rubbish on how Europe underdeveloped Africa through slavery and demand reparation understand that slavery was wrong. If it was wrong and the buyer of slaves is to be blamed, as he should be blamed, shouldn’t the seller of slaves also be blamed? 

      It takes two to tango, right? There must be demand for slaves and supply of slaves; both parties were necessary for slavery to exist. If Slavery is wrong then the buyer and seller were equally wrong. 

      Africans blaming white folks for slavery is childlike petulant attempt at denying responsibility for capturing their people and selling them to slavery.  They vaguely recognize that what they did is wrong and shift responsibility for it to white folks. 

       Having denied responsibility for their crime by blaming their partner in the crime, Africans actually believe that they are now free from the consequences of their behavior. No, they are not; life is not that simple. Life is complex.

      We know from the study of ego defense mechanisms (such as repression, suppression, denial, projection, displacement, rationalization, justification, reaction-formation, sublimation, fantasy, acting out, avoidance behavior and so on) that what we defend we retain. If you drink a lot but deny that you are an alcoholic, you will keep drinking until you kill yourself with alcohol. Defenses do not remove what they are defending; denial does not remove responsibility for one’s criminal action.

       I understand what Africans are using the ego defense of denial and projection to accomplish and know that it does not work. They want to see themselves as innocent and perfect; they showed imperfection and criminality by selling their people and have to deny responsibility for their action and project it to other people. They project responsibility to those who appear suitable as scapegoats, white men who bought African slaves.    

       Alas, the white conservative denies responsibility for slavery and does not accept Africans childish denial of selling their people; white conservatives blame Africans for slavery. Indeed, many white conservatives see Africans as savages and see white civilization, including the slavery it gave to Africans, as responsible for whatever civilization is now seen in Africans.

       White liberals, the type found at university social science departments, often feel guilty and accept Africans projections and blame themselves for slavery and not blame Africans. Such bleeding-hearted liberals are not doing Africans any good for they collude with them in taking responsibility away from them hence perpetuate their childishness, the childishness of selling your people and not seeing your action as evil and instead laugh as if you are a saint when in fact you are Satan itself.

CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN AFRICAN CULTURE

   

      There is continuity and change in people’s behaviors and in culture. The African culture that allowed Africans to sell their people and not feel guilty and remorseful for doing such an outrageous thing continues today in the African culture that allows African leaders to be thieves and cart their peoples wealth to themselves and not worry about serving their people’s needs. Most African leaders are criminals; their political offices are avenues from which they rob their people; they do not concern themselves with the fact that their people are suffering.

      It is not African leaders business that their people are poor. In their minds it is not their business to help their people. They are predatory animals that kill other animals and eat them and do not feel bad for what they did.  

      Most African leaders are anti-social personalities, sociopaths and psychopaths; they steal and kill with impunity and do not feel that they did wrong. Just as their ancestors captured and sold their people and did not feel bad contemporary African leaders suck it to their people and do not feel like they did wrong. 

      Clearly, Africa’s past cultures that permitted slavery were criminal cultures. Africa’s past is one of criminality.

      The only change in Africa’s criminal culture is the injection of Christian teaching that folks should love and care for one another; however, such teaching is still skin deep in Africans, for when push comes to shove Africans live for their individual selves and do not care for the human polity (the political system is a place from which they steal).

        It should also be noted that Africans sold their people as slaves to the Romans. From history we see African slaves in Rome; they were mostly used as gladiators fighting with each other to death and with lions and tigers for the entertainment of Romans.  

       So, why are Africans always selling themselves into slavery for other people to use them for their muscle power or for sporting entertainment (contemporary Europeans use African soccer players for entertainment; in North America white folks use black folks as their entertainers in sports and music)?

        The curious thing about Africans penchant for blaming white folks for under- developing Africa is their refusal to blame Arabs. Actually, Africans sold their people to Arabs much earlier than they sold them to white men. Indeed, they continued selling Africans to Arabs until the Second World War.  

      West Africa’s history tells us that by 900 AD Islam had come to Sahel Africa.  With the coming of Islam Africans began trading with Arabs by selling African slaves for Arab goods.

      We can unequivocally say that Africans were selling their people from about 900-1900 AD; that is, for a thousand years Africans sold their people to Arabs. For evidence, go to Arabia, from North Africa to Saudi Arabia, Iraq etc. and you find that the people are mostly a mix of African slaves and Arabs.

      So, why don’t Africans blame Arabs to whom they sold more of their people than Europeans? It is probably because they realize that Islam condones slavery and, as such, Arab Muslims do not feel guilty from enslaving folks.  

      Christianity condemns slavery and Christians feel guilty for enslaving people so they are amenable to be blamed by African sociopaths who want to blame other folks for their crimes while not blaming themselves.

      When the Portuguese came to West Africa in the mid-1400s they did not see Africans as inferior people; they intermarried with them. Vasco Digamma reached India in 1494; on his way he saw Arab plantations in the India Ocean and saw Arabs using African slaves in those plantations. 

     When the Portuguese landed at Brazil in 1500 AD and could not successfully use the native Indians to do their work they came to West Africa and arranged with coastal Africans to supply them with African slaves. Coastal Africans were only too glad to do so.

       In what is now called Nigeria, coastal Africans like the Efik at Calaba and Ijaw at Bonny negotiated with Interior Igbos to supply them with Igbo slaves. The Igbos living close to the Efik, Aro became the chief supplier of Igbo slaves to the Efik. 

      Aro people recruited mercenaries called Abam people and had them roam around Alaigbo capturing Igbo people and marching them to the sea coast and selling them to Efik who sold them to the Portuguese 

       In his autobiography, Olauda Equiano talked about how Abam mercenaries captured him and his sister (they were about ten or less years old) and marched them to the coast and sold them. He wound up at Barbados and later Virginia and finally in England.

      The point is that it was Africans like Aro, Efik and Ijaw that sold Africans to white men.  These Africans today do not feel like their ancestors did wrong. This lack of guilt feeling for their ancestors’ criminal activity means that they are mostly anti-social personalities.

     The fact that they are sociopaths and psychopaths explains why in the present they are able to steal and rob down their country with impunity and not feel bad. 

      The current Nigerian head of state, a certain clown called Goodluck Jonathan is an Ijaw. The man and the thieving cabal around him have taken corruption to a whole new level.  His insensitivity to the evil of corruption is probably best explained by the fact that his ancestors were slave sellers and did not feel guilty. His ancestors apparently socialized him into their criminal culture; he internalized criminal thinking hence today is literally the head thief of the criminal enterprise called Nigeria. The man and his criminal gang redirect Nigeria’s oil revenue to their pockets and could care less that his countrymen live in abject poverty; the average Nigerian lives on $2 a day while the clown flies around in several jet planes. He does not evince sense of doing wrong. 

       These people are so habituated to criminality that they no longer know what is right or wrong.

     REINCARNATION AND KARMA: ARE AFRICANS BORN TO PAY OFF THEIR PAST LIVES CRIMES?

      I often wonder whether contemporary Africans were past Africans who reincarnated to come and pay a price in suffering for their sins of selling their people.   This presupposes that reincarnation is real. Do people reincarnate upon death? I do not know. 

      Most African people believe in reincarnation. If it is true that people do reincarnate couldn’t it be that those Africans who today suffer poverty and assorted diseases reincarnated to pay a price for their sins in the past? 

      If karma is true these people are probably taking the effects for their past criminal behaviors.  They are paying off the samsara’s they accumulated by being criminals who sold their people.

      I do not know that reincarnation and karma is true. I am just thinking out loud. Moreover, I am aware that such belief can be abused. For example, I could say to me: suffering Africans are paying a price for their past sins and that there is nothing that I can do about it, thus I ignore them. That is, we could use reincarnation and karma to rationalize Africans suffering and not help them out.  

      If we do not help Africans we would incur negative samsara and get retribution, born in future life times to suffer. Therefore, whatever is the reason why Africans are today suffering we must do something to help them.

DISCUSSION

       So, do you believe that Africans are today suffering because of their ancestors’ crime of selling their people into slavery? Do you think that Africans are sinners who are punished for their evil past? 

      Are Africans a cursed people who must pay off their past samsara before they can be blessed with prosperity?  

      Your answer to these questions would be cherished. We ought to explore every possible explanation for why Africa seems a shit house and is going nowhere. Whereas Asia is joining the ranks of the developed world Africans are sliding backwards. 

      We have explored the neocolonial explanation, maybe we ought to explore religious explanations and see if Africans suffer because they are a sinful people.

       I am agnostic and do not believe in a punitive god; however, I am willing to explore whatever helps me to explain Africans shiftlessness. Why is it that nothing good comes out of Africa?  

      I suggest that your answer should not be academic. Academics offer convoluted arguments that is academic; they do not address the real world. I am looking for real world explanation as to why nothing seems to work out well in Africa, why everything that Africans touch turn sour. 

      Africans gained independent at about the same time that Asians did but today Asians are almost in the ranks of developed nations whereas African nations remain beggar nations.  

       Africans beg other people for economic aid and when they are given such aids their leaders steal them and squander them. One would think that fifty plus years after gaining independence Africa should have produced technocrats that can run its economy but instead what we see in African governments are thieves masquerading as political leaders.  Why this dreadful situation; what is the matter with Africans, anyway? Are Africans cursed by the gods so that nothing good ever comes out of Africa?

CONCLUSION

      Africans must make amends for their past and present sins; it is when they do so would Africa house come to order and for things to work out well for Africans. 

       Africans must change their hearts, from past and today’s stony hearts that do not love and care for their fellow Africans; from stone hearts that only know how to sell other Africans and not work for their good to loving hearts that work for the good of Africans.  

       Africans must quit being god dammed thieves and stop stealing too much.  African leaders instead of stealing from their people must work for their public good.

 

      Africans must ask for forgiveness from African Americans and if possible give them some monetary remuneration for the harm done to them.  

      Africans must stop denying their culpability in slavery and quit blaming their European partners in that crime; instead of seeing the grain of sand in white folks eyes Africans must remove the mountain in their eyes preventing them from seeing clearly and loving their people. 

       Africans must become a loving people instead of the unloving people they have historically been.

PS: I am not a religionist. I deliberately employed religious categories, such as sin and punishment in this essay. My real goal is to find out why nothing is working out well in Africa, why everywhere you look in Africa you see man-made disasters. If you can answer why Africa is a shipwreck without taking recourse to religion your answer is welcome. One thing I forbid you to do is blame white folks for Africans poverty. If I hear that excuse one more time from an African I will chop off his freaking excuse making head.  It is about time Africans accepted responsibility for their fallen house and sought ways to rebuild it instead of always, like children blaming other people for their African condition. Those who blame other persons for their issues are always unable to correct those issues; Africans blame white folks for their poverty hence swim in their self-made poverty. To correct a bad situation you must man-up and accept responsibility for causing the bad situation.

Ozodi Osuji

December 15, 2013

ozodiosuji@gmail.com