Lai Mohammed: Read Between The Lines

By Chukwudi Ohiri. 

Did the Honourable Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed actually say that President Mohammadu Buhari has fulfilled all his campaign promises to address insecurity, fix the economy and fight corruption? This was the first question that came to my mind when I saw the bold screaming headline, "Buhari Has Fulfilled All His Campaign Promises On Economy And Insecurity, Nigerians Living Better Now Than In Jonathan’s Era" credited to NAN. 
My first response to this headline before curiously reading the details of the report was that President Buhari should then resign honorably if indeed he believes that he has fulfilled all his campaign promises so that another person can come in and continue from where he stopped. Out of the same curiosity, I tried to find out if Buhari himself overtly or covertly aligns himself with this position of his Minister and in fairness to our President, his comments, body language and dialectics suggest a complete opposite of what Lai Mohammed says. For instance, just last week, the president was quoted to have said clearly that fulfilling all his campaign promises would not be easy. He however assured Nigerians that he will do all he can to ensure he delivers on his promises. This statement came almost like an immediate response to Lai mohammed's ranting that PMB has fulfilled his campaign promises. Not once, not twice, in fact, a countless times, the information Minister had in the past made very controversial statements and claims that left nothing but bewilderment on the faces of even his fellow party men with mouth agape. What then is the missing link? 
I guess Nigerians (myself inclusive) are yet to understand the style and communication language of the Honourable Minister of Information and culture. I think we all need to start reading this man's comments between the lines. This man is obviously in his mid sixties (at least by official age) and as such can pass for an elder who speaks like an elder. No wonder he often speaks in proverbs and parables which are usually laced with truth, half-truth and occasionally not-so-truthful (permit me not to use the word 'lies' for it may be disrespectful to call an elder a liar in my own clime anyway).  Take it or leave it, Alhaji Lai Mohammed is always inspiring to listen to. The challenge is that he can say one thing which has double meanings and he deliberately and masterfully chooses a particular cause to buttress depending on where his interest lies at that particular time. When I began to read Alhaji Lai Mohammed's lips, I saw disguised truth and of course contradictions.  
Using the analogy of a typical examination hall, when the questions are set and students begin to write. You discover that some people finish before the time, not because they got all the answers, but because they've exhausted the much they know and rather than waste their time scratching the brain for what they can't find. This might be what Lai Mohammed meant by “the federal government had fulfilled its campaign promises to address insecurity, fix the economy and fight corruption". He even went further to admit that they are bereft of new ideas given that whatever policies they are adopting seem not to be working when he added that "there will be some pains, but there is no alternative to what we are doing". Does that not mean 'fait accompli? Rather than going back and forth in chains of policy somersault, isn't it better to down tools and take a bow? A few examples here may suffice to amplify this point of policy rigmarole. 
On the promise of fighting corruption, Alhaji Mohammed said that no amount of economic reforms put in place could work in the country unless the “monster of corruption is successfully dealt with’’. Is this not a clear statement of fact suggesting that with the war far from being won, we may continue on this two steps forward and seven steps backward movement till the next election period. By the way, apart from the TSA policy adapted from the previous administration, I can say without fear of equivocation that what we have thus far seen under the current administration is a 'fight against perceived corrupt persons' and not a fight against corruption itself. Fighting corruption entails putting structures and systems in place that would make it uneasy for the citizens to engage in corruption without being apprehended. What is on ground is a fear of being persecuted for corruption rather than abhorrence of corrupt practices. However, this present administration needs our commendation for doing much more than its predecessors in the corruption fight. 
On diversification of the economy away from oil, there seems to be some form of hypocrisy in the whole policy. It still baffles one to observe that the federal government which is preaching diversification away from oil is at the same time spending huge sum of money scouting for oil in the Northern part of the country. I call this hypocrisy of the highest order and bereavement of ideas. Perhaps, this is what Lai Mohammed meant when he said their campaign promises have been fulfilled. When the former Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron saw that his ideals and visions for Britain would no longer make sense outside of the EU, he quickly called it quits with the job rather than working against his principles and conscience. He gave way for another who believes that Britain would fare better outside the EU. This is patriotism. For Cameron, "I'm done with all I have to offer Britain as Prime Minister". I think Lai Mohammed spoke in parables, impliedly admitting that the present administration under PMB is bereft of ideas to clean up the 'mess of PDP's sixteen years of misrule and squalor'. 
On the issue of salvaging our sinking Naira, it is indeed disheartening to observe that while the government blatantly refused to subsidies forex for the real sector which adds so much to the revamping of the economy, it has approved the sale of Dollar to Muslim pilgrims at the rate of N197 even when their trip adds no value to the economy. Manufacturers and importers of pain-soothing products are left to hustle for Dollars at N400 and above. I think I see sense in Lai Mohammed's submission that the APC government has exhausted all the items on its to-do-list and perhaps, on the brains of the present crop of cabinet members. 
On the contrary, I still believe PMB has a lot more to offer Nigerians. He apparently does not have all the answers but he can revitalize his team by showing the exit doors to the redundant and incapacitated ones before the country collapses under his watch. I am among the very few who still believe that PMB means well for the country like GEJ, but Nigeria needs more than goodwill and good intentions as history has taught us that it doesn't follow like that. 
The more Lai Mohammed makes 'castrated' effort to paint an all-is-well picture of the present administration, the more he throws his party into public mockery and disrepute. Every lie has an expiry date and equivocation makes the matter even worse. 

Demarketing Nigeria: Between The Truth and Diplomacy.

By Chukwudi Ohiri

Truth will always remain the truth no matter the circumstances. If it is not true, no matter how you try to garnish it, it must still remain falsehood and vise versa. This appears to be the main crux of the bedlam between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the recent outburst involving the mouthpiece of PDP and the presidential spokesperson.

For clarity, President Muhammadu Buhari had announced to the whole world during his recent Indian trip that Nigeria is broke and as such cannot afford the luxury of paying 42 ministers. This statement and many similar ones by the President in the past portraying Nigerians to be very corrupt people operating a corrupt system drew the irk of the PDP. In a statement, Olisa Metuh, the party's spokesperson admonished the President to refrain from painting the country in a negative light before domestic and international community and investors as this would be tantamount to 'demarketing' the same country he is traversing the length and breadth of the globe to woo investors into. Did the APC take this admonition kindly? The answer is 'No'.

Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to the President on Publicity jumped into the foray to defend his principal. According to him, "President Buhari will not in the name of “marketing” or “attracting” investors, follow in the footsteps of the ousted PDP Administration and its discredited officials who shamelessly lied to Nigerians and the world about the buoyancy and vibrancy of an economy they had bled dry for personal gain, when it was very obvious to the discerning, that the Nigerian economy was headed for serious trouble." Here lies the quagmire. Between the PDP and APC who is right? Of a truth, there is wisdom in the position taken by both parties. The problem is with differentiating between truth and diplomacy.

Although diplomacy has been viewed over time as not telling the truth, the truth is that the concept is more concerned with how the truth is being told and not that it encourages spread of falsehood. It is about telling the truth (which always hurts) in a more soothing way. A very simplistic definition of diplomacy is 'the ability not to tell a lie and yet avoid telling the bitter truth'. The governed deserve to know the truth from their leaders at all times and if this is what PMB is preaching, it is commendable. Yet, there are so many ways to cushion the truth without necessarily adulterating it.

On February 8, some years back, I was privileged to attend one of the annual lecture series organized by the Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL) founded by Prof. Pat Utomi at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA). During his speech, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the erstwhile Secretary General of the Commonwealth gave a scintillating interpretation of what diplomacy and fact reportage should be for governments and their spokespersons. In his usual sonorous voice, he said: "Rather than say 'the glass is half empty', you can present it as 'the glass is half full’". For me, this is diplomacy summarized. The two statements are literally the same, yet, both cannot have the same impact. While the phrase 'half empty' transmits a negative signal, 'half full' transmits a positive one. Both reports do not contain any iota of falsehood, yet they convey divergent signals.  This is where I think PMB and his spokespersons got it wrong. You don't tell a patient with a terminal disease that he must die even though you owe him the truth about his prognosis. Hope must be kept alive even in the face of obscurity and hopelessness no matter the condition and circumstance. This is what the medical profession teaches and can be applied to politics and governance.

Nigeria does not rank highest in the world corruption index nor is it among the poorest of the poor nations. One hardly hears the leaders of any of the worst countries lamenting and ruing the corruption or insolvency of their countries to any ear that cares to listen. No other leader anywhere in the world (except that of Nigeria), is going about denigrating their successors at every opportune time after electioneering campaigns, not even in Greece officially declared insolvent. The bitter truth from the PDP is that you don’t call your daughters bad names before prospective suitors and still expect serious and genuine suitors to come knocking on your door no matter how beautiful or rich your daughters are. This message from the PDP must be taken by the APC with every humility even if they don’t like the messenger. Rather than see it as unnecessary distraction to the President, the entire message as contained in the statement must be taken with open heart to enrich the most respected learning of the APC who rattled the electorate with sound (though often exaggerated) arguments during the campaigns.     

Unfortunately and prior to the elections, the then opposition APC on its way to victory told the electorate how corruption stinks under the PDP rule and promised Nigerians that with the aid of their symbolic broom, they would sweep out corruption if they come to power. They told the electorate that the PDP has run the economy aground for sixteen years with a promise to revamp it once they clinch the federal position. Nine months after getting the nod of the electorate, the same old story is still being told by the ruling APC to the detriment of real governance and fulfillment of campaign promises. It so seems that the problem of the country right now is not actually national fiscal bankruptcy but a bankruptcy of ideas on the part of the ruling party. It is crystal clear now that PMB may not have all it takes to drive the economy going by the near comatose state of affairs in the past six months being in charge without ministers. It appears he is bereft of ideas on how to move the country forward. From his address during the retreat with the ministers-designate, it is obvious he will be relying greatly on the newly appointed ministers for the next direction even after talking down on them.

Talking about the ministers, the apparent failure of PMB's solo governance has opened up another vista of hope being reposed on the just inaugurated ministers. This appears to be last hope of the APC to salvage its tottering image and prove to Nigerians that it is truly ready for governance. The question is, would they have the ideas to salvage this country as most of them demonstrated during the ministerial screening exercise? PMB must be commended for his ability to assemble the crop of personalities he picked as ministers. He may have failed in giving Nigerians the much touted saints and Angels, but the quality displayed by some of them appears to be quite sterling. But again, will they not be treated as "noise makers" whose ideas will only amount to nothing? In them, Nigerians are reposing the last repository of hope. We hope they would not toe the line of their master by spending ample time digging out the rot in their new estates (Ministries) at the expense of formulating policies that will help bring Nigeria out of the doldrums. We want the truth in 'half full' rather than the candour of telling us 'half empty'. If the APC has suddenly found out the virtue in the sanctity of truth as against outlandish propaganda, that is most welcome, but they must not stampede Nigerians to death before the real death beckons.

 

At Last, APC's Anti-Igbo Stance Begins To Manifest (APC and The South-East Dilemma)

By Chukwudi OHIRI

The emergence of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in late 2013 opened up a sinister debate among the South East political enthusiasts. The crux of the debate was on the future of the Igbos under the emerging ‘mega party’. Eagle-eyed (or should I say, self-serving) politicians either saw it coming or anticipated that the APC was up to some surprise in the upcoming elections and so, there was need to position for sharing the booty when it eventually arrives.

In the ensuing debate prior to the elections, while some argued that APC holds no future for the Igboman considering the configuration and the powers that be in the party, others almost fought one another insisting that the APC is the only, and perhaps the last hope of the Igboman to realise his dream of at least, launching himself back into political relevance in the Nigerian political equation. They premised this permutation on the calculation that if APC succeeds in wresting power from the PDP, it would want to portray itself as icon of natural justice and equity by zoning the presidency to the South-East which is yet to produce the President of Nigeria since after Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. This hope was dashed during the APC primaries which produced Muhammadu Buhari as its flag bearer for the 2015 polls. Owelle Rochas Okorocha, a foundation member and strong contributor to the emergence of APC as a party lost out to a distant third place for whatever ‘expedient’ reasons. That expediency perhaps, paved way for the eventual victory of the APC at the 2015 polls. The hope of realising the dream of producing a Nigerian President from the Igbo extraction evaporated, maybe, for the time being. The APC failed to project itself as symbol of equity and justice for both the minority group and the majority.

Having won the electoral war, it was time to share the booty. The truth remains that the Igbos overwhelmingly and still unapologetically voted for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP defying the call by the few, will I say, ‘eagle-eyed’ or ‘self-serving’ politicians to key into the ‘imminent, change of baton. Although the Igbos lost out, they however proved bookmakers wrong that ‘the Igbos will have a grossly divided vote’. For once, they were unanimous in their assertion that despite not benefitting so much from the PDP-led administration, the incoming one led by the APC may not serve it any better.  Were they right in this assumption? The unfolding political drama at the National Assembly might as well produce a perfect answer.

On the 8^th of June, 2015, the National Assembly held elections to choose the Senate President (SP), Deputy Senate President (DSP), Speaker and Deputy Speaker for the upper and lower chambers respectively. Capitalizing on a political impasse within the APC, the PDP was able to pull a deadly string to produce the Deputy Senate President in the Person of Senator Ike Ekweremadu who represents one of the South-East States. Senator Bukola Saraki (who was not anointed by the APC leadership) emerged as the Speaker of the upper chamber to the utter dismay of his party leadership leading to so much bickering among the party hierarchy. That is not the real gist as it is no longer news.

The real gist here is that after a lot of conciliatory overtures from power brokers within and outside the party, the APC have come to accept the election of the Bukola Saraki as the Senate President but have vehemently kicked against the emergence of Ike Ekweremadu as the Deputy Senate President. They have gone ahead to call for his resignation threatening to impeach him if he fails to quit honourably.

Championing this specious call is a group known as the Unity Forum—a factional group from the APC senators. The group in a letter to the party leadership on the imperative of removing Ekweremadu argued that “although the tradition of the Nigerian Senate concedes much power to the Senate President, it is indeed the Deputy Senate President that directly interacts and controls the day-to-day activities of the senate”. They went ahead to list a lot of statutorily strategic functions ascribed to the office of the DSP warning that it is dangerous to concede such a sensitive post to the ‘opposition’.

On his part, the immediate past governor of Kano State and former Presidential aspirant of All Progressive Congress, Senator Musa Rabiu Kwakwanso urged the Senate President, Bukola Saraki to declare Ekweremadu’s seat vacant and return it to the APC—an action that will be clearly unconstitutional and unjustifiable. He premised his call on the fact that in the sixteen years that the PDP ruled the country, it at no time gave the opposition the benefit of having such a position as the DSP. Kwakwanso forgot in such a hurry that as some point in life of the National Assembly, a member of the opposition party emerged as the Speaker of the lower chamber (although by act of defection to the opposition party) and hell was not let lose. He forgot so quickly that the constitution expressly states in Section 50(1) that there shall be  (a) A President and Deputy of the Senate who shall be elected by the members of the House FROM AMONG THEMSELVES; (Emphasis mine). The constitution never envisaged the election of these mentioned officers from any particular party (majority or minority).

Political pundits are unanimous in pointing out that if a deputy senate president had emerged out of PDP but from any other geopolitical zone except the South-East, the APC would have buried its hatchet and sheathed its sword long ago. For the APC, they reason, it is unthinkable and an affront on the party for a zone that overwhelmingly voted against it to occupy such a sensitive seat. This is the untold truth about the present quagmire bedevilling the upper chamber leadership and the Igbos are not oblivious of that. Had the South-East not grabbed this chance, it is obvious that the APC were poised to ensure that they paid dearly for their political decision in the 2015 general election.

The simple interpretation is that for the second time, the APC has manifested its anti-Igbo posture but are far from succeeding this time around since the process that brought Ike Ekweremadu was not only constitutional, but also that the PDP which commands a sizeable number in the red chamber will never let go of this one precious position it gallantly secured, not even for any ethno-religious consideration. The PDP had ample opportunity to as much as secure the Senate Presidency on that fateful day, but wisely, it resisted the temptation to betray trust and this will go a long way in winning for it, a lot of goodwill from the opposition and any other group that may have dealings with it in the future.

At the Lower House, the APC, not putting anything to chance has concluded arrangements to ensure that the South East comes nowhere near the leadership position in the green chambers even when natural justice has providently made it in such a way that South East must occupy one (even if the least) of the leadership positions available in the house. The party reportedly zoned the position of House Majority Leader to the South-West; Chief Whip to the North-East; Deputy Leader to the North-West; and Deputy Whip to the South-South leaving the South-East with nothing.

Although Nigeria’s democracy and most other democracies support the principle of ‘winner takes all’, the Nigerian Constitution has an antidote to this ‘winner-takes-all’ philosophy embedded in the federal character principle. Except for any major upset, the APC by this arrangement is on the verge of making a third bold statement that the Igbos have no future in the party. They forget so easily that although the party lost in the zone, there were a few individuals who worked tirelessly to ensure that the party’s presence was felt in the region and that these individuals deserve a path in the back, not ostracism.  Two of such persons are in the House of Representatives and are favoured by natural justice to occupy a leadership position irrespective of their rankings.

If the Speaker of the House in the person of Yakubu Dogara hails from the North-West and the Deputy Speaker in the person of Yussuf Lasun comes South-West, natural justice demands that the remaining four principal offices should be shared among the remaining four geopolitical zones including the South-East. But that may not likely be as the party may have zoned the position of House Majority Leader to the South-West, targeting Femi Gbajabiamila; Chief Whip to the North-East, eyeing Mr. Mohammed Monguno from Borno State; Deputy Leader to the North-West with an eye on Mr. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa from Kano State; and Deputy Whip to the South-South with Mr. Pally Iriase from Edo State in mind. For lack of a ranking member from the South-East, the zone clearly will most likely not produce any leader and the APC is not likely to invoke any ‘Doctrine of necessity’ (which would have been the next option) to pacify the zone. The body language of the Party and in consonance with its seemingly ‘avowed’ pathway does not suggest that it is willing to go that way.

Finally, the emergence of Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate president may have implicitly given the APC a leeway to deny the South-East the position of the Secretary to the Federal Government (SGF). There is serious apprehension that the position which seemed foreclosed for the South-East may have also been lost as the APC will most likely ventilate its anger for the zone by ceding the position to another geopolitical. If that happens, and when it does, the APC will have succeeded in making four bold statements reflecting its irritation for the people of the South-East, nay—Igbos. They will have also succeeded in answering the question posed earlier in this article about the future of Igbos under the umbrella of the APC. The Igbos are watching with sealed lips and would speak up at the right time.

   (Also published in Orient Daily, Daily Post)