News: Buhari Plans Corruption Tribunals.

Plans are afoot by the Nigerian government to set up anti-corruption tribunals across the country.
These special judicial bodies will be located in all the six geopolitical zones of the country and will be staffed by judges at the level of appeal court arbitrators. Already, a technical committee headed by a respected retired judge of the Supreme Court has been set up and it will commence work very soon.
The Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari won the 2015 polls on a tough anti-corruption platform and so far many prominent Nigerians have been arrested and charged to court. A lot of illegal monies have also been confiscated. There is certainly improvement in the sanity of government spending, especially with the introduction of the Treasury Single Account, a consolidated financial platform that allows for greater monitoring of government revenue and expenditure but many feel he has not done enough. His critics also say that most of the high profile corruption busts involved members of the opposition. Vendetta and bias may not be all that apparent here as the opposition is made up mainly of politicians that belong to the Peoples Democratic Party, the body that ruled the country for sixteen years and under whose watch most of the brazen cases of corruption took place. However many of these politicians defected from the PDP into the present ruling party and there is widespread resentment the law has been tardy in catching up with them.
However the jailing this week of a prominent member of the ruling party has suddenly given the much needed  fillip to the fight against corruption. Reverend Jolly Nyame, the governor who ruled the north-eastern state of Taraba for eight years under the platform of the PDP but later defected to the ruling party, was found culpable of various charges bordering on high graft and was sentenced to fourteen years in jail. Buhari is very keen to build on this notable success and sees the proposed tribunals as the most viable means to consolidate on his anti-corruption mandate now that elections are fast approaching. The seeming slow pace of the fight against corruption can be traced to the conventional courts. Cases are many and trials are very laborious processes. Judges will also have to deal with other types of litigation and setting up special courts that deal solely with corruption cases will fast-track trial and punishment.
Recall that when the president seized power in a 1983 military putsch, he set up similar tribunals to deal with corrupt politicians and many of them ended up being jailed as long as 155 years. The fate that had just befallen Rev Nyame brings up faint echoes of those tough punishments.
However there are fears in government quarters setting up such special anti-corruption tribunals will have to pass though the national assembly, a body known for its high antagonism to the present executive, and there is every likelihood the move will be shot down by legislators. However, the government is undaunted and top officials are already sounding out the Chief Justice, Walter Omoghen on the ways the national assembly could be bypassed in setting up the tribunals.

President Muhammadu Buhari.

Rev Nyame.

Muhamadu Buhari, Mahathir Mohamad: The Young Turn to the Old.

Malaysia's case is the clearest indication yet of what corruption does to a nation. For over three decades, starting from the late seventies, the country witnessed unprecedented development: rapid modernization, sustained economic growth and pacy technological advancement. It soon belonged to the elite club of Asian Tigers, alongside Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and North Korea: a group of hitherto poor or stagnant countries that had shed the toga of underdevelopment and almost miraculously had delved into the realm of advancement, helped by able leadership and technological incubation and tendering. They became the envy of the whole world and served as prototypes for other countries that wished to succeed.
Fast track to 2018 and Malaysia's story isn't all that alluring again and the culprit for this downturn is the usual, old suspect: the evil saboteur called corruption. It took less than ten years to undo all that had been achieved over three decades. Allegations of corruption were sufficient, showing how potent a force of destruction this phenomenon can be. National inertia set in instantly, placing on the back foot national enthusiasm, international trust and economic coordination. The Malaysia Development Berhad scandal has refused to die down and former prime minister Najib Razak has just been ordered not to leave the country. So bad and frightening was the situation that the electorate had to rally round ex prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the man under whom the unprecedented development took place in the eighties and nineties. Mohamad is ninety two years now, the oldest head of state on earth, even ahead of the long-reigning Queen Eliabeth of England, and has certainly lost much energy and vigor and for youths of twenty and thirty to have run back to him shows the desperation of the situation at hand. It is easy to underestimate the evil of graft, yet of all the prisms that voters use to view the actions and inactions of their leaders, it is easily the most powerful. The same happened in Nigeria in 2015, when the electorate decided to put their trust in ex head of state, General Muhamadu Buhari, then 72, now75: rejecting outright the then president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, a far younger man. But under Jonathan, corruption reigned supreme, graft and sleaze became almost institutionalized and economic and social collapse was not far away. The two cases are very instructive. Age, vigor, energy and health resonate with the electorate but the very moment graft factors in, they take the back seat. Trust becomes the overriding determinant, both for young and old voters. The old want to protect their savings and the young want to save their future, no pun intended here, and if it is an old and certainly ailing man that will do the job, so be it. At 92, Dr Mohamad is not in the best of health and Buhari had paid several visits to London over his health, even indulging in extended stays to stay well, but bizarre as it sounds, both men might yet win elections again. Without being able to summon the energy to campaign hard. They already had a huge political war chest in their reputation. Choice was no brainer during th 2014 polls once voters remembered Buhari's stern anti-corruption posture in his reign as military head of state and Malaysian voters had little choice in running back to Dr Muhamad. Savings or the future had to be saved. 

General Babangida and General Abacha: A 'Friendship' that Ruined Nigeria 2.

So Babangida started plotting against Buhari quite actively the very day the latter became head of state. And his projections about the new administration came to trenchant actualities. As he expected, Buhari left the affairs of state largely in the hands of Major General Tunde Idiagbon, Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, effectively his deputy. Idiagbon was another stern, disciplined army officer who arrogantly believed Nigerians could be whipped in line in a day. But the civilian forces he was contending against were too numerous, too riotous, too stubborn and when the resistance became too intractable, it became necessary to resort to high-handed tactics. Newspapers were proscribed, journalists were jailed, unions banned and human rights abuses spiraled away. Nigerians welcomed Buhari with open arms but it didn't take long for the relationship to turn sour. In a disorganized country of 80m people with little or no civic orientation, few, very few, were ready to embrace regulated discipline. The domestic intelligence agency in those days was the National Security Organization(NSO) and overnight, its  director, Ambassador Rafindadi became a poster boy for repression and people started playing on General Idiagbon's name with that of Idi Amin Dada, Uganda's erstwhile murderous dictator. Buhari's subordinates could do all they liked knowing they would receive little or no censure from their master. It was often said Idiagbon was more powerful than the head of state himself.
All of which played into Babangida's hands. However, in order to supplant Buhari, he would have to rely on Abacha again. Abacha and Babangida were no friends. No two men could ever be so dissimilar. Babangida liked to pride himself as urbane, clever, learned and sophisticated while he regarded Abacha as dull, crude and too fond of women and drinks. On the other hand, Abacha took Babangida for a coward, a decadent sophist and a boastful buffoon. He knew Babangida's fabled intelligence to be of the dark type, one which he would use to plunge his country into political and economic disaster. Abacha relied on his sense and intuition, knowing he had more of this in his little finger than Babangida had in the whole of his brain. But if Babangida was to realize his burning ambition, become head of state, Abacha would be a necessary evil. Abacha, because of his ill-discipline and carousing lifestyle, had a huge following among officers in an army that was growing increasingly idle. He had prevailed on Babangida, who was chief of army staff, to install one of his sworn buddies, Brigadier Dongoyaro, as General Officer Commanding 2nd Mechanized Division, Ibadan, that army formation vital to the success of any coup plotter. Dongoyaro was to announce the demise of Buhari's administration on August 27,  1985. Then, in military and political calculations, the much-touted homogeneous north is in fact roughly split along Fulani and Hausa fault lines. The Buharis and the Yar'aduas belong to the Fulani group while Abacha then had the ears of the Hausa or Kano group. He was Kanuri, in far away Borno, but lived and grew up in Kano. Babangida was really an outsider, having come from Bida in far away southern margins of the north. Few Fulani officers would move against one of their own and it was imperative to garner support of the Hausa group, through General Sanni Abacha. Abacha was quite receptive to the removal of General Buhari  but he wasn't going to risk his life the second time for nothing. He too was interested in becoming head of state. He regarded himself as the Khallifa, or Successor. Kano was his adopted city, where the assassinated head of state, General Murtala Mohammed, also hailed from and there was the widespread feeling among civilian and military establishment in city that they had been shortchanged in the scheme of affairs and that they had been poorly compensated for the ill-fated regime of General Mohammed that was cut brutally short. In short, if he was going to spearhead another coup, he needed assurances he was going to get his just rewards.
Babangida said "No problem."
Abacha said he needed an assurance that looked more concrete that a verbal agreement.
Babangida then brought out a Koran and swore to the effect that whenever he was leaving power, Abacha would succeed him. That seemed to satisfy Abacha but he was no fool. He knew Babangida liked swearing falsely. Two events were to later bear him out. As the plot against him thickened, Buhari got wind of it and invited Babangida. "Ibro, I heard that you are plotting a coup against me." Babangida looked at him straight in the eye and flatly denied it and to reassure Buhari, had a Koran provided. On which he swore so volubly. The second was during the later stages of his incredibly tortuous political transition process. He had banned unbanned and banned again so many politicians that few, very few, believed the whole process had any credibility left. So when Chief M.K.O. Abiola was being persuaded to contest for president, he was naturally skeptical. So he went to Babangida who was supposed to be a great friend of his and asked if presidential vacancy truly existed in the whole political process that was looking worse than a charade every passing day. Babangida said yes and then brought out a Koran to cement the assurance.
So Abacha knew Babangida considered it fun taking the name of Allah in vain but he never betrayed a single emotion. He knew what he was going to do. He nodded and there and then, the fate of Nigeria was sealed. A horrific destination from which it was unable to free itself.
 

How Obasanjo Killed the Yar'aduas 2.

When Obasanjo was drafting Umaru Yar'adua into the presidential race in 2006, he was already a wounded president: at loggerheads not only with the entire country that he governed, but also with most of his subordinates. The legacies he had tried to entrench were in dire tatters and he had just suffered a humiliating blow over his Third Term Agenda, a quest to run for a third term, one above the constitutionally stipulated two. All it needed was a stamp of approval by the Senate and he spared neither time nor cash to lure the lawmakers, folks who had worn the corrupt tag all their lives. But even if his popularity had not nosedived, there was no way Nigerians could ascertain that a Fourth Term Agenda would not supplant a Third Term and beyond that...Dictatorship of any kind, civilian or military, was a tune that sounded a bit sour in the streets, Nigerians just about shaking off the trauma of the brutal dictatorships of General Babangida and General Abacha. Besides, northerners felt it was their turn to occupy the seat, their case premised on the unwritten agreement that the cause of national stability would be best served if the presidency was rotated between the north and south. Most people in his Yoruba ethnic stock were even less interested. Even if he had not alienated most of them, they were the most sophisticated group in the federation and were not likely to buy into any ethnic scheme. The result was predictable, except for cronies who were feathering their own nest from the scheme. The rejection in the Senate was devastating and Obasanjo was said to have held on to the sides of his chair trying to steady himself in the shock of the humiliation. And it was especially bitter because the party that brought him to power, the Peoples' Democratic Party, had an overwhelming majority in the Senate.
The president sulked for days unending. He had been made a laughing stock. Naturally, he didn't like parting with money and it hurt him to the doldrums he had lost a colossal sum for nothing. Colossal it was, money having been trucked into the Senate in special, capacious sacks called Ghana-Must-Go to bribe Senators. The gentlemen collected the money and then turned to give him a black eye. He had come out badly battered in what seemed a political Ponzi scheme.
 But he had to hand over power to a successor in barely a year. That was when a little smile flitted across his eyes. If they could prevent him from succeeding himself, there was virtually nothing anybody could do to stop him from anointing a successor. And Umaru Yar'adua sprang instantly into his mind. But the then governor of Katsina State was a very sick man, a fact that was well-known to everybody. He had been a heavy smoker all his life, with the attendant medical consequences, and in fact had had a kidney transplant. But that didn't matter a jot to the president. Yar'adua was his man. If he performed creditably in office, he would be credited with installing such an effective successor; if his illness hampered him from achieving much, well, Nigerians had given him a black eye, they deserve their own eyes to be gouged out. It would serve them right, very right. As military leader, Yar'adua's elder brother, Shehu, was his second in command and there was do doubt he would wield considerable influence on the younger one, gratitude being an associated factor, appreciation for choosing him from among thousands of healthy, capable northerners. Anointing Yar'adua as his successor would be a win-win case for Obasanjo.
The rest is history. Obasanjo spared no effort to make Yar;adua president. The cash left over from the Third Term bribery operations was promptly deployed to buy delegates during the PDP primaries and the general elections were a stroll for Yar'adua. It didn't matter that he collapsed during one of the presidential campaigns and had to be rushed to Germany for treatment, it didn't matter the presidential elections were heavily rigged: and even if they had not been rigged, the electorate were too ignorant to worry about the health status of an incoming leader, at any rate the electorate had hardly mattered in Nigerian elections.
So Yar'adua became president, placed under a burden that was too heavy for his health, a frame of mind and body that could hardly support lesser duties of governance in tiny Katsina State. There was no guarantee he would have lived longer if he had not become president but kidney failure and pericarditis were two things the toll of governance in a country infernally difficult and complex as Nigeria was going to exacerbate.  
   But Yar'adua was smart enough to know that Obasanjo's scheming was not out of genuine love for him. He knew he was going to die soon anyway and it wouldn't be bad if it was written he became president of his country even for a day. However he didn't die without exacting a little pound of flesh from his supposed benefactor. Obasanjo was to suffer a little hurt when the first pronouncement his protege made in office was to denounce the same electoral process that brought him to power, Obasanjo's retaliation against Nigerians. But the Nike Grange affair almost delivered a mortal blow. Recall that Nike Grange was Obasanjo's protege and was nominated by him into Yar'adua's cabinet. As Minister of Health, the professor of pediatrics allegedly flouted the president's order to return all unspent money in ministries to national coffers. Yar'adua was enraged. Obasanjo felt it imperative to intervene but the president, his protege, would have none of it. Iyabo, Obasanjo's daughter was also involved in the scandal, as senator superintending over the health ministry, but her father wouldn't care a hoot if she got her ass fried. It was Nike he was interested in saving but Yar'adua would have none of it. Yar'adua actually felt no compulsion to take orders from Obasanjo. He was of a radical persuasion, having been member of the leftist Aminu Kano-led PRP in the Second Republic while his own father was briefly vice-chairman of the conservative NPN. He had a master's degree in chemistry and in fact was the first university graduate to become president of Nigeria while Obasanjo barely finished secondary school before joining the army. He rebuffed all Obasanjo's entreaties and was to compound recalcitrance and ingratitude by bringing Nike to court in handcuffs, an act that brought Obasanjo fuming to no end. "Shehu gan ko le ba mi dan eleyi wo." An English translation of that Yoruba cliche would read: "Shehu(Yar'adua's late elder brother) would not have tried the insubordination with me."

Trump, Immigration and Walls.

President Donald Trump like his things big and bright, a one off image that catches on all fours and swamps everything else. Hence everywhere you go in his immigration policy, the wall looms large. If he's trying to erect a fence to keep out immigrants along the border with Mexico, why should the whole project borrow a controversy from the horribly contentious Dreamers' Project? Not by any stretch of imagination are the two related.
But he knows the immigration conundrum will not just go away with erecting a wall. It is too complex for that project no matter how big it is. He has to back to the roots of the problem, which are as spreading and diverse as the roots of the West African red mangrove. He would need to start from Africa, a shithole as shitty as they come. Poverty is simply grinding; the leaders who run the shitholes are too powerful and helpless folks do the only thing they can: risk the horribly dangerous journey across Sahara Desert and then cross the Mediterranean Sea in any boat they can find to Europe. It is not foolhardiness. It is desperate survival. America is lucky, so to say. The Atlantic Ocean is a much larger divide than the Med and Africa versions of Vietnamese boat people are not going to be a sight soon. From Africa and Europe, some migrants will find their to Mexico, to Trump's wall but whether it will be an unbreachable obstacle remains to be seen. If the Berlin Wall could not could not keep folks from bursting out from behind the Iron Curtain, I don't see how a wall  in sections of the infernally long Mexican border will be a greater obstacle to those who have crossed the Sahara and the Med. In an age where human desperation and ingenuity are increasing by leaps and bonds.
A Harvard professor was in Nigeria recently and he did see people virtually boiling leaves for food. Which is just a very tiny, tiny fraction of the gory picture. Millions are surviving on less. Mr Trump could be at the forefront of the fight against those who steal money meant for food and stash them away in other countries. He could impose severe sanctions on countries that readily accept and hoard such loot. The Oghara Independent Power Project, a Ponzi Scheme organized by the Delta state government of Nigeria, led to the bleeding of 25 billion naira from the state coffers. Many officials simply shared the money, closed shop and relocated to the US, leaving millions of people in the impoverished region to a fate of hunger and malnutrition. Trump could ask serious questions of folks like that. Britain is already asking investors to explain sources of their wealth. Such proactive steps will not me unnecessary meddling; it could help a lot of folks in Africa and Asia become a bit contended and save the money meant for building the wall for other pressing needs.