Aisha Buhari: Icon of the moment

Mrs. Buhari.... Her comments, who knows, could mark a turning point for a government that has been most culpable in precipitating the current economic recession and generating growing disquiet, displeasure and confusion in the entire citizenry. It could offer a template that could instill flexibility to salvage the "crumbling giant" and impact sanity in the system towards a successful governance to ensure an indisputable legacy. — Mrs. Buhari…. Her comments, who knows, could mark a turning point for a government that has been most culpable in precipitating the current economic recession and generating growing disquiet, displeasure and confusion in the entire citizenry. It could offer a template that could instill flexibility to salvage the “crumbling giant” and impact sanity in the system towards a successful governance to ensure an indisputable legacy.

By Edel-QuinnAgbaegbu

For over one week, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, Nigeria’s reigning First Lady has been dominating the media space in Nigeria. Given the weight of what she said recently, which went viral on the internet, Mrs Buhari words are now a quotable quote in many public statements, articles and commentaries in the country. She must have also made wide impact globally, as the world is now a global village, thanks to online media and innovations in communication technology. By a mere expression of her view, against the modus operandi in the administration of a democratic government where her husband is the President and Commander-in-Chief, she stirred the honest nest. She is today seen by many as an icon of a sort.

Mrs. Aisha Buhari, in an interview she granted to BBC Hausa Service on October 14, 2016 pointed out many obvious flaws of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration in Nigeria, proffering what many have to accept as cogent and competent solutions and alternatives to the issues facing the nation. The interview which was quite revealing has given further insight to the undercurrents in the present administration. It has established more reality zones of incompetence, mistrust, inconsistency, impunity and insensitivity in a mission less and visionless system.

Her intelligent and careful articulation was an exposé of an administration of what some have described as new internal colonial masters by fellow Nigerians, holding sway in power and doing more damage to Nigeria. Mrs. Buhari, being highly sympathetic to the national course and having been knocked down with the obvious fact that few relentless mediocre and opportunists in the system are subverting government, had no other choice than to split the Pandora box open. It appears, nonetheless that there is nothing new in what she has said. Many Nigerians have earlier expressed apprehension about Mr. President’s performance. What just played out is that she spoke the minds of Nigerians and vented her frustrations with the turn of events.

There is no doubt that she spoke with good intents. Her statements couldn’t have been made to discredit the president because she loves her husband. She is also closer to him than any other and should understand him better.

In this trying time of the Nigeria nation, the outburst of Mrs. Aisha Buhari should not be decried. The situation is better expressed in the proverbial words of John Muonye in his book The Only Child, “what Chiaku thought to be an island was nothing but the back of a dangerous shark”. This is rather an event that douses our tense sensibilities, shrouded in subjection of Nigerians to unprecedented level of hunger and starvation, poverty, sufferings and deprivations. What she did has also de-escalated the situation in the face of battered economy, denials and multiple rights infringements that were hitherto unknown.

Without prejudice, Mrs. Aisha Buhari is living her pledge to our county Nigeria. Like other citizens, she has severally pledged, “To be faithful, loyal and honest. To serve Nigeria with all my strength”. She perfectly fits into this severally repeated wise saying: “Seest thou a woman diligent in her ways”.

Her comments, who knows, could mark a turning point for a government that has been most culpable in precipitating the current economic recession and generating growing disquiet, displeasure and confusion in the entire citizenry. It could offer a template that could instill flexibility to salvage the “crumbling giant” and impact sanity in the system towards a successful governance to ensure an indisputable legacy.

Without prejudice, Mrs. Aisha Buhari is living her pledge to our county Nigeria. Like other citizens, she has severally pledged, “To be faithful, loyal and honest. To serve Nigeria with all my strength”. She perfectly fits into this severally repeated wise saying: “Seest thou a woman diligent in her ways”.

Perhaps, Ellen G. White, the American prolific writer had Mrs. Aisha Buhari in mind when she wrote, “The greatest want of the world is the want of men who will not be bought or sold, men who do not fear to call sin by its name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though heavens fall”.

Unfortunately, and to the chagrin of the entire world, the response of the President apparently dismissed these concerns with contempt. The president rather chose to denigrate the woman and women in general to the confines of the kitchen and the bedroom. Most disgustingly, it was done before a female German President, shocked German audience and an utterly dumbfounded world. The President’s comments went beyond the pale. They were inflammatory, inconsistent and not compatible with modern ideas. Very unthinkable!

It is purely an expression of his posture and a prismatic reflection of the composition of this government and the disdain to which women are held by the government. It is quite embarrassing, politically incorrect, far below the standard of human decency and globally intolerable and unacceptable.

And I wish to ask these questions: What was the intention of President Buhari’s response? Make women to feel daunted, cowed, frustrated or disgruntled? No! Never. It rather presents as a clarion call to “Every Woman” to deepen her resolve to do right things right and give life to a dream.

It should be a challenge for Nigeria women especially, to struggle and better their situation to reaffirm their abilities, prowess, intellect and power to prove that they are more than a unit of the family organization. This is the time to reawaken the demand of mainstreaming gender in public policies in order to influence the course of social change in the society for a better world. Higher responsibilities are never dependent on gender. Mrs. Angela Merkel of Germany is a proof. Men cannot do it alone.

One had expected on the contrary, that the President could have taken advantage of the wisdom and courage exhibited by his wife to readjust and do the needful. For example, his fight against corruption and the financial recovery which apparently is wrongheaded and targeted has become most unpopular and should have been redressed.

Citizens are more concerned about the excruciating and unimaginable economic hardship and joblessness facing the entire nation. The various security challenges including the impunity of the cattle herdsmen particularly in the Middle Belt and Southeast of Nigeria and of course the federal capital territory now in the map is yet to receive adequate attention. And the widely campaigned “change” still remains a mirage.

There could be no better opportunity than now, to evoke Buhari’s earlier popular, but now outdated remark, “I belong to nobody. I belong to everybody”. It was assumed this was irrespective of creed, gender or race, after all he pledged “to defend the country’s unity and uphold her honor and glory”. Instead of being hell-bent on knocking icons off their pedestals, it would have been more thoughtful for him to address the overarching theme of marginalization and promote the status quo to adjust the ladder that excludes women’s participation.

It should be appreciated that the role of women, in a standard operating practice, as a major factor in the internal control system in any democracy has been quite significant and dynamic. Although Nigeria’s democracy could be perceived as one of the most abnormal situations in the world, neither circumvention nor restriction can distort or dissuade the natural and traditional model of women. They are key in facilitating and galvanizing efforts and services towards nations building and to ensure development and sustainability.

No matter how dumb one may claim to be, the emancipation of women is a civil right. They are generations that need to be reached and harnessed. There is no alternative.

♦ Edel-quinn Agbaegbu is the Executive Director, Every Woman Hope Centre, Abuja,Nigeria based NGO and Publishers of LifeCare Journal.

Officers: 83 Nigerian soldiers missing in Boko Haram attack

By Haruna Umar and Michelle Faul | AP

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Some 83 Nigerian soldiers are missing in action since Boko Haram Islamic extremists attacked a remote military base in the northeast, senior army officers said Sunday.

The soldiers were unable to fight back and fled because Boko Haram had superior fire power, the officers told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to give information to reporters.

Morale also was low among the troops because they were being rationed to one meal a day and their allowances were being pilfered by their commanders, the officers said.

Army spokesman Col. Sani Kukasheka Usman reported last week that “some” soldiers were missing and 13 wounded when the insurgents on Oct. 17 attacked their base in Gashigar village, on the border with Niger. Usman has not responded to requests for the actual number.

Dozens of fleeing troops jumped into the Niger River and 22 were pulled from the water by soldiers from that neighboring country, officers said. Many soldiers are feared to have drowned, they said.

In a separate development, hunters killed seven Boko Haram fighters who were burning buildings and huts in northeastern Makwaa village, the hunters and villagers confirmed Sunday. “We engaged them in a fierce battle for close to three hours, we overpowered them, resulting in the killing of seven,” hunter Aisha Gombi said of Saturday night’s firefight. “One was caught alive with gun wounds and others escaped into the bush.”

President Muhammadu Buhari promised to better arm Nigeria’s military when he was elected in March 2015, blaming corruption for the deaths of thousands including soldiers in the 7-year-old Islamic insurgency that has killed more than 20,000 people.

Billions of dollars meant to buy arms were stolen or diverted to the presidential campaign of former President Goodluck Jonathan, according to ongoing court cases.

Military officers also are currently facing courts-martial for allegedly selling arms and ammunition to Boko Haram, indicating the corruption bedeviling the country’s fight against the Islamic extremists continues despite government efforts to halt graft.

Still, the military in the past year has succeeded in dislodging the insurgents from most towns and villages where they had set up an Islamic caliphate. But the extremists continue to attack remote villages and main roads that they have mined. Nigeria’s army has reported thwarting and killing several suicide bombers in the past month.

The United Nations has warned that tens of thousands among the 2.6 million people forced from their homes by the insurgency are facing famine-like conditions that already are killing children.

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♦Paul reported from Lagos, Nigeria. Associated Press writer Ibrahim Abdulaziz contributed to this report from Yola, Nigeria.

The World’s Ten Most Unstable Countries – Nigeria listed as fifth

Workers displaying various placards, during a "May Day" rally at Onikan Studium in Lagos. — Workers displaying various placards, during a “May Day” rally at Onikan Studium in Lagos.

By Michael Rubin

As George W. Bush and Al Gore debated prior to the 2000 elections, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan merited serious mention. Eight years later, neither Barack Obama nor John McCain foresaw chaos in Syria and Libya.

Political science is heavy on the political and light on science. Area studies specialists failed to predict the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the fall of the Soviet Union, or the Arab Spring.

Policymakers are much more comfortable second-guessing what they saw in the rearview mirror than gazing over the horizon.

Simply put, the world is unpredictable and the chief concerns for the next administration might be barely a blip on the radar today.

Putting aside existing conflicts in Libya, Syria, Yemen, the South China Sea and Ukraine, what crises could blindside the White House in the next four years? Here are ten countries and potential crises that should certainly be on the next administration’s radar screen:

1. The Maldives.

Let’s start small. Few Americans know the Maldives, but those who do likely think of the low-lying Indian Ocean archipelago as the archetypal tropical island paradise .

Outside of the gated resorts, however, Islamist radicalism has been taking root. The Maldivian government has sought US assistance, but the 3 a.m. phone call has now been ringing unanswered for several years. Might ISIS seize Western tourists on the island? What would a radical government willing to accept arms and foreign jihadis mean for trans-Indian Ocean shipping ?

The Maldives might be isolated and far from US shores but isn’t that what analysts once said of Afghanistan?

2. Mauritania.

Africa has largely been a success story over the past 20 years, but several countries put that progress at risk. Take Mauritania, for example.

European terror analysts regularly list Mauritania as perhaps their top, under-the-radar concern. The impoverished country on the Atlantic coast of Africa has the population of Phoenix, Arizona, spread over an area twice the size of California.

An Islamic Republic, it is one of the last countries to embrace slavery in practice if not in law. Its largely ungoverned interior has become the domain of smugglers and a safe-haven for terrorists. Loose weaponry from Libya has only poured fuel on the fire.

In many ways, Mauritania has become pre-9/11 Afghanistan , just without the diplomatic attention.

3. Algeria.

Africa’s largest country, Algeria should also be one of its wealthiest. But decades of military rule, statist economic policies, and a devastating civil war in the 1990s have taken their toll.

Now, southern Algeria is a haven for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria’s long-time strongman, will likely not last out the next four years . There is no clear succession and, even if a president does consolidate political control, he will have to face down Islamic radicals who might seek to avenge their long suppression.

One Libya has been destabilizing enough. Another so close to Europe could herald disaster.

4. Ethiopia.

Two and a half times the size of California, Ethiopia is one of the world’s oldest countries but, despite an increasingly autocratic and repressive leadership projecting an aura of stability, it looks like it could be among the world’s most fragile states. While the economy has grown rapidly, poverty remains the rule as the population also booms.

The agricultural basis of the economy makes Ethiopia susceptible to drought. State-dominated industries mean it competes poorly with the outside world. The country is incredibly diverse. In 1991, Eritrea successfully seceded after a decades-long civil war. While Eritrea had its own colonial heritage, many other ethnic groups are as resentful of Addis Ababa’s control and, specifically, ethnic Tigrean domination.

Of greater concern, however, is Ethiopia’s sectarian division. Muslims already represent a third of the population and are growing at a faster rate than the Ethiopian Christian population. Should ethnic and sectarian divisions erupt into open conflict, the resulting insecurity could make Somalia look like Club Med.

5. Nigeria.

Concerns about stability in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, hit international headlines in 2014 when Boko Haram kidnapped hundreds of school girls in order to convert them forcibly to Islam and marry them off to militants. But that’s only one of many problems Nigeria faces.

Boko Haram has thrived against the backdrop of endemic corruption. By some estimates, Nigeria has lost $400 billion to embezzlement and corruption since 1960, more than total international aid to Africa during the same period.

While the international community has largely eradicated piracy off the coast of Somalia, the problem has skyrocketed in the Gulf of Guinea, and even that is underreported since states don’t always report seizures in their territorial waters.

Like Ethiopia, Nigeria faces not only ethnic but sectarian divisions. Tensions between Muslims and Christians plunged the Ivory Coast into civil war in the last decade; Nigeria is far more volatile.

If its fragile democracy fails, West Africa may see a conflict worse than any it has seen in decades.

6. Turkey.

What would it mean if a NATO ally collapsed? Over the past decade, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has seized dictatorial power. He called the aborted July 15 coup “a gift from God” and used it as an excuse to declare a state of emergency and purge more than 100,000 military officers and civil servants.

But there are indications that there could be more violence on the horizon . Doğu Perinçek, a former Maoist turned ultra-nationalist power-broker, leads a shadowy group Turks simply refer to as “the Perinçek group.”

Some suggest that Perinçek is Turkey’s real defense minister, behind-the-scenes. In August, Erdoğan hired Adnan Tanriverdi, a former Special Forces trainer close to Perinçek, to be counsel for the president.

Simply put, Erdoğan is a marked man and even if he is killed or forcibly removed, he has so eviscerated the Turkish state that political chaos will likely follow his death.

10_20_Worst_Countries_01 A Norwegian surveillance aircraft photo shows Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov off the coast of Northern Norway on October 17, 2016. Michael Rubin asks whether as Muslims make up a growing proportion of the conscript-age population, Russia can count on its own army in any sectarian conflict. 333 Squadron, Norwegian Royal Airforce/NTB Scanpix/Handout via Reuters

7. Russia.

Like Turkey, Russia is ruled by a strongman who has substituted the illusion of stability for its substance. When President Vladimir Putin dies, the Russian people will have to pay the price for his decades of corruption and mismanagement.

Putin’s lasting legacy will be the vacuum of power underneath him. Beyond poor governance, however, Russia will soon face reverberation from its demographic crisis. Its Muslim population is growing as its ethnic Russian population shrinks. At the same time, it faces Islamist radicalism not only in Chechnya and Daghestan, but also increasingly among ethnic Tartars.

Here’s the question: As Muslims make up a growing proportion of the conscript-age population, can Russia count on its own army in any sectarian conflict? (On all these issues, the writings of Leon Aron and Anna Borshchevskaya are must-reads).

8. Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia’s facing a perfect storm: US policy has empowered and re-resourced Iran. The price of oil has declined precipitously pushing the Saudi economy to the brink. Saudi Arabia is bogged down in a war in Yemen which seemingly has no end.

All of this would be bad in the best of circumstances, but add into the mix a king that very well may have Alzheimer’s and the Kingdom may face a crisis unlike any it has faced in decades.

Every US administration since Franklin Roosevelt’s has counted on a strong partnership with Saudi Arabia kingdom to bring stability to the Middle East and order to the world economy. If Riyadh is unable or unwilling to continue that partnership, can Washington find a substitute or fill the gap?

9. Jordan.

Even more than Saudi Arabia, the United States has relied on Jordan for generations. The Hashemite Kingdom is perhaps America’s closest Arab ally. But Jordan is in crisis today, even if the Jordanian government will not admit it.

With the influx of Syrians, Jordan has now absorbed its third major wave of refugees, putting tremendous strain on the economy. King Abdullah II is far more popular in Washington and London than he is in some corners of his own kingdom. And while Western journalists depict Queen Rania as a romantic and popular figure , she is widely disliked inside Jordan for her profligate spending.

All of this has created fertile ground for ISIS to infiltrate Jordan even if it keeps its presence low-key. Should the United States and its Iraqi and Kurdish allies push ISIS out of Iraq and Syria and lead more of its fighters to enter Jordan, then the assault on Mosul and Raqqa might truly be Pyrrhic.

10. China.

Last but not least China, the world’s most populous country. Some pundits have watched China’s economic boom and sung its praises, even suggesting that the communist republic’s dictatorial ways might be superior to those of the United States.

Economic development is uneven: coastal, urban incomes are exponentially higher than interior, rural incomes. The legacy of decades of China’s murderous one-child policy are still to come as China faces a demographic precipice. My colleagues Dan Blumenthal and Derek Scissors highlight the implications of stagnation in China.

Simply put, future US administrations should worry less about the rise of China and more about its decline. Will a faltering China, for example, lash out militarily as a stagnating Russia has?

The world is a dangerous place. These scenarios may be too obscure for the 2016 presidential debates, but ensuring the ability of the United States to react to them should not be.

♦ Michael Rubin is a former Pentagon official whose major research areas are the Middle East, Turkey, Iran and diplomacy. He instructs senior military officers deploying to the Middle East and Afghanistan on regional politics, and teaches classes regarding Iran, terrorism and Arab politics on board deploying U.S. aircraft carriers. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen and both pre- and post-war Iraq, and he spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. His book Dancing With the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes examines a half-century of U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes and extremist groups.

Buhari’s New Change Ought to Begin with His Igbo Problem

For full disclosure, I am an Igbo man. I am also one of the pundits currently being lampooned for cheering President Muhammadu Buhari to democratic power. Yet, knowing what I know now, I will lend that support all over again—and even more. Unless we have begun to view the history from a tainted lens, the thought of the very alternative, which was to bring back Goodluck Jonathan, remains a portent of much bigger crisis. More relatively, I strongly endorse Buhari’s latest mantra: “Change begins with me.” And that is exactly what this piece is set to accomplish.

Let me quickly wet the ground by first defining effective leadership as the ability of the leader to maximize the available resources within the internal and external environment and be recognized by the followers as meeting the expectations. Please notice that this definition has two components. One is for the leader to do a good job. The other, and probably more instructive, is for the leader to be seen by the follower as doing a good job.

Like every Nigerian leader, Buhari assumed the presidency with good intentions. The president is also working hard. Despite the economic mess left behind by the previous government, he is soldiering on with measurable progress on many areas. Regrettably, most Nigerians see the efforts as busy doing nothing. Accordingly, Buhari is making changes beginning from his very self. But there is one critical problem the General has continued to ignore that is firmly woven into the fabric of our current quest for economic revival: His Igbo problem.

For obvious reasons, the problem was initially waved off as a typical Igbo palaver. Sadly, it has now widened with untold social, political, and economic consequences. Before getting to the main gist, here is a cursory glance at the Igbo—just in case.

As one of the major Nigerian ethnic groups, the Igbo are the natural inhabitants of the Southeast and some areas of South-South and North-Central zones of Nigeria. The people are predominantly Christians and uniquely boast of being the first or second largest population in most parts of the country. Known for their unique resilience, resourcefulness, can-do spirit and, of course, unbounded technological and scientific acumen; the Igbo represent the hybrid engine of Nigeria’s commerce. These diverse traits help in no small measure as they forge social, political, and economic influence around Nigeria.

But the influence is even beyond. The Igbo have embraced the reigning economic gospel that we no longer merely live in a country but in a world. Thus, with a heavy presence around the globe, they gleefully play a commanding role in nation’s foreign exchange, foreign trade, foreign investment as well as relationships. Not surprisingly, the Igbo in the Diaspora are a leading block contributor to the yearly amount of foreign money remitted to Nigeria, which is ironically more than the national budget. Very significantly, the people are one of the key drivers of Nigeria’s media home and abroad and thus have the potential to influence how the country is perceived anywhere.

The foregoing attributes are more than enough to discern that the Igbo is as important as any other ethnic group and ought to be carried along in the current change agenda of the government. Chinua Achebe was more eloquent in the book, There Was a Country: The perennial tendency to undermine the unique role of the Igbo in Nigeria “is one of the fundamental reasons the country has not developed as it should and has emerged as a laughingstock.” But events thus far suggest that Buhari might have been ill-advised to challenge the theory from the onset.

This apparent dissent is rooted in the 2015 presidential elections where a vast majority of the Igbo joined the South-South to vote en masse against Buhari’s winning candidacy. However, rather than use the historic mandate to rally the different political divisions towards common purpose, the president would shock the democratic world by revealing his plan to marginalize the zones that voted against him. Many pundits thought his statement was a mere gaffe. But the records afterwards seem to suggest that Muhammadu “Okechukwu” Buhari actually meant the threat of vendetta against the Igbo, particularly those from the Southeast.

Critics are free to join here. But there is no gainsaying that the Igbo people are truly marginalized in the current scheme of things. As I had penned in October 2015, the upper echelon of Buhari’s government is a preview. “The underlying rationale in this case is that the positions of the President, Vice-President, Senate President, Speaker, Chairman of the ruling party, and the Secretary to Federal Government have been staked in the past 16 years as the main thrust of the party in power and thence rotated among the six political zones of the country.” Yet, the Southeast was conspicuously denied its share. Moreover, it is no coincidence that the same Southeast Nigeria, the mainstay of the Igbo nation, is the only zone without a personnel presence in the nation’s security leadership apparatus.

This outlook coupled with a stoic indifference by the president triggered outrage in the land. It straightaway provoked the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), then a sedate outfit, to declare “that Buhari is not seeing Ndigbo as part of Nigeria.” The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was not to be left behind, as it heightened its call for secession from the country. Their activities, however, were met with brute force, including the detention without bail of its leader, Nnamdi Kalu. This plight is today commonly linked to the birth of a new militant group under the auspices of Niger Delta Avengers. We are all living witnesses to the economic repercussions of the Biafran movement and their Avengers ever since.

The title of this piece will not be apt if the empathy for the current wave of Igbo marginalization did not flow past east of River Niger. Recognizing that the ruling party treated it as business as usual, the opposition from the highly influential Southwest Nigeria led by the trio of Ayo Fayose, Femi Fani-Kayode, and Femi Aribisala capitalized on the saga to strike back. What just took place here, and painfully so, is that Muhammadu Buhari had inadvertently provided a lifeline for the corrupt brigade of the immediate past regime—from the east, north, and west—to resurface and now grandstand as latter-day fighters of what is widely believed as naked injustice to the people of the Southeast. And what followed, thereafter, was a montage of propaganda that successfully painted the president as an unapologetic bigot determined to punish not only the Igbo but also the entire Christian-dominated South.

The development caught the attention of the Northern zone of the Christian Association of Nigeria, which lamented as follows: “while there were volumes of allegations from the South that the appointments made so far were in favour of the north, facts on the ground revealed that those appointments were lopsided in favour of Muslim north to the detriment of Northern Christian community.” More dauntingly, many blame part of the current crisis on Buhari’s economic policy, particularly foreign exchange, which is believed to be tribally skewed to specially benefit his Fulani kinsmen who control bureau de change across the country.

Today, not only is the national economy in recession, the negative opinion of Buhari is growing beyond our shores. Although a number of world leaders showered praises on him during the recent UN session in New York for giant strides against corruption and terrorism, which is very gratifying, a creeping concern within the international community remains that Nigeria’s president is a dictator, tribalist, sectionalist, misogynist, and religious bigot—all in one person. This emerging view—whether real or not—explains why US Congressman Tom Marino, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, on a September 1, 2016 letter, would warn the United States to withhold selling arms to Nigeria until Buhari demonstrates true “commitment to inclusive government and the most basic tenets of democracy: freedom to assemble and freedom of speech.”

This spectre is gloomy, square. It does not bode well for an economy in recession. In short, it scares away investment whether local or foreign, especially in this era of economic globalization where millions of Nigerians in the Diaspora, the Igbo well included, represent the convex lens through which the world sees Nigeria. This also goes to say that even as President Buhari might have done a good job on the area of corruption, the fact that he is generally perceived as condoning gross injustice at another area renders his entire effort pyrrhic.

The central problem is complex and thus difficult to capture at once. But the solution is quite simple. For every question raised in this essay sufficiently answers itself. Buhari has to simply trek back to where the rain started beating him and make amends. Allowing the problem to linger not only threatens the chances of economic revival but also the hard-earned change. Even if he is not thinking of 2019, which he should, Mr. President cannot feign ignorance of the fact that his queasy quandary with the Legislature has his Igbo problem written all over it. Very true!

♦ SKC Ogbonnia, Ph.D. writes from Houston, Texas. Contact >>>

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Nigeria’s Failed Promises

avt_chimamanda-ngozi-adichie_8614 — By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I was 7 years old the first time I recognized political fear. My parents and their friends were talking about the government, in our living room, in our relatively big house, set on relatively wide grounds at a southeastern Nigerian university, with doors shut and no strangers present. Yet they spoke in whispers. So ingrained was their apprehension that they whispered even when they did not need to. It was 1984 and Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari was the military head of state.

Governmental controls had mangled the economy. Many imported goods were banned, scarcity was rife, black markets thrived, businesses were failing and soldiers stalked markets to enforce government-determined prices. My mother came home with precious cartons of subsidized milk and soap, which were sold in rationed quantities. Soldiers flogged people on the streets for “indiscipline” — such as littering or not standing in queues at the bus stop. On television, the head of state, stick-straight and authoritative, seemed remote, impassive on his throne amid the fear and uncertainty.

And yet when, 30 years later, in 2015, Mr. Buhari was elected as a democratic president, I welcomed it. Because for the first time, Nigerians had voted out an incumbent in an election that was largely free and fair. Because Mr. Buhari had sold himself as a near-ascetic reformer, as a man so personally aboveboard that he would wipe out Nigeria’s decades-long corruption. He represented a form of hope.

Nigeria is difficult to govern. It is Africa’s most populous country, with regional complexities, a scarred history and a patronage-based political culture. Still, Mr. Buhari ascended to the presidency with a rare advantage — not only did he have the good will of a majority of Nigerians, he elicited a peculiar mix of fear and respect. For the first weeks of his presidency, it was said that civil servants who were often absent from work suddenly appeared every day, on time, and that police officers and customs officials stopped demanding bribes.

Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, the Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world.

Perhaps the first clue was the unusually long time it took him to appoint his ministers. After an ostensible search for the very best, he presented many recycled figures with whom Nigerians were disenchanted. But the real test of his presidency came with the continued fall in oil prices, which had begun the year before his inauguration.

Nigeria’s economy is unwholesomely dependent on oil, and while the plunge in prices was bound to be catastrophic, Mr. Buhari’s actions made it even more so.

He adopted a policy of “defending” the naira, Nigeria’s currency. The official exchange rate was kept artificially low. On the black market, the exchange rate ballooned. Prices for everything rose: rice, bread, cooking oil. Fruit sellers and car sellers blamed “the price of dollars.” Complaints of hardship cut across class. Some businesses fired employees; others folded.

The government decided who would have access to the central bank’s now-reduced foreign currency reserves, and drew up an arbitrary list of worthy and unworthy goods — importers of toothpicks cannot, for example, but importers of oil can. Predictably, this policy spawned corruption: The exclusive few who were able to buy dollars at official rates could sell them on the black market and earn large, riskless profits — transactions that contribute nothing to the economy.

Mr. Buhari has spoken of his “good reasons” for ignoring the many economists who warned about the danger of his policies. He believes, rightly, that Nigeria needs to produce more of what it consumes, and he wants to spur local production. But local production cannot be willed into existence if the supporting infrastructure is absent, and banning goods has historically led not to local production but to a thriving shadow market. His intentions, good as they well might be, are rooted in an outdated economic model and an infantile view of Nigerians. For him, it seems, patriotism is not a voluntary and flexible thing, with room for dissent, but a martial enterprise: to obey without questioning. Nationalism is not negotiated, but enforced.

The president seems comfortable with conditions that make an economy uncomfortable — uncertainty and disillusion. But the economy is not the only reason for Nigerians’ declining hope.

A few months ago, a young woman, Chidera, came to work as a nanny in my Lagos home. A week into her job, I found her in tears in her room. She needed to go back to her ancestral home in the southeast, she said, because Fulani herdsmen had just murdered her grandfather on his farm. She showed me a gruesome cellphone photo of his corpse, desecrated by bullets, an old man crumpled on the farm he owned.

Chidera’s grandfather is only one of the hundreds of people who have been murdered by Fulani herdsmen — cattle herders from northern Nigeria who, until recently, were benign figures in the southern imagination, walking across the country with their grazing cattle.

Since Mr. Buhari came to power, villages in the middle-belt and southern regions have been raided, the inhabitants killed, their farmlands sacked. Those attacked believe the Fulani herdsmen want to forcibly take over their lands for cattle grazing.

It would be unfair to blame Mr. Buhari for these killings, which are in part a result of complex interactions between climate change and land use. But leadership is as much about perception as it is about action, and Mr. Buhari has appeared disengaged. It took him months, and much criticism from civil society, to finally issue a statement “condemning” the killings. His aloofness feels, at worst, like a tacit enabling of murder and, at best, an absence of sensitive leadership.

Most important, his behavior suggests he is tone-deaf to the widely held belief among southern Nigerians that he promotes a northern Sunni Muslim agenda. He was no less opaque when the Nigerian Army murdered hundreds of members of a Shiite Muslim group in December, burying them in hastily dug graves. Or when soldiers killed members of the small secessionist pro-Biafran movement who were protesting the arrest of their leader, Nnamdi Kanu, a little-known figure whose continued incarceration has elevated him to a minor martyr.

Nigerians who expected a fair and sweeping cleanup of corruption have been disappointed. Arrests have tended to be selective, targeting mostly those opposed to Mr. Buhari’s government. The anti-corruption agencies are perceived not only as partisan but as brazenly flouting the rule of law: The Department of State Security recently barged into the homes of various judges at midnight, harassing and threatening them and arresting a number of them, because the judges’ lifestyles “suggested” that they were corrupt.

There is an ad hoc air to the government that does not inspire that vital ingredient for a stable economy: confidence. There is, at all levels of government, a relentless blaming of previous administrations and a refusal to acknowledge mistakes. And there are eerie signs of the past’s repeating itself — Mr. Buhari’s tone and demeanor are reminiscent of 1984, and his military-era War Against Indiscipline program is being reintroduced.

There are no easy answers to Nigeria’s malaise, but the government’s intervention could be more salutary — by prioritizing infrastructure, creating a business-friendly environment and communicating to a populace mired in disappointment.

In a country enamored of dark humor, a common greeting among the middle class now is “Happy recession!”

♦ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the author, most recently, of the novel “Americanah.”

Nigerians feel pride and despair on 56th Independence

By Chika Oduah

Abuja, Nigeria – The lights are off and a few hundred people sit in the darkness of an auditorium facing a glowing stage. The Nigerian poet, Dike Chukwumerije recites a series of poems describing Nigeria’s tumultuous history.

Chukwumerije’s poems convey nostalgia and a longing for the Nigeria he experienced in his childhood. They illustrate a sense of loss in indigenous, cultural pride, a sense that Nigeria – which at 180 million, is Africa’s most populous nation, has lost its direction on the road to nation-building since its independence from the United Kingdom on October 1, 1960.

He laments the rise of religious extremism and the destruction of Nigeria’s natural environment in places like the oil-rich Niger Delta region where the excavation of crude oil and spillages have left the mangrove swamps in a perpetual state of degradation.

“Bring back the trees, bring back the river, bring back the clean and peaceful delta.
Bring back the night, the full-mooned night and the stories we told by candlelight …

Who brought us to this place of tears … before the proof of faith was riches?
Bring back Islam before jihadists, before the proof of faith was murder.

Bring back our love for one another.
When neighbours checked on each other’s children not plotted how to kidnap them …

No matter how fast your internet is, you can’t replace this heritage …
Bring back that old morality that drew its pride from who we were and not from what we wore.

Bring back the days of heroes past …

How did it ever come to this?

***

The event took place in the Nigerian capital of Abuja on the eve on Nigeria’s 56 years of independence.

Today, on Nigeria’s independence day, Nigerians reflect on what this day means to them.

(The interview responses have been edited for clarity and length)

Nuhu Ribadu, politician, 2011 presidential candidate and anti-corruption activist

Nigeria’s independence means a lot to me.

I’m 56 years old. Nigeria is a little bit older than I am, but it means that I am part of a country that is the biggest and the greatest black African country, the number one country for Africans and blacks in the world.

Nigeria is here for eternity.

I believe Nigeria will work. All of us, we just have to put our efforts into making this country great.

I believe that Nigeria is a country of the future. We still do have a lot of work; in particular, we need to find a sort of healthy avenue through which we can resolve our tensions. These things we are facing now, these challenges are temporary, and I believe it is a matter of time.

With this number of people, 180 million and still growing, with this massive energy and resources, with this resolve that we are not going to be left back or behind or out, I have no doubt the future is big for our country.

I am proud of it. And I love my country. I love Nigeria.

And I’m prepared to give it everything it takes to be a great country

Emman Shehu, ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign

Emma Shehu is a member of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, an advocacy group pressuring the Nigerian government to rescue more than 200 schoolgirls who were kidnapped in April 2014 by Boko Haram from a school in the town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria. Abuja, Nigeria. September 30, 2016. Photo by Chika Oduah

I grew up with the slogan that Nigeria is or was the ‘Giant of Africa’. I’m 58 years old now, and we are looking back, and we are seeing that we have mismanaged almost everything.

Today, we can’t talk about Nigeria being the ‘Giant of Africa’ for any reason other than for negatives.

We are the ‘giant’ of a lot of negatives which is epitomised by what has happened to the Chibok girls.

We have failed ourselves as a nation… which is sad because every day you look at the potentials of this country, the human resources, the natural resources and you know within you that we can do a lot better than this.

The fight for the Chibok girls is a fight for the soul of Nigeria.

When I was growing up, this was not the Nigeria I had envisaged … I had imagined a country where all the divisiveness would have long been forgotten, all the hurts would have been healed, and we would have been working with the shared purpose of building one country.

We would not be manipulated by the political elite in the country, but that is exactly what is going on … You see a Nigerian that has a lot of potential, and when he or she goes out of this country, they blossom.

The same Nigerian finds it difficult to blossom in his own country, and it’s not fair that Nigerians have to go outside this country to be successful.

It hurts to see Nigeria as if it is a walking graveyard. It’s in a graveyard where you see things wasting away.

Mercy Abang, media consultant

At 56 years of independence, we still battle an epileptic power supply. At 56, we are still battling with an unserious political class.

I was born at a time when the current president, Muhammadu Buhari, was the military head of state. I’m 31 years old. It was just an era when my dad always reminded me that from that point downwards, you can trace where the mess of Nigeria began.

There was a time we actually had a nation that was near greatness. What we have now is nothing compared to that. Are we going forward or are we moving backward?

At 56, it looks like the country is not growing. What is it that you gain from being a Nigerian?

You must become a government to yourself. People are buying transformers for themselves. People are fixing their roads. People are managing their security by themselves.

So, I am a government to myself. I get my power. I get my water. I get my everything …

Why are we in a recession? Some people say this is not a recession, it’s a depression. When I hear people say ‘Giant of Africa’, I ask, where is the gross domestic product? I don’t even think we have a middle class.

Do I eat three square meals per day? I don’t; I can’t afford it.

The government should be trying to cut costs, but … we still pay our public servants and politicians some of the biggest salaries around the world.

We’re outsourcing Nigeria to the elite.

Japheth Omojuwa, social media personality, public speaker and entrepreneur

Japheth Omojuwa is a popular social media personality with one of the highest Twitter followerships in Nigeria. September 30, 2016. Abuja, Nigeria. Photo by Chika Oduah.

Nigeria is 56 years, and we’re not talking about human years. We’re talking about 56 years in the life of a country. China has existed for several millennia. Nigeria is a baby.

We also have some things that are special to us.

We are one of the most heterogeneous societies in the entire world in terms of culture and language, in terms of the coming together of a people – and all of these people are bottled into this relatively tiny space.

It’s going to bring up challenges.

We need to have that conversation about the kind of country we want to have, the kind of federation we want to have, a conversation on the tiers of government …

I’m most definitely proud to be Nigerian, and I don’t say that because I’m supposed to be proud …

If you look at the rest of the world, there is hardly another country that has a such a dark past. So, I’m proud of my country because there is nothing unique about our challenges today.

The reason why I believe Nigeria has a great future is because you only need to look at Nigerians themselves: All around the world, Nigeria has contributed great minds to this world.

Nigeria has done many positive things, like the peacekeeping missions around Africa. Look at how we fought the Ebola crisis. But the international media is obsessed with the negative news.

I’m proud because even if I die today, I am hopeful that someway, somehow, in the future, the beautiful minds we have in this country will come together and agree on how to move this storming nation forward.

I am proud of who we are as a people and where we are going.

Liyatu Ayuba, resident at camp for internally displaced by Boko Haram

Many people have died, many are in the hospital, many people they don’t even realise it is independence day because of how much they’re suffering.

But I’m alive, even though I have many problems, but I still thank God for life.

Nigeria is 56 years old, and we have freedom. But in truth, Nigeria is going backwards.

Some people say Nigeria is going forward, and yes, we want to believe we are going forwards and have faith. But, if you go to northeastern Nigeria where I am from, you will see that Nigeria is not going forward because Boko Haram is still there.

The government didn’t take action against Boko Haram when it first started, and that’s why we find ourselves like this.

My husband, a police officer, died in active service. He was killed by Boko Haram. My son was hurt in a Boko Haram bomb blast, and the government has never come to help us. It was strangers from the UK who came and offered to pay my son’s hospital fees.

One hand cannot build a house. One straw cannot sweep until you join straws to make a broom. But this is not being applied in Nigeria. It is to each their own.

There are more than 2,000 people in this IDP camp and the government has not come to our aid. Instead, they are telling us to leave because they don’t want IDPs in Abuja.

They want us to go back home, but how can we go back to our homes when Boko Haram is still there?

It is only charity groups and some churches who are helping us with food, medications, schooling for our children and clothes and small small things.

But this Nigeria, I can only pray.

Godwin Amanaa, taxi driver

I am not celebrating for Nigeria. What is there to celebrate? Things are going backwards.

I am 31 and when I was a kid, I know my mother would buy me sandals for just a little money, but now, the cost of everything, even a pair of sandals to wear in your house has tripled.

We used to make products here in Nigeria, like women’s fabrics.

I think all those industries have closed, so Nigeria is going backwards, not forwards.

I am thankful for this taxi job that I have. It’s just a temporary thing, but it helps me save money so I can further my education.

There is no help from the government to go to university. Everybody is on their own. The scholarships go to the children of the rich people who can already afford the tuition. It’s corruption.

I finished secondary school, and I planned to study political science at the university, but I can’t afford it.

The root of Nigeria’s problems are the politicians – senators, the house of representative members, the governors. They are our problem. They don’t care about the poor masses. They can have 20 cars in their convoys … So our problem is the politicians.

With the oil and the many resources that we have, we still see huge problems.

But before I die, I want to see Nigeria with good schools that the poor can send their children to. I want to have light 24 hours a day … better roads.

This is my wish, and I pray it should happen.

♦ Culled from Al Jazeera

Niger Delta Avengers break truce with pipeline blast

Warri (Nigeria) (AFP) – The Niger Delta Avengers on Saturday claimed responsibility for the destruction of a major oil pipeline in southern Nigeria, breaking a ceasefire the militant group had declared a month ago.

In a statement, NDA spokesman Mudoch Agbinibo said the group attacked the Bonny pipeline in Rivers State on Friday as “a wake up call”, expressing frustration with the negotiations the militants have been holding with authorities.

Agbinibo said the NDA was “still in favour of the dialogue” but accused the government of creating “shameful scenes obtainable in Nollywood acts”, a reference to Nigeria’s huge film industry, accusing authorities of intimidation and blackmail.

“There has been no progress and no breakthrough,” he said.

The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), which operates the pipeline, said the damage was being investigated.

“I can’t categorically tell you if it was an attack,” a company source told AFP, adding that a statement would be issued following an investigation.

The NDA, active in the restive Niger Delta since the start of the year, announced on August 19 that it was laying down its weapons and resuming talks with the government.

Targeting oil giants including Shell, Exxon and Chevron, it had hammered the Nigerian economy with months of attacks on vital oil and gas infrastructure, reducing output by a third at a time when global prices are already punishingly low.

The NDA is seeking a fairer distribution of the oil revenues that make up 70 percent of state’s income and has vowed to fight for development in the Delta where many people remain desperately poor despite the huge wealth of local natural resources.

A week before the ceasefire announcement, the NDA threatened to unilaterally declare independence from Nigeria.

In August the army launched “Operation Crocodile Smile” in the oil hub of Warri in a bid to re-take control of the region from a proliferation of militant groups.

As well as large-scale sabotage, the army is also battling illegal refinery operations and frequent kidnappings.

Nigerian army spokesman Sani Usman said Saturday that suspected militants on speed boats had launched a deadly attack against troops at Efut Esighi in Cross River State.

“A soldier was killed in action while two soldiers were missing in action,” Usman said, attributing the attack to a group close to the NDA, the Bakassi Strike Force.

Two militants were killed as troops struck back, the army said.

Nigerian oil production has sunk from 2.1 million barrels a day in the first quarter to 1.7 million barrels in the face of repeated militant attacks.

Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s cut Nigeria’s credit worthiness last week, saying the drop in production and a restrictive foreign exchange regime were hurting the country’s prospects.