Defeating the Lakurawa in a climate of mutual distrust

It is annoying that while distributing national honours, President Bola Tinubu made two awful mistakes. First, he forgot that at the inception of democracy in 1999, the National Assembly passed an order of protocol that ranks the Speaker of the House of Representatives over and above the Chief Justice Judge of Nigeria. According to that […]

It is annoying that while distributing national honours, President Bola Tinubu made two awful mistakes. First, he forgot that at the inception of democracy in 1999, the National Assembly passed an order of protocol that ranks the Speaker of the House of Representatives over and above the Chief Justice Judge of Nigeria. According to that law, Tajudeen Abbas is higher than Kudirat Kekere-Ekun. So, how did Tinubu think he would get away with giving the CJN an honour higher than the Speaker? Of course, members of the Green Chamber stoutly rose to the occasion, arm-twisting the president to fix the slight.

What a listening president! So dynamic on that error that some incurable optimists thought he’d reverse the decisions to float the naira and the removal of the phantom subsidy on petroleum products. They say it would have endeared him to the masses. The last time Tinubu took national endearment to a global function was his first trip to New York City; nobody noticed him.

The second omission was forgetting to award the same level of honour on the president’s most diligent staff, Nuhu Ribadu, his National Security Adviser. Unfortunately for Ribadu, he does not control a vaunting assembly capable of making the president eat his words. So, he emerged months later to beat his own drum of achievement like the proverbial agama lizard. Ribadu reminded Nigerians that even if he did not get a GCFR, he is the conqueror of Boko Haram, CBH, which is higher than some of the titles that Nigerians love to put after their names.

Ribadu’s enemies are working hard to ensure he does not get that national recognition. For, hardly had he rested from nodding his head in self-adulation than a new insurgency group, the Lakurawa, announced their arrival on Nigerian soil. In a twist of irony, the Lakurawa erected their flag in Sokoto, the seat of the Caliphate. Within days of the announcement of its arrival, the Lakurawa established centres where those living within its zone of command are to remit their taxes.

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This could only have happened as the troops were savouring their defeat of Boko Haram which, according to its founding fathers, surrendered its mandate to ISIS/ISIL. And so, before they could complete their victory lap, Ribadu’s security apparatchik is now forced to return to the trenches. A nation that has survived coups, counter-coups and insurgencies, and almost single-handedly restored law and order to Liberia and Sierra Leone is unable to protect its own territory. Except Ribadu conquers this one, his GCFR recommendation is likely to remain on the keep-in-view, KIV, side of the Aso Rock cabinet.

Why is our country unable to attain peace? Is it because the bloody civilians in charge are starving the military of the budget it needs to pursue peace? Perhaps not so. Even those in command control centres never fail to remind us that they cannot win the war against insurgency without the cooperation of the people. Yet very few civilians would want to ‘cooperate’ with the military even to safeguard their own security.

This is where Nigeria differs from other nations, like America that created the slogan – we support our troops. Apart from state-sponsored propaganda, it is an aberration for an American soldier to assault an American civilian. On American soil, the much-venerated American soldier even submits himself to the authority of a common sheriff.

In Nigeria, every citizen in uniform is above the ‘bloody civilian.’ In the past, Nigerian putschists imbued with its messianic motive loudly pronounced how they had come to save the people from their corrupt politicians. The Nigerian person in uniform thinks it is disciplined, and the civilian is not, so it arrogates to itself the duty to make the bloody civilian amend himself to discipline. Nearly 40 years ago, Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the War Against Indiscipline.

Uniformed Nigerians still believe that civilians must be taught to submit. They have elevated the power to assault the civilian into a right. In Nigeria, even boy scouts lord it over the population. Our uniformed people deal with us like an army of occupation. We have moved from the ordeal of Citizen Abass, whose commanding officer detained him for six years for coming late to a parade.

Just two weeks ago, citizen Vershima Mker and his fiancé, Ms. Jennifer Iorvihi, were ambushed, physically assaulted by Major General GS Mohammed and his orderly, Corporal A Abubakar. Their offence was allegedly failing to clear the road when the almighty general’s convoy was tearing through traffic in deafening siren. The whole incident was captured on video.

In normal climes, only ambulances use sirens when on active duty. In Nigeria, every demigod blasts through traffic, destroying everything within their path in what Fela aptly described as ‘power show’. It would be hard for the families of Mker and Iorvihi to cooperate with intelligence gatherers when they think of what their wards have suffered for using a road paved by their taxes.

If Nigeria hopes to successfully fight insecurity, it must reorient its uniformed personnel to make the uniform a symbol of service and trust instead of brutality. We need to turn the tide to ensure that any uniformed personnel of whatever rank or status that assaults a civilian loses that badge of service and is made to relinquish the medal of trust. Until we make uniform accountable to mufti, this nonsense would not stop and in the name of civility, it needs to stop.

Tinubu’s expanded media aides

Whatever anybody says about Bola Ahmed Tinubu, he is a study material in political sagacity. For the second time in 18 months, Tinubu has pulled another mole from the camp of his arch-rival, Atiku Abubakar. The first was Michael Achimugu, an Atiku aide who surreptitiously recorded a private conversation between him and his boss, explaining the concept of Special Purpose Vehicles, SPVs, a euphemism for high-level financial fraud. By December of that year, Tinubu had appointed Achimugu a director of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority.

The first ace was Nuhu Ribadu who as anti-corruption czar once described Tinubu as the most corrupt governor in the southwest region. Ribadu is Tinubu’s security adviser. This time around, Tinubu walked into the liar of the opposition to snatch its one-time spokesman, Daniel Bwala. Bwala, who once called Tinubu a drug baron, is now a senior spokesman, an addition to the Tinubu kitchen cabinet.

At this rate, it is either that politics recruits unconscionable fellows, a case of planting high-impact moles in the opposition camp. Apparently, outsiders don’t operate on the same moral code as politicians.

Doyin Okupe, former Labour Party presidential spokesman probably wants a piece of the pie. Okupe had to relinquish his post after corruption allegations were reopened against him by the Buhari regime. Lately, Okupe stridently defended Tinubu against Obi’s remarks that Nigerians irrespective of their political leanings buy from the same market. Okupe rose to attack Obi, saying the remark was a slur on his (Okupe’s) tribe and the honour of Tinubu, his kinsman. If Tinubu recruits Okupe, official opposition is finished in Nigerian politics.