Category: Opinion

All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way__ Tolstoy in Anna Karenina

Years ago, a certain report had come up naming my compatriots as the happiest people on earth. A report that sometimes makes you wonder about the parameters through which such judgment was made. It also makes one ponder about what happiness genuinely implies. Does laughter signify happiness? Does the ability to hide pain make one a happy man? The truth is, some people are stronger than others. What breaks one man emboldens another. So, to date, we still don’t know what prompted their report.

Truthfully, we are known as one of the most resilient bunches in the history of humanity. In fact, one of our prophets, whom we wrongly call a musician, said we are people suffering and smiling. Indeed, we are good at hiding our pains with a big, fat, and large smile. However fragile. We may cry in our rooms, complain to our neighbors, shout in the public bus, rant online, but our divine creator was so effective in His craft that He molded us with a clay of hope with touches of all shades of resilience.

The decibel of our pain used to be very low beneath the surface until one bright afternoon, a man working in the government blared out that a man who had lost in the previous election was orchestrating a disaster. He said this failed politician and his supporters were trying to capitalize on the underlying hunger and yet-to-materialize anger of the people, to spur them into mayhem. He further said that these agents of democracy were planning to burn the country down and barricade our fundamental right to the pursuit of happiness.

This was the first time my compatriots came to realize that we have a fundamental human right to pursue happiness. We know of happiness, but God’s truth, we did not know it is something that can be pursued, let alone a human right to its pursuit.
However, God’s truth, we knew we were not happy, just that we didn’t expect this man in government to lay the brick of blame on his fellow politician. And we do not also believe the world must be divided into two boxes: Happy-Sad, Good-Bad, friendly-unfriendly, etc. We believe there are different shades of grey. We used to believe that there is a middle ground, but we don’t have a name for it. But I like to call it bland or blank.

The man in government did not owe us any responsibility to appeal to our expectations. It was a waste of expectations and hope. When has it not been about politics? When has it not been about blame distribution? Even when the government came into power, they had to blame their predecessor even though they were fragments of the same fabric. Same party. Their predecessor blamed the one before it… It has always been a rigmarole. The blame must go to someone, but it must not be the incumbent. It was an unwritten rule.

For my compatriots, many things had informed our unhappiness. At least now that we know we are unhappy, I can tell you about things that informed it. There have been many of them in the last decade, but none is as scorching as what’s now faced by the people. But most painfully, from the coastal villages down to the metropolitan cities, debilitating hunger has eaten deep into society. In all ramifications, families can’t afford to feed. People, especially children, now walk slowly around in the likeness of ghosts due to hunger.

A popular opinion is already taking root among the elite group. The opinion, devoid of human feelings, holds that people should only bring to the world the number of children they can afford to feed and cater for. With the current hunger, many can’t even feed themselves, so it’s logical to say, the opinion implies that the poor shouldn’t bring any child into the world. A subtle version of Jonathan Swift’s modest proposal. Jonathan proposed that the poor and their children should be eaten by the British parliamentarians of his days, but the opinion of today is that the poor should tie their manhood because they are not man enough. Some mothers now whisper about the children that hunger had forced them to abort.

As a researcher and journalist, it’s handy to have a small vocabulary in my line of work. But one hardly knows what stronger vocabulary can be attributed to hunger. The whole issue makes you think the country is recovering from a war. In 1945, the reporter Wilfred Burchett broke the story of a nuclear warhead exploding over the city of Hiroshima for the London Daily Express. He covered what he called “the most terrible and frightening desolation in four years of war.”

Like Burchett, I am a reporter. My nation has not experienced a physical war recently, but a war of hunger waged by the high and mighty. If one looks out of his or her window, the city has taken on a very gory color. The color of hunger. If you can’t see it, then you are one of the people who built their houses in the high hills and look down at our city through a tiny hole on the wall of your building.

Apart from hunger, other things that informed the unhappiness include deepened poverty and hopelessness. Hope has always been a bleak discussion in our national story, but never has it been bleaker. When Sola Owonibi wrote “Homeless not Hopeless,” hope was still a tenable national currency. But today, hope is a lost coin. Many are indeed homeless and hopeless. Hope itself is a long rope many of my compatriots have hanged themselves with.

In the hospitals, there were corpses every night at the height of death from curable diseases. Some from minute illnesses like malaria. Cholera later broke out in the city because our people now feed from waste bins and dungeons. Seven, twelve, twenty-six, fifty-six, hundred, people now die without meaning, some killed by people trying to survive the harsh economy. The brutality can be reduced to a paragraph, sometimes only a sentence each, but the deep stench of penury ravaging my compatriots can’t be well described in an encyclopedia. It’s indeed a multidimensional destitution and hopelessness that we will need more words and new language to describe.

If you define happiness by Hunger, Hopelessness and Hardship, then we are the happiest people on earth. Call us HHH (Hunger, Hardship and Hopelessness).

By Lasisi Olagunju

Number 10, Downing Street has been home to Britain’s prime ministers since 1735 AD. Why would a hugely popular new prime minister move into a 289-year-old mansion without spending good pounds on it to buff it up to today’s taste? Keir Starmer, the new British prime minister, moved into that official residence soon after he was appointed last Friday. There was neither a renovation of the building nor a sanctification of the rooms by clerics and priests. Red candles, white tapers were not lit; neither was turari (incense) assigned a role.

You would think that the British who always hailed the way we elected our leaders would copy our ways. This past weekend, the teacher didn’t do the nonsense they taught their students. Their dog refused to follow our monkey to do what locusts do to grain farms. They chose those they wanted as leaders without our usual fireworks and water cannons.

For the winner, it was straight from the polling booth to the Government House; there was no interlude, no respite, no recess. There was even no transition committee; neither was there a budget for new furniture and new cars for the prime minister’s family. The Prime Minister took over almost immediately after the sun set for the man whose party lost in spectacular detail.

Ministers were appointed the same day and portfolios assigned them on the spot, leaving us to wonder why the haste. We didn’t hear of the parliament grilling the appointees and asking them to sing ‘God save the King’ – their national anthem. Was the head of government even sworn in? Who did?

here is nothing they do in the husband’s bedroom that does not happen in the concubine’s bedchamber. We have rats here that eat vital documents and get presidents sick. The British have over there too. But the PM’s residence in London has a simple solution to the problem: a mouser, a celebrity cat is in firm control of the rodent issues there. The cat’s name is Larry; for the past 13 years, it has been helping heads of government in that country to fix what our cowardly presidents run away from here. We’ve not heard that Labour’s Starmer aims at sacking the cat from the residence because the conservatives took it there.

Since his appointment on Friday last week, Starmer, with his family, has settled in properly in 10 Downing Street.

Our own President Muhammadu Buhari moved into our Presidential Villa late in June 2015 – three weeks after he was sworn in. The old man needed to be sure that the residence was properly fumigated of the sacked party and be rid of rodents and cockroaches – visible and invisible. Despite all his carefulness, impudent rats still ran the ramrod General out of the building and out of the country. He was away in London for months suffering from what could be anything.

He came back and, again, got run out of the office part of the building by the same rats. We forget things here. Seven years ago (August 2017), one of Buhari’s spokespersons announced (with uncommon sensation) that rodents had damaged furniture and air conditioning fittings in the president’s “official” office while he was in London receiving treatment. The gentleman said our leader wouldn’t, therefore, be seen working in the president’s office until the damage was undone. And that was it. The big boss stayed off work until the rats accepted his sacrifice and said he should come in.

In his own case, President Bola Tinubu has been more attentive to details. The Yoruba man is well acquainted with the functional relationship between the rolling eyes of the crab and its delicate head. He was sworn in on May 29, 2023, made a rash of careless policy pronouncements but was careful about where he would be accommodated. Unlike Starmer who rushed into the PM’s mansion like a hungry cat, Tinubu rushed nothing and overlooked nothing.

Sixty-three days after he took over power, a reluctant Tinubu gingerly detoured into a villa building called the Glass House on Sunday, July 31, 2023. It was there he hibernated until the main residence begged him to come and occupy it. Perhaps because he is the Capone, we have not heard stories about ratty encounters in the nation’s most secure edifice.”

~ Lasisi Olagunju,Tribune

In one of the first memes of his campaign’s vision, before he mentioned his mission, then PDP gubernatorial candidate stated succinctly, “I am ready to work.” With the election won amidst opposition dramas and demarketing by proxy, the people of Enugu State expected work, work, and work!

Governor Peter N. Mbah got the memo. He said so in his inaugural address, soon after becoming the 4th governor of the 4th Republic and, in 2023, the 23rd head of government in postcolonial Enugu. His campaign mantra, “Tomorrow is Here,” was now evident: the touted “tomorrow” had come. A simpler slogan sustained: “Innovative disruption.”

In the first 100 days, Mbah showed signs that it was not going to be business as usual. “Business unusual” became another mantra. Notable early disruption was stopping Sit@Home. Non-state actors may request subscribers to stay at home, but they must not impose on anyone to sit or stand anywhere.
Aside Abacha’s Axiom (“Any insurgency that lasts more than 24 hours, a government official has a hand in it”), the state should not have tolerated this situation for two years! Mbah refused to bow, though the anniversary of an aberration elevates it to the throne of a tradition. (Alụlụala gbaa afọ….)

When overzealous ENSG officials overstepped boundaries by forcing folks to open for business on a Monday, Mbah quickly corrected the wrong move. Peace restored. Mission accomplished.

The post-election legal battle took its toll. The opposition parties glued to needless NYSC certification, instead of querying numbers. They should have spent resources shining lights on INEC’s abracadabra arithmetic, if only to improve on future electoral exercises. That’s how democracies grow. Refer to USA-Y2K’s ‘hanging chads’ in Bush v. Gore. It led to reliable electronic voting protocols.

The banning of illegal mining in Enugu could not have come a day sooner. In no civilized community do poachers forage for minerals without apt approval and official oversight. Mining is in Enugu DNA.

In addition to Enugu being an oil-bearing state, Mbah began work on connecting Enugu to the Atlantic. Working with Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, CNS, the Nigerian Navy established a naval operational base at Ogurugu Inland Water.

Although Mbah delivered on his promise of portable water to Coal City, unforeseen issues popped up in reticulating the fluid of life to many more homes. Stuff happens; there was no need to fuss: Our people are smart. They understand; just give them the facts—good or bad.

The greatest of all goals is the free-and-compulsory education policy. Smart schools are not far behind. Mbah also extracted seized state assets from EFCC, as promised in 2022. The British consulate in Enugu is worth noting.

Kidnappings and killings keep coming. The setup of Distress Rapid Squad (DRS) on Day 36 was hailed, but the solution to insecurity remains consolidated community policing. The notorious Nike-Nsukka patch and Ọzara-Udi rugged terrain remain repeat hot spots. Nimbo-2 was a double whammy: another bloodletting and a reminder of past anomie.

On Day 91, Sunday, August 27, 2023, Enugu @32, “Mbah says administration will realise dreams of founding fathers through disruptive innovation.” If the idea had not stuck, it sure was in the air. Ndị Enugu understood the distractions that came with fighting legal battles, especially within a judiciary many adjudge painfully corrupt. They gave Mbah a pass, but that would change later when demolitions preceded innovation!

With his seat secured and no godfather breathing down his neck as in Fubara-Wike fiasco, Mbah should deliver on his proposals, especially the low-hanging promises. While the big bucket multibillion-naira items are showcased and reportedly running (ICC, posh hotels, palm plantations, new Enugu city, roads, etc.), a communication disconnect drums down Mbah’s good deeds and exaggerates every seeming slip-up as atrocious. A fix is easy: Information is power; facilitate its free flow.

Sadly, the evisceration of organized opposition in the House of Assembly denies the people alternative narratives in the formulation of policies; the ranch bill refers, albeit reportedly apt.

This is an anniversary, but there is no going to town with bullhorns and confetti. The federal government has made bad Buhari programs look better. Still, Mbah should raise the bar above the status quo. Admitted that he has erased the eyesores and encumbrances inherited from the years that the locusts ate, ndị Enugu expect a lot more and better.

Deputy Governor Ifeanyi Ossai remarked at a seminar last year: “I am left with no doubt that our people will be happy at the end of the day because there is capacity in the governor to navigate us through a complex and possibly complicated process. But that process is the only pathway to the great Enugu State we have all envisioned.”

You cannot make omelets without an innovative disruption (breaking eggs). The character, the competence, the commitment, and the compassion of Governor Peter Mbah to deliver on his magnificent manifesto of good intentions are evident. Alas, many highways paved with good intentions from a “complicated process” do not lead to haven. In defleaing dogs, therefore, we are enjoined to expose extracted fleas periodically, so the canine knows that the compression is consequential and constructive.

Kudos to #ENSG and #PNM! Tomorrow is another day. Let’s make it matter. Long live Enugu-042, the Coal City State, and long may we live: “ndụ bụ isi.” (Life is the essence of existence.) Everything else is embellishment.

M.O Ene,

May 29, 2024

By Prince Ejeh Josh

The process encountered a set of radical disruption which upsets the status quo. It was a remarkable departure from the established incremental governance model to one described as a paradigm shift that has no regard for norm and convention. This redefined the trajectory of governance in its broad perspective. No longer an evolution that followed a traditional trend where the system is the guiding principle rather than human ingenuity that could interrupt and rupture the process with a new set of new ideas and solutions. The Enugu’s eccentric example is worth interrogation under the leadership of Dr. Peter Mbah, the state’s governor.

From “The Innovator’s Dilemma” to “The Innovator’s Solution”, Clayton Christensen, a Harvard professor and business consultant, had posited that only businesses that could relentlessly apply new set of ideas that breaks down the complexity of business model, affording a hitherto luxury product to the reach of the basic or the generality of the public could quickly displace other competitors from the market. This is only possible through innovative thinking and creativity. However, being innovative is not a guarantee to achieving this new status since there exist variants of innovation. From sustaining innovation to disruptive Innovation, often not achieved by wishes or knee-jerk approach.

Enugu pre-May 2023 had a historical pattern of development; incremental evolution of development where governance is built on binary layer of arithmetics. It is an establishment that allows players to fit in and sustain the trend. Development in economy, infrastructure and other sectors progressed in that layer, often rigid and insipid. However, the Enugu governor had reiterated an uncanny resolve to make a contrasting departure from the model to a new strategic pattern of thinking he termed, like Christensen, radical innovation. His philosophy quickly dawned on analysts of his abhorrence for developing status and economy that never developed in reality.

Mbah spoke about his new set of leadership mechanisms and how things would take shape in his administration. Every project proposed had a timeline. Weirdly, these proposals were not the kind that the nation was used to. Growing an economy sevenfold in eight years, constructing 260 smart green schools, making the state a premier destination for investment, and eradicating poverty through capacity building, infrastructure rebirth were some of the consequential pronouncements that had left many interrogating his background and his audacity. Enugu had grown marginally and minimally in development over decades, and in less than a decade, a man had proposed a new phase, that will supremä past records.

With his roadmap presentation, the journey began. Signing three significant executive orders 001, 002 and 003 representing citizens charter for accountability and public participation to hold his administration accountable to its promises; elimination of barriers and illegal structures for public safety and security, and activation of an investment-friendly state through policies and principles that could materially translate to reality. These reinforced the governor’s commitment that he stood by his campaign promises as sacred. Within the first 100 days in office, the manifestation of these orders began to take a defining shape of a state in dire need of a new foundation.

The administration met an obsolete, dysfunctional system that required an urgency of displacement for a new system if the administration must work. New policies and frameworks were evolved to support the vision and mission of the government. Enugu was becoming attractive as the clock ticked but the governor was in a hurry, torpedoing inefficiency, underdevelopment and deconditioning the established norm of Enugu being an administrative and civil service state that would never have anything with industry or business.

Mbah recognized that disruption must take place to eliminate that age-long orientation of idleness and narrative if the administration meant everything it had outlined. To eradicate poverty, there must be a change. A disruptive rather than a sustaining incremental innovation. To move the economy from the static $4.4 billion to an ambitious $30 billion, the state must drift exhaustively from its revenue model of dependency on the federal coffers to looking inwards with a can-do-spirit of creativity. To build a brain that would match and outsmart the 21st century innovation and think into the future, a smart form of education that would impact these futuristic features must first be conceived, articulated and executed. To construct a 10,000km road within the space of 8 years across the state, things must be done differently, and the state fiscal status must leapfrog exponentially.

Assembling a team of principled experts was a no brainer to achieve the humongous vision by the administration. Mbah, although rooted in thought, quickly scouted the best of the brains around the world to drive the governance process. Indeed, his team has been described as one of the best sourced team,cutting across disciplines and expertise.

The team was not only driven by the motivation of making a new state and creating a niche for the administration but also the fact that the principal piloting the statecraft would not accommodate unproductive and inefficient leadership on the part of his officials. It was a year that displayed utmost commitment, dedication, team spirit, responsibility and firm resolve to delivery from the team.

Then, the seemingly intractable and protracted curse in the water sector reared its ugly head. The governor screamed at every given opportunity that in 180 days, the hydra-headed perennial water problem would not only be reversed, potable water would be taken for granted among residents who had been consigned to despondency of accepting their fate of a “waterless” state. Cynics and skeptics fired gloating missiles, interrogating the nature of magic wand Mbah would deploy in the water sector. Moses, in the Bible, had struck a rock from which water gushed for the children of Israel. What tool would Mbah employ and what would be the source of the much promised water? In less than 180 days, with the aid of disruptive innovation, Mbah demystified the jinx and Enugu today is adjudged a water city.

In security, one of the top and most critical challenges faced by the budding administration was the issue of insecurity. A precursory into the dark realm of security in the state showed, as a baseline data, that Enugu was dripping with blood and sorrow. From the suffocating economy, almost collapsed to extinction, precipitated by insecurity notoriously nicknamed sit-at-home orders from criminal gangs and enemies of the people, to senseless killings by herders, cultists and communal clashes.

Mbah identified these as big elephants that must be crushed and sent packing. Sit-at-home, although banished to the sad memories of our past, had become an undignified issue that demeaned the psychic of our people. Businesses were paralyzed. Education was almost grounded. Life became an anomaly and one could infer that era from what the English Philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, described as the state of nature where life is brutish, nasty and short.

Mobilizing strategic resources, the defeat of the sit-at-home, unknown gunmen, bloodletting by herdsmen and other attacks were imminent and eventually became a thing of the past. From a ghost city, Enugu progressed to the most peaceful and thriving state in Nigeria. The audacity and political will to do the impossible were only possible because of the governor’s leadership posture.

Only in 365 days, Mbah declared an infrastructural renaissance. It was a new dawn in the history of the state as Enugu departed from deteriorated state of governance to one worth celebrating. Major roads were carefully paved with modern fixtures while new ones were opened up. This was a deliberate step to make the state attractive to Investors. The governor had assured that his administration would de-risk investment flow and create a conducive environment where returns on investment would be lucrative.

Today, investors are striking deals. The state is becoming a hub for manufacturers, service providers, tourists, and dormant assets are being revamped. The promise that no abandoned asset would be left out in the rebirth struggle is yielding result. The international wing of the Akanu Ibiam Airport, the international conference Centre, the Hotel Presidential, the Niger Gas Industry, the United Palm Produce, among other moribund assets are having life injected in them, all this within one year.

Enugu’s system of education is becoming top-notch in Africa, migrating from the archaic and unproductive teaching method to a digital, experiential learning where school children are exposed to tools that are required to key into and drive today’s economy. The new smart green schools are modeled to impart specialisations as robotics, artificial intelligence, mechatronics, among other advanced technology and innovation. This is unheard-of in Nigeria but the can-do-spirit of disruptive governance is only playing out.

The pride of having Mbah as a governor in a time like ours; a time that requires urgency and sense of creativity, disruption in the status quo and a rebirth couldn’t have been better explained than all the projects holding sway in the state to the consternation of admirers and adversaries. While the 260 smart schools are rapidly undergoing construction, Mbah added another 260 Type-2 primary healthcare centres. That not enough, workers and civil servants in the state are still celebrating the new lease of life and wage award which has strengthened their purchasing power. Interestingly, available data had shown that against the backdrop of his promise to train and empower 40,000 youths, that figure has been surpassed. It isn’t surprising that all this is possible because of the disruptive governance introduced into the administration.

With a sense of fulfillment and patriotism, the people of Enugu could only look back with nostalgia, saying, “We made the right decision at the polls. Democracy triumphed over the forces of dark principalities who were bent on smuggling accidental candidates and imposing them on the good people of Enugu State”. May Enugu State continue to succeed.

On May 29th, it will be exactly one year since Dr. Peter Mbah was sworn in as Enugu State Governor.

I make haste to say that Mbah’s one year in office has witnessed the conception and commencement of major projects in all Sectors that are capable of transforming the economy of Enugu State and giving the people a new lease of life.

A critical look at some of the Sectors would buttress the fact that Mbah’s reign will change the course of the history of the State.

For the first time in our history, Enugu is witnessing the construction of 260 World-class Smart Schools and another 260 Health Centres in all the Political Wards in the State. The Smart Schools and Health Centres will be equipped with State-of-the art facilities seen in the developed Climes of the World.

To further boost Healthcare in the State, Governor Mbah is constructing new Wards in Parklane Hospital. This will ensure that more people have access to health care in the hospital.

To re-position education in the State, Governor Mbah is recruiting qualified teachers who can groom our children and prepare them for the challenges of the future.

Governor Mbah has also embarked on aggressive construction of roads and bridges to effectively link up all parts of the State and aid commercial activities.

It is irrefutable that poor road infrastructure in the State was hindering both human and vehicular movements and making the evacuation of agricultural produce from the rural areas to urban Centres very difficult. Farmers have seen their yields waste as a result of their inability to move them to Urban Centres where they are needed more. The new roads being constructed by the Mbah Administration will open up Enugu for the World and also help in attracting Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs). It is reassuring that most of the roads are also being constructed simultaneously with Fly-overs for ease of traffic.

Another re-assuring project of the Enugu Government, is the provision of water in every home in Enugu, the re-modeling of the Enugu International Conference Centre and the construction of a Five-star hotel which will make Enugu a destination for international Conferences. The International Conference Centre, the Central Terminal Stations, the Five-star hotel and the revamping of the hitherto comatose Presidential Hotel will, obviously, help in boosting the internally generated revenue (IGR) of Enugu State and create jobs for our youth.

The N100billion Palm Deal will also be a major move that will help in re-positioning Enugu economy.

It is gratifying that Enugu Pensioners and Workers no longer gnash their teeth before they receive their emoluments and gratuities.

Governor Mbah has also demonstrated the will and determination to tackle the security challenges confronting Enugu State. Efforts are ongoing to confront the trouble makers who are causing mayhem in the State with the assistance of Security Agencies. The strategies of the Governor will make Enugu, a hot Zone for all classes of criminals.

The intention of the State Government to move the State economy from $4 billion to a $30 billion based one is an uncommon feat that can only be achieved by a Transformational Leader of Mbah’s Class.

Morning, certainly shows the day. As we march forward, there is no doubt that Enugu will witness total transformation under Governor Mbah. Enugu is bound to stand out among the States in Nigeria.

Despite the fact that Enugu is not an Oil-producing State, Governor Mbah is using the meagre resources of the State to positively change the lives of the people and place Enugu on the path of irreversible and sustainable development.

Anayo Edeh is the Convener of Nkanu-east Consultative Forum.

By Okey Ikechukwu

As the Igbo would say, the man who sets out to marry a wife and celebrate his wedding in the Village square while wearing stolen and brightly coloured clothes of another should pray that the owner of the apparel on his back does not turn up in the Village Square while he is rocking his new-found body gear of questionable origins. And this saying has an extension: He who prays that the owner of the stolen clothes he chose to wear to a public event should not attend the event and see him should remember that the village is a small place and that the original owner of the clothes has friends and relations who will carry home a report that would make the thief unable to sleep after close of the day’s business.

But the matter of whether Ohaneze was planning to embark on a begging expedition or not has been laid to rest for good. Just when it was beginning to look like a crescendo was about to be attained by drivers of the campaign of calumny, the project ran out of gas. Untruth may rear its head, and even display some bright colours you cannot ignore, but it can never last long enough to challenge the truth. The mischief makers who tried to float the totally reprehensible narrative lost out in the end. But there is still the after-smell of un-sanctity in the air. No matter.

In reaction to the shocking tale of beggary, the President-general of Ohaneze and the organization’s Secretary General rolled out the tanks of public discourse and drowned out the ridiculous, but viral, claim that the organization came up with the had the hare-brained idea going on some kind of begging expedition to the northern part of the country. To begin with, there was nothing remotely resembling that thought in the two-day Ohaneze retreat where the idea was alleged to have sprouted.

I was at the event. I was also the Lead Speaker at the retreat held in Enugu. My presentation, and other presentations, were focused on new paradigms for Igbo self-actualization in the nation that essentially undergirded by a conspiratorial, and not openly and freely competitive, political economy. It was a soul-searching and truth telling outing. The ensuing Communique spoke to the issues discussed, as well as the new programmes and focal concerns of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Worldwide. So where did the tale of begging and supplication come into it?

Ohaneze, and Ndigbo generally, had a chance to “beg” the North or, more specifically, the Fulani, for support about a year ago. That was before the Last presidential elections, when Peter Obi was a candidate. They did not such thing. Instead, a meeting was called some five months before the elections between the South East Elders Forum and the Northern Welders Forum. In attendance covered the confederacy of all otherwise distinct platforms from both parts of the country, all with a common interest on the issues the coming elections were likely to put the table.

Prof Ango Abdullahi led the Northern team, while the South east team was led by Chief Simon Okeke, for Chairman of the Police service Commission (PSS) and Chairman of the Anambra Public Officers and Elders Forum (ASPOF). The atmosphere was sombre. The air was charged with barely concealed expectations of horse-trading proposals, since it was a question of an election wherein the highest position in the land was being sought by an Igbo man.

There was a smell of “What is in it for us” in the air. So, it was for the South East Elders Forum to “Make their case” and convince their counterparts that a Peter Obi Gamble was worth their while. The Northern Elder presented Dr Hakeem Baba Ahmed as spokesman, while the South East Elders presented Prof Okey Ikechukwu, mni, as spokesman. And so, Ikechukwu was invited to address the Northern elders after the leaders of the two teams had put forth their opening pleasantries.

As one of the very highly respected and also very old Northern Elders later quipped, after the three-hour interaction and exchanges, “We did not see it coming at all. That your Ikechukwu just compelled some of us to thinks about things we probably have bever adverted my mind to in the politics of the momen”. So, what really happened?

As the designate spokesperson for our own side of the table, I started by saying that we had come with a central message; which is captured in the statement: “Come let us reason together”. I said the we had not come to beg them to vote for Mr. Peter Obi, or to ask them to support our son and brother, no. Instead, had come to compare notes with them, on the good product that Nigeria needed a tthat historical hour.

I pointed out that Obi’s choice of their son and brother as running mate was based on his assessment of the latter, as enlightened, successful, and hands-on manager of human and material resources. Obi chose one of their best, who, in addition to being broad-minded, was also known for his substantial, and sustained, investments in human capital development. So, let us reason together, with these questions in mind: (1) “What sort of leadership and navigational skills do we need to save Nigeria. (2) What type of person can deliver on this, and is Peter Obi, alongside his running mate, the type of team that dan do this job well?

Then came my clincher: “Gentlemen and elders, what every one of us here has in common is that we have all the attributes of people who can be kidnapped for ransom. are prime targets for kidnappers. That is not to say that we are wealthy by any stretch of the imagination in the conventional sense of Nigerians who can routinely sign off millions of naira, or eve n dollars, without blinking; no”!

I pointed out that we all came in more than passably clean air-conditioned vehicles; all in relatively good condition. We all look a little less harassed and less desperately hungry than the average person out there. So, anyone seeing us, and who has caught unto the new-fangle trade of capturing human beings in order to release them again after being paid, will see a potential product he can secure and use to make money”. Everywhere was dead quiet.

I continued: “No bandit, kidnapper or terrorist who accosts any of us on the road will first try to find out who we are, how good or bad we are and whether we are doing our best for humanity and for our fatherland. We would all be just, “ransom-able commodity” and nothing more. Professor, Imam, Senator, Senior military officer, students, name is!

Turning to the Prof Abdulahi, I said: “Recall, sir, that your son was one of the unfortunates of the Kaduna-bound train mishap. Fortunately, no stray bullet found him. But unfortunately, he was taken captive alongside everyone else they people could get hold of after derailing the train and killing some of the passengers. The young man’s identity as your son your son did not make any difference to them, or to anyone for that matter. No! with all the sacrifice you and many other people have made over the last 50 years?

I spoke if the demand for ransom and of the fact that the criminals held unto the young man until the full ransom was fully paid. Shortly thereafter, an incident involving the kidnap of another of your relations, this time with four of your beloved grand children in tow, was reported. It was all Ango Abdullahi’s problem while it lasted.

“The concern for us at the South East Elders Forum had more to do with a desperate need to rescue even our humanity as a people, in addition to all the hullabaloo about elections and positions after the elections. The coming elections, we held, must be sued as a tool for the restoration of the people-centred leadership ideals that characterized the era of the Ahmadu Bellos, Ziks, Awolowos, and so many others of that era.

I reminded us of the circumstances under which Prof Onyemelukwe lost his life in Anambra State, at the age of 84. He was accosted on the road by armed young men. Then they discovered that he was a saboteur working with the Fulanis in Nigeria against Igbo interests. Yes! And they had clear evidence and proof of his treachery before their very eyes. They also told him about this evidence and proof before they shot him. Guess what proof of his treachery and betrayal of Ndigbo they had against him? The 84-year-old man was wearing a caftan. That was all. He had to be executed for wearing Fulani dress in Biafra Land. That was the end of a great scholar of international repute and community leader.

Traditional rulers hitherto thought to be untouchable in various parts of the country are now routinely picked off their royal stool in their kingdoms and emirates like hapless chickens I nan exposed cage. Alongside the foregoing several other issues that were discussed in confidence on both sides.

Baba Ahmed was at his eloquent, and also very realistic best when it was his turn to speak for his side of the table. He raised all the relevant issues, forever focusing on the things that mattered the most. There was neither begging nor demand for begging. The gathering did not query, or try to impugn, the reputation or aspirations of other candidates besides the ones we had on the table at our meeting.

Then the meeting rose, agreeing embark of serious group reflections and introspection, and to reconvene soon thereafter to determine next steps. It was about Nigeria, about or physical, economic, political and moral survival as a people facing common problems that we needed to “reason together” and chart a way forward.

Imagine if a man who, as Vice chancellor of Ahmadu Bello university, did so much to fast-track tertiary education for Northerners were to lose his son to criminals at whose current means of livelihood is the fact that they had no education and no socially useful survival skills. The north stood by and Ango’s son was held captive for months. Just as the East watched the husband of Dora Akunyili bumped off in broad daylight by gunmen.

Going back to the matter of whether Ohaneze was planning to beg anyone or not, ”Untruth may rear its head, and even display some bright colours you cannot ignore. But it can never last long enough to challenge and permanently displace the truth”. Begging? I beg your pardon!