A former Minister of Sports and Youth Development, under the President Muhammadu Buhari Government, Solomon Dalung, has made a damning allegation as to why insecurity thrives in Nigeria.
Dalung revealed that those in the corridors of power, close allies and members of President Buhari’s Cabinet are gaining from the unrest and insecurity In the country.
Dalungs allegation comes on the heels of the revelation that Buhari’s Minister for Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, was an Al Queda supporter, and had said that the killings of unbelievers made him happy. He had also, among other things, described the late Osama Bin Laden, as a better Muslim than he, Pantami.
Embattled and under pressure from calls that he be sacked by President Buhari, he renounced his earlier rhetoric, blaming it on youthful exuberance and immaturity.
Dalung who made this allegation in a chat with newsmen, stressed that people within the corridors of power are making gains out of the current security situation in the country.
The Plateau State born former Minister identified as the greatest challenge the emergence of those he called “conflict entrepreneurs” who are benefitting from the terrible situation and are unwilling to let it end.
He said some of the conflict entrepreneurs are within the corridors of power, making “heavy businesses out of the pathetic security situation”.
He also condemned the attacks by unknown gunmen earlier this month on Government facilities in Imo State.
“What happened in Imo was horrific and grave, talking along the line of national security, because it was an attack on the national security. It was carried out, successfully because impunity has taken the centre stage of our national values, meaning that people now get away with evil, with crimes and with anything. Some of them even brag about it and are also seen within the corridors of power,” he added
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has reacted to the disclosure by former Niger State Governor, Aliyu Babangida, that prior to the 2015 Presidential Election, he had an agreement with Northern Governors not to contest.
Babangida had alleged that Northern PDP Governors worked against Jonathan because he failed to keep to his promises made to Northern Governors to not contest in 2015.
Reacting to the claims, in a statement on his behalf by his former Aide, Reno Omokri, Jonathan said there was no such agreement with Northern governors not to contest the 2015 Presidential election.
Babangida had said: “Since this was against the grain of our earlier agreement in the party, and which we the governors in the north felt the North would have been short-changed if Jonathan had succeeded, we rose stoutly to insist on the agreement we all had.”
One of the Northern Governors, Jonah Jang, former governor of Plateau, also faulted Babangida’s claim. He ssid he was not privy to such agreement and he was not part of the Northern PDP governors who worked against Jonathan. Incidentally, President Buhari won Plateau State in 2015, and again in 2019.
Omokri, refuting Aliyu’s assertion on behalf of Jonathan said that his former principal had no agreement whatsoever with Northern Governors not to seek a second term in 2015.
in a statement issued on Sunday Omokri challenged the former Niger governor to name those who were privy to the purported agreement.
He said Babangida was an unpleasant character, noting that the ex Governor’s false claims were aimed at reviving his soiled reputation as he was no longer relevant in the grand scheme of things.
The former president said Babangida has a different account of what transpired when he was asked to give reasons why he worked against him in Segun Adeniyi’s book titled: “Against the Run of Play: How an Incumbent President was Defeated in Nigeria.”
“Babangida Aliyu is a pathetic fellow. He has become a broken record and, sadly, he feels that is the only way to remain relevant. Let me break his claim down for you in a way that it will be so crystal clear that he is lying.
“There was no such agreement, whether written or oral. Since he says it was written, then let Mr. Babangida Aliyu produce it. If he changes his statement and says it was not written after all, but actually verbal, then I challenge him to name witnesses.
“Mr Aliyu says the agreement the Northern Governors had with former President Jonathan was for him to finish off President Yar’Adua’s first term between May 6, 2010 and May 29, 2011, and then contest for only one term between May 29, 2011 and May 29, 2015.
“If this is true, then how come former President Jonathan lost the votes of Niger State at the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Primary of January 13, 2011?
“How come, also, that former President Jonathan lost the actual Presidential election, which held on April 16, 2011 to the candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, Muhammadu Buhari, in Niger State?
“General Muhammadu polled 652,574 votes to then President Jonathan’s 321,429 in Niger State in 2011. He got more than twice the number of votes secured by former President Jonathan.
“So, even if we want to say for argument’s sake that there was such an agreement, of which there was no such agreement, wouldn’t Governor Babangida Aliyu have been expected to have kept to his side of the bargain?
“The truth is that not only was there no such agreement, but Babangida Aliyu is such a perfidious character that does not even know that his current disposition contradicts his earlier statements.
“For example, in Mr. Segun Adeniyi’s book, Against the Run of Play: How an Incumbent President Was Defeated in Nigeria, published in 2017, Mr. Aliyu gave a completely different reason for working against former President Jonathan.
“According to Mr. Aliyu, the Obama administration had invited 12 governors from Northern Nigeria to sound them out on their commitment to the plot to unseat the then President of Nigeria. In that book, the former Niger State Governor said, “The Americans had resolved not to support Jonathan. They just wanted to size us up for the level of commitment to regime change.
“Mr. Aliyu revealed in that book that he was an unpatriotic individual, who held meetings with a foreign government to undermine his own home government. He basically admitted to treason. Now, how can such a fellow be taken seriously by people who believe in the unity of Nigeria?
“Witnesses at that meeting revealed that the statements made by then Governors Aliyu and Murtala Nyako were so dangerous to Nigeria’s unity that it prompted a strong rebuttal from Gombe state governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, who was also present.”
The Interim Administrator of Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Col. Milland Dixon Dikio (rtd) has reiterated that the era of violence and arms struggle in the Niger Delta region has finally gone.
According to him, what is being experienced in the region now are new ideas in intellectual space, driven by science and technology to advance speedy development and growth of the people.
In his charge to 200 delegates of PAP, who were graduated from training facility of Bradama International Skill Works at Agadagba-Obon, Ondo State, on Saturday, Dikio noted that the success story of PAP has affirmed that with the right orientation and skill, youths from the region have risen to the technological challenge of the 21st century as better alternative to arms struggle.
The graduating 200 trainees had completed six months intensive classroom and workshop sessions in Welding/Fabricating, Abrasive Blasting, Mechanical Fittings, Industrial Painting and Scaffolding/Rigging under the 2019/2020 PAP Delegates Training Programme.
“We’re here to celebrate what is possible in the Niger Delta region and beyond by reorientation and rededication of our core values as a people towards seeking better living conditions for everyone.
“I am going to charge you (graduands) to leave here with the spirit of excellence which the CEO of Bradama, Chief Bibopere Ajube has demonstrated as a leader of ex- agitators in the region.
“As ex-agitators, you don’t need to look any further for mentorship, Chief Ajube has competed with the best in the world and continued to stand out among his peers. He is indeed, the new face of technology advancement in emancipation struggle of Niger Delta.
“This is not an ordinary graduation ceremony, and so, we owe the 6th graduates of Bradama Intl and the first under my watch, in high esteem. We hope and pray you will be the difference makers as you go into the world.
“I charge you that as you leave this place, you will meet challenges but as the saying that when the going gets tough, the tough gets going, assuring you that the sky should not be your limit but your starting point.
In his response, the MD/CEO of Bradama international Skill Works, Chief Bibopere Ajube thanked the Federal Government under the leadership of President Mohammadu Buhari for the financial and administrative support for the Amnesty Programme.
The Arogbo-Ibe high chief however urged the graduands to put the practical training and certificate obtained to seek gainful employment to better their lives and that of their family members, as a way to justify the huge investment the federal government expended on them during the course of the training programme.
“Please, don’t waste the skill you acquired at Bradama Intl. Put it to productive use and change your lives for good.
“I thank you for your cooperation and peaceful composure during your stay here in Bradama and I wish you goodluck in your future endeavours.”
Ajube however, noted that the Niger Delta region needed peace now than before to enable it compete favourably in Project Nigeria and advance its people in developmental strides through innovations, science and technology.
The answer to a simple question on the status of the case before the Supreme Court, on Friday, April 16, was more of a shock, a regret, and of disbelief.
The Supreme Court had sat to confirm who exactly was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, during the Senatorial by-election of December 5, 2020, for Imo North. The seat became vacant at the death of Senator Ben Uwajimogu, APC.
But the question of who exactly was the APC candidate became a problem, as there were two claimants to it – Senator Ifeanyi Ararume and Chief Frank Ibezim.
At the end of the exercise, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared APC the winner, without announcing the individual- Ibezim or Ararume – who won it.
INEC left that beat for the Court to decide.
The candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Emma Okewulonu came second.
Since that December of 2020, the question of who occupies the seat has been in court. The seat has been empty. And the Senatorial Zone has been without a candidate.
Courts of different jurisdictions had given judgements on aspects of the case. In fact, even before the election, both Ararume and Ibezim had been disqualified by Courts.
But both kept appealing, which was why INEC withheld the Certificate of Return, CoR.
In the case of Okewulonu, the PDP candidate, he is asking to be declared the winner, since it seems like, legally, the APC had no candidate.
A few weeks ago, even though the Supreme Court had earlier disqualified Ararume, a Federal High Court declared him the candidate, and ordered INEC to issue him with a CoR. But an Owerri High Court gave an order, restraining INEC from doing so.
On Friday April 16, the Supreme made a definite pronouncement on who the candidate is. The Jusices sat for two days – 15th and 16th.
The case against Ibezim, for which he was disqualified, bordered on perjury. His school certificate result, it was alleged, bore different names from what he had submitted. Weeks before the Friday judgement by the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal had upheld Ibezim’s disqualification, thus raising the hope of the PDP and its candidate.
On the 15th of April, their hopes were raised even higher when the Supreme Court, in two separate judgements, threw away, for the second time, Ararume’s case, asking INEC to issue him a CoR as ordered by a Federal High Court, as well as that of Ibezim, asking to tender a School Certificate result to strengthen his case. It was a result he, allegedly, never tendered before.
The PDP saw the two developments as a good sign, a sign of victory, a sign that the Court would declare its candidate, Okewulonu, the winner. Many people outside the PDP thought so too. But the next day, hopes were dashed.
Chief Frank Ibezim
In a unanimous judgement, the Supreme Court Justices affirmed Ibezim as the APC authentic candidate for the senatorial by-election. They said the case was time-barred.
The judgement was a shock for the PDP and its supporters.
No wonder the reaction from one of its strong members when asked of the Supreme Court’s decision. “They have given it to Ibezim”, he answered.
The interpretation in some political circles is that the case has ended. That the controversy over who would represent Imo North at the Senate is over. That INEC would now give Ibezim a CoR, and that he would be sworn-in as the Senator.
Okewulonu Fights On
But Okewulonu, the PDP candidate does not think so. He said his fight for the Senate seat was alive and kicking. What their Justices decided on, he emphasised, was an internal party affair in the APC. He said it had nothing to do with his case that the “two candidates” of the APC were legally disqualified ; that at the time of the election, the APC had no candidate. That case he said, is still in Court.
In a letter to his supporters, personally signed by him, he struggled to to lift their spirit up, and keep hope alive. It was entitled;
FOR THE SAKE OF OKIGWE; MY FRANK ASSURANCE
The full text reads:
“You are, no doubt, all aware of the Supreme Court ruling affirming Sir Frank Ibezim as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 5th December, 2020, bye-election for the Imo North senatorial district.
“The ruling is the culmination of a legal battle purely between warring factions of the APC. We were not a party in that suit.
“The impression may have thus been created that the long journey we embarked upon since the early part of 2020 has come to an unceremonious end.
Nothing can be farther from the truth, however, given that the ruling is purely on a pre-election matter, in which the APC, in its usual underhand pattern, was in actuality, still shopping for a candidate for an election that had long been consigned to the archives of history.
“It is no doubt, a continuation of the recurring pattern of inconsistent and incomprehensible judicial decisions which we have all been witness to in recent times, particularly in Imo State.
“For the avoidance of doubt, however, I want to assure you that our own suit instituted at the Election Tribunal is still alive and well, and will proceed without any let or hindrance.
“I, therefore, urge our stakeholders and supporters, and indeed, the entire Imo North electorate, a.k.a. ndi Okigwe, to keep the faith, and not be disheartened or discouraged, because we are not giving up on the battle to affirm that we were the actual winners in that bye-election.
“Unfortunately, it has become glaringly obvious that there seems to be a concerted and orchestrated attempt at every turn, to deny Imo people of their mandates freely given to the candidates of their choice. Practical instances abound.
“Nevertheless, suffice it to say that we are confident that in this case, we have the truth and the support of Okigwe people on our side. Justice will therefore, eventually be done, and victory will be ours.
“Let me once again express my sincere appreciation for the unstinting solidarity and support which you all have exhibited so far, and to assure you once again that no stone will be left unturned in our quest at the tribunal to affirm and consolidate our mandate.
By God’s grace, WE SHALL PREVAIL, and Okigwe will be better.”
The case is at the Election Tribunal.
Questions, however, are: Will INEC, having declared the APC winner of the election, and having said it would wait for the Court to decide who the party’s authentic candidate is, not now give Ibezim the Certificate of Return? Does a case at an Election Tribunal stop the issuance of the CoR to the winner of an election? Will it in this instance? Having been disqualified by two competent Courts, will INEC proceed to give Ibezim the ticket?
The answer to a simple question on the status of the case before the Supreme Court, on Friday, April 16, was more of a shock, a regret, and of disbelief.
The Supreme Court had sat to confirm who exactly was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, during the Senatorial by-election of December 5, 2020, for Imo North. The seat became vacant at the death of Senator Ben Uwajimogu, APC.
But the question of who exactly was the APC candidate became a problem, as there were two claimants to it – Senator Ifeanyi Ararume and Chief Frank Ibezim.
At the end of the exercise, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared APC the winner, without announcing the individual- Ibezim or Ararume – who won it.
INEC left that beat for the Court to decide.
The candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Emma Okewulonu came second.
Since that December of 2020, the question of who occupies the seat has been in court. The seat has been empty. And the Senatorial Zone has been without a candidate.
Courts of different jurisdictions had given judgements on aspects of the case. In fact, even before the election, both Ararume and Ibezim had been disqualified by Courts.
But both kept appealing, which was why INEC withheld the Certificate of Return, CoR.
In the case of Okewulonu, the PDP candidate, he is asking to be declared the winner, since it seems like, legally, the APC had no candidate.
A few weeks ago, even though the Supreme Court had earlier disqualified Ararume, a Federal High Court declared him the candidate, and ordered INEC to issue him with a CoR. But an Owerri High Court gave an order, restraining INEC from doing so.
On Friday April 16, the Supreme made a definite pronouncement on who the candidate is. The Jusices sat for two days – 15th and 16th.
The case against Ibezim, for which he was disqualified, bordered on perjury. His school certificate result, it was alleged, bore different names from what he had submitted. Weeks before the Friday judgement by the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal had upheld Ibezim’s disqualification, thus raising the hope of the PDP and its candidate.
On the 15th of April, their hopes were raised even higher when the Supreme Court, in two separate judgements, threw away, for the second time, Ararume’s case, asking INEC to issue him a CoR as ordered by a Federal High Court, as well as that of Ibezim, asking to tender a School Certificate result to strengthen his case. It was a result he, allegedly, never tendered before.
The PDP saw the two developments as a good sign, a sign of victory, a sign that the Court would declare its candidate, Okewulonu, the winner. Many people outside the PDP thought so too. But the next day, hopes were dashed.
In a unanimous judgement, the Supreme Court Justices affirmed Ibezim as the APC authentic candidate for the senatorial by-election. They said the case was time-barred.
The judgement was a shock for the PDP and its supporters.
No wonder the reaction from one of its strong members when asked of the Supreme Court’s decision. “They have given it to Ibezim”, he answered.
The interpretation in some political circles is that the case has ended. That the controversy over who would represent Imo North at the Senate is over. That INEC would now give Ibezim a CoR, and that he would be sworn-in as the Senator.
Okewulonu Fights On
But Okewulonu, the PDP candidate does not think so. He said his fight for the Senate seat was alive and kicking. What their Justices decided on, he emphasised, was an internal party affair in the APC. He said it had nothing to do with his case that the “two candidates” of the APC were legally disqualified ; that at the time of the election, the APC had no candidate. That case he said, is still in Court.
Chief Emma Okewulonu, PDP Candidate.
In a letter to his supporters, personally signed by him, he struggled to to lift their spirit up, and keep hope alive. It was entitled;
FOR THE SAKE OF OKIGWE; MY FRANK ASSURANCE
The full text reads:
“You are, no doubt, all aware of the Supreme Court ruling affirming Sir Frank Ibezim as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 5th December, 2020, bye-election for the Imo North senatorial district.
“The ruling is the culmination of a legal battle purely between warring factions of the APC. We were not a party in that suit.
“The impression may have thus been created that the long journey we embarked upon since the early part of 2020 has come to an unceremonious end.
Nothing can be farther from the truth, however, given that the ruling is purely on a pre-election matter, in which the APC, in its usual underhand pattern, was in actuality, still shopping for a candidate for an election that had long been consigned to the archives of history.
“It is no doubt, a continuation of the recurring pattern of inconsistent and incomprehensible judicial decisions which we have all been witness to in recent times, particularly in Imo State.
“For the avoidance of doubt, however, I want to assure you that our own suit instituted at the Election Tribunal is still alive and well, and will proceed without any let or hindrance.
“I, therefore, urge our stakeholders and supporters, and indeed, the entire Imo North electorate, a.k.a. ndi Okigwe, to keep the faith, and not be disheartened or discouraged, because we are not giving up on the battle to affirm that we were the actual winners in that bye-election.
“Unfortunately, it has become glaringly obvious that there seems to be a concerted and orchestrated attempt at every turn, to deny Imo people of their mandates freely given to the candidates of their choice. Practical instances abound.
“Nevertheless, suffice it to say that we are confident that in this case, we have the truth and the support of Okigwe people on our side. Justice will therefore, eventually be done, and victory will be ours.
“Let me once again express my sincere appreciation for the unstinting solidarity and support which you all have exhibited so far, and to assure you once again that no stone will be left unturned in our quest at the tribunal to affirm and consolidate our mandate.
By God’s grace, WE SHALL PREVAIL, and Okigwe will be better.”
The case is at the Election Tribunal.
Questions, however, are: Will INEC, having declared the APC winner of the election, and having said it would wait for the Court to decide who the party’s authentic candidate is, not now give Ibezim the Certificate of Return? Does a case at an Election Tribunal stop the issuance of the CoR to the winner of an election? Will it in this instance? Having been disqualified by two competent Courts, will INEC proceed to give Ibezim the ticket?
The occasion of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s 69 birthday last month invited, as such occasions are wont to do, a flood of encomiums, each intent on reminding us what a blessing the man is to our national politics. Tinubu, of course, knew that some of them spoke from both sides of the mouth. He knew that among those who loudly proclaimed his political greatness were men who could not stand his guts, his political sagacity and courage and, of course, his assumed and legitimate political ambition to climb to the top of the totem pole. There is nothing wrong with the king-maker becoming the king. He knew they did no more than stroll down the path of tradition in order to be numbered among those who appreciate him in earnest. Nothing strange there. It is the way the cook stands; it is the way it crumbles.
Tinubu is in the eyes of the storm; he has been in it for as long as one can remember. People are suspicious of his political moves. If he keeps his lips sealed and refuses to jump into the fray of needless and often puerile controversies, he is said to be doing so because of his presidential ambition. And even if he speaks, he satisfies no one. Whatever he does tends to be clothed in dark and sinister motives of an unbridled personal political ambition by men who fear his principles. It is an unkind cut. But he is a smart man. I believe he is neither fazed by the unkind cuts he receives nor inebriated by the whiffs of panegyrics. It is, as they say, politics in action.
This piece is not intended to praise Tinubu. This old codger is hardly qualified for that. Its noble intention, even if I say so, is to use the senator’s role in our national politics to assess our increasingly wobbly steps down the garden path of our national politics in the context of our assumed ambition to water, protect and grow our democracy. Tinubu represents for me a more committed approach to that great ambition than we are willing to give him credit for. He has done some very titanic things and helped to effect some critical changes in the direction, if not the tenor, of our national politics and discourse. He is one of a handful of principled men among our politicians who have not been blown off course by the ill wind of naked political ambition and casting about for where the bread is likely to be better buttered in the next circle of general elections, even if it means picking up the crumbs from under the table.
Tinubu remained firm and loyal to his original political party, AD. It changed its name to ACN and later helped to birth a new political party, APC in 2014, that has cemented the South-West in the mainstream of our national politics; politics at the centre, that is. AD was a child of political circumstances. It did not meet the condition for national spread stipulated in the General Abdulsalami Abubakar transition programme but nevertheless made the grade because the gun of protests over the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election was still belching ominous smoke in the South-West geo-political zone and threatening to blur the path to the birth of the third or fourth republic.
Tinubu needed no one to tell him that the party was what the South-West needed to bargain with the Nigerian on its fair share of the national cake. He entered the 1999 race for the governorship of Lagos State. He won and began the steady spread of a shift in state-cum regional development paradigm. AD went on to win all the six states in the geo-political zone in 1999. And this, despite the fact that one of its illustrious sons, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a presidential candidate of PDP, was virtually crowned as president by the generals long before the first ballot paper hit the bottom of the ballot box that year.
President Obasanjo, smarting from being treated as a political orphan because he did not enjoy the support of his own people, outsmarted the AD governors in the 2003 general elections. He convinced them to support him for his re-election in return for his support for them for their own re-election. Tinubu was the only man who saw through Obasanjo’s plan and rejected it. The rest of his colleagues took the bait and the umbrella replaced the broom in their government houses.
Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
Unusual for a Nigerian politician, most of whom are permanently in search of greener pastures, Tinubu remained alone and true to AD and was determined to make Lagos a successful political and economic story and thus an enviable island in the muddied sea of our national failures. I understand he unveiled the local equivalent of a Marshall plan for the old Western region to which all the states in the zone were originally obliged to tap into and make it the new hub in our national development. His infrastructural development has had a tremendous and positive impact on the rest of the zone, even in states that do not quite share in the policy of collective system of regional development.
We can all see it. Lagos is the only state in the federation that does not wait for the monthly handouts from the federation account. It generates enough revenue internally to take care of itself and oil its developmental ambitions. Internally, the state has more and better roads than the rest of the country. Its economy is said to be fifth largest in Africa. That is something to be immensely proud of – even if out of a reluctance to applaud those who make a difference, we clap for Tinubu, the architect of all that, with one hand. Still, the Asiwaju stands out in the teaming crowd of political jobbers parading themselves as patriots committed to rebuilding Nigeria.
From what I can see, Tinubu stands out as the kind of political leader we need and urgently so, to help stop us from moving in circles in a vain search for a magical development paradigm that does not exist. We need politicians forged on the anvils of their principles who are not easily swayed by the mere lure of power or of lucre. He is. We need politicians with a larger concept of public service and who bear no allegiance to tribe or religion and can, with some courage, manage our ethnic diversity and political pluralism. The Asiwaju fits the bill.
Tinubu has consistently opened the doors of Lagos State to politicians from other states to find their berth. He left a legacy of building a state in which every Nigerian has a stake by accommodating non-indigenes in the state cabinet. You can find Yoruba from within and outside the South-West in every Lagos State administration; just as you can find some other tribes there too. Thus, the son of the minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, is a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly. He is from Kwara State. And from Kogi State comes James Faleke who is a member of the House of Representatives in Lagos State. I know of no other state in the country where people from other states enjoy this degree of political space with the sons and daughters of the soil. I can think of nothing more effective in building a united states of Nigeria than by making every part of Nigeria home to every Nigerian as Tinubu has done.
I confess that I do not quite know the colour of his politics in terms of an ideology but whether he has one or not, he has shown that he is a pragmatic politician with a capacity for hands-on leadership. His succession plan in Lagos has worked and made the state the least atomistic one in the country. This has also ensured consistency in infrastructural and economic development plan from one administration to the next. In no other state is this evident absent of succession plans. Instead a departing state governor anoints a successor with two left hands and leaves the state in the lurch with an unprepared and confused man fumbling in the darkness of his blind ambition.
Sure, Tinubu has done well for his state as well as getting a chunk of power at the centre for the South-West geo-political zone. However hard we may try, I think it would be dishonest not to admit that Tinubu and he alone made the birth of APC possible in 2014, and changed for ever the political fortunes of Muhammadu Buhari and that of many others. But his work is not done. Our country is still on the weary trek towards transforming itself from a mere geographical expression into a united and egalitarian nation. Buffeted as it is by unprecedented violence and insecurity, the clouds are beginning to blur our vision – in case the Asiwaju is kept unaware of it.
“The first rule of holes is that when you find yourself in one, you stop digging.”
Preacher of jihadi violence and extremism, and Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, has given an interview to Premium Times in which, instead of apologizing for his pro-Al-Qaeda and Taliban and pro-violent jihad positions, he makes two startling claims.
The Minister claims that his violent preaching in support of global jihadist groups and his declarations that the killing of unbelievers makes him happy were understood out of context.
Pray, what context mitigates or assuages his advocacy for people who kill Christians, Jews, Hindus, Atheists, and Muslims who don’t agree with the path of violent jihad?
Pantami also claims that his violent preachings are not his personal opinions but are drawn from the Qur’an. Wow!
Is he saying that the Muslim Clerics and regular Muslims, local and global, who do not preach violent jihad or violence, do not support murderous Al-Qaeda and Taliban jihadists, and do not advocate for violence against non-Muslims are not drawing from the Qur’an and derive their creed from some other source? Are they, by his claim, less Muslim than he is?
That is what he is implying, and it is even more dangerous than his advocacy of jihadi violence and the elimination of unbelievers, for it essentially delegitimizes the faith of hundreds of millions of Muslims who preach and advocate for peace, freedom of religion, and sectarian and interfaith harmony and understanding.
Pantami made a choice in his preachings. He chose to support, boost, and enable Al-Qaeda and Taliban jihadists and even promoted violent jihad locally in Nigeria, only recommending that Muslims wait for the time to be ripe before launching the jihad in Nigeria.
Other Islamic preachers in the late 90s and early to mid-2000s such as the Salafi preacher, Sheikh Gumbi ,and even the firebrand Shiite cleric, El-ZakZaky, condemned al-Qaeda’s declaration of jihad against non-Muslims.
Pantami couldn’t even resist the give-away line of bigots, hate preachers, and nihilists of various stripes. He says his driver is a Christian. This would be hilarious if it wasn’t tragic. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of the “I have black friends” and “my nephew is black” lines of white supremacists.
Pantami is digging himself into a bigger hole. We know Buhari will not fire him. After all, the bleaching assaulter and Chairman of the CCT, Danladi Umar, of “Biafra boys” infamy still has his job. But that does not mean that Pantami should take Nigerians for fools.
A violent jihadi who once volunteered to lead a jihad in Yelwan Shendam, and who is a booster for global jihadists presides over our telecom databases and our sensitive national identity and biometric data.
Until he apologizes, and tells Nigerians unequivocally that he has abandoned those violent extremist positions, he remains toxic, dangerous, and disqualified from holding any public office, let alone the Ministerial one.
Opposition Party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has once again lashed the President Muhammadu Buhari Administration for lacking in foresight. And is clueless on what should be done to address the worsening State of the nation.
The PDP is also worried about the mounting loan the country is piling, and has called on President Buhari to address the nation on how he intends to pay back.
It also bemoaned the dispiriting and troubling situation of things in Nigeria, saying the Buhari is clueless on what to do to pull the country from collapse.
The PDP said that it expected a change of attitude from the Government when President Buhari returned from medical trip to UK. But, sadly, it noted, the country is retrogressing as nothing has changed.
Kola Ologbondiyan, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, in a statement, said the President should be reminded that he is leaving office in 2023.
The statement said Buhari is “disorganised, inefficient, and lethargic”, adding that there was nothing to look forward to in a government that has brought misery and agony to its people.
It also added that the country cannot continue with the “failed economy, hunger and starvation, banditry, killings, terrorism, kidnapping, abuse of human rights, treasury looting, mindless borrowing” under the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration.
It said: “The Peoples Democratic Party welcomes President Muhammadu Buhari from his medical tourism in the United Kingdom, but rejects his declaration that Nigerians should expect the ‘ continuity’ of his misrule.
“The PDP also asserts that the statement by the All Progressives Congress that President Buhari has been “re-energized” after his medical treatment, is a confirmation that Mr. President had been incapable and lethargic, leading to the inefficiency, disorganization and general misrule that has bedevilled his administration.
“While Nigerians are at a loss on the import of President Buhari’s declaration upon his return that what they should expect is “continuity”, our party wishes to remind Mr. President that he was elected for a last term of four years which will end on May 29, 2023.
“The PDP holds that whatever purpose his frame of mind on “continuity” was made to serve, it must not detach from the finality of his leaving office on May 29, 2023.
“This is especially as the comment by the APC had already confirmed that our nation has indeed been on auto-pilot leading to a shambolic state of affairs in the nation, escalation of violence and insecurity, wrecking of our national economy, policy inconsistency, entrenchment of corruption and impunity, with no hope in sight.
“While the PDP recognizes the humanity of all, our party advises that those at the helm of affairs must be honest enough not to take up assignments that are beyond their capacity.
“Now that Mr. President is “re-energized,” his handlers have no further excuses for his failure to lead from the front as he promised, in the fight against terrorists and insurgents, whose activities escalated under his watch.
“Our party, therefore, expects the “re-energized” President Buhari as the Commander-In-Chief to immediately proceed to Zamfara, Borno, Kaduna, Adamawa and other states where terrorists have practically taken over communities on account of the failures of his administration.”
This is a difficult column to write because although scores of people have importuned me to intervene in the controversy regarding Communication and Digital Economy Minister, Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami’s utterances before he came into government, my wife, who knows Pantami is my friend, pleaded with me to stay out of it.
But I would be a hypocrite and betray the meaning of my name (and also my late father who taught me the meaning of my name when I was too young to fully grasp it and who never failed to remind me to live up to it) if I side-step this consuming national controversy because it puts my friend in a bad light.
The truth is that it’s impossible to deploy the resources of logic, reason, basic decency, and even religious morality to defend some of the sermons Pantami gave in the early to late 2000s, especially in light of his current position as a Federal Minister in charge of a vast treasure trove of citizens’ sensitive information. I’ll come to this shortly.
But, first, how did the controversy about Pantami’s past preachments come to the forefront of national conversation?
A story appeared in a few Nigerian news sites on April 12 alleging that Pantami was a Boko Haram sympathizer and enabler who is now on the radar of America’s intelligence community.
The most prominent of the newspapers that gave wing to this story was James Ibori’s Daily Independent, which alleged that Pantami had “ties with Abu Quata¬da al Falasimi and other Al-Qaeda leaders that he revered and spoke glowingly of in several of his videos on YouTube” on the basis of which he is now “on the watch list of the [sic] America’s Intelligence Service.”
The backstory to this story is that it was planted by executives of telecommunications companies in Nigeria whose companies are hemorrhaging financially because of Pantami’s December 9, 2020 directive that halted the sale, activation, and registration of new SIM cards until an “audit of the Subscriber Registration Database” is completed.
I know this because, at least, two Editor friends confided in me that they had received the story of Pantami’s alleged links to terrorism and his surveillance by US intelligence authorities from people connected to Nigeria’s telecommunications industry, but that they declined to publish it because it was legally problematic.
I suspect that Pantami himself has identified the source of his troubles because on April 15, he ordered a conditional resumption of new SIM card sale, activation and registration from April 19 “as long as mandatory National Identification Number (NIN) verification is done and the guidelines of the Revised National Digital Identity Policy for SIM Card Registration are fully adhered to.”
Nonetheless, in spite of efforts by paid and unpaid media and social media “influencers” to defend him—and the retraction of the story that alleged his sympathies for domestic and international terrorists—the truth is that his rhetorical entanglements with extremist Salafist ideologies, which I wasn’t familiar with until fairly recently, justify the critical scrutiny he is receiving now.
Isa Pantami
In a series of reports, complete with audiographic accompaniments, the Peoples Gazette has unearthed sermons by Pantami that amounted to unvarnished homiletic endorsements of terrorism and intolerance of non-Muslims.
For instance, in response to a question about Osama bin Laden’s “killing of innocent unbelievers,” Pantami said although he conceded that Bin Laden was liable to err because he was human, “I still consider him as a better Muslim than myself” and pointed out that “We are all happy whenever unbelievers are being killed, but the Sharia does not allow us to kill them without a reason.” You can’t defend that.
People’s Gazette also unearthed an audiotape in which he engaged in a weepy defense of Boko Haram terrorists against extra-judicial killings and asked for an amnesty for them just like Niger Delta militants. “See what our fellow Muslim brothers’ blood has turned to? Even pig blood has more value than that of a fellow Muslim brother,” he said.
In the aftermath of the religious crisis in Shendam in Plateau State in 2004 in which Christian militiamen murdered scores of Hausa Muslims, Pantami was livid and tearful. In an audio of his preaching, he said the “Ahlus Sunna,” that is, people who are now called Salafists, should strike back and shun politicians and religious clerics who preached peace and restraint.
“This jihad is an obligation for every single believer, especially in Nigeria (hādhā jihād farḍ ‘ayn ‘ala kull muslim wa-khuṣūṣan fī Nījīriyā),” he said.
In his March 2019 paper titled “The ‘Popular Discourses of Salafi Counter-Radicalism in Nigeria’ Revisited: A Response to Abdullahi Lamido’s Review of Alexander Thurston, Boko Haram,” Professor Andrea Brigaglia of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, writes:
“Subsequently, Pantami offers himself as a volunteer to mobilise the Hisba police of the Muslim-majority states and to be appointed as the ‘commander’ (Hausa: kwamanda) of a militia ready to travel to Yelwa Shendam to join the fight in defence of the Muslims. The speech, which is about twenty minutes long, concludes with the prayer: ‘Oh God, give victory to the Taliban and to al-Qaeda’ (Allahumma ’nṣur Ṭālibān wa-tanẓīm al-Qā‘ida).”
There are many more indefensible rhetorical endorsements of extremism that can be found in Pantami’s past preaching. In my opinion, it is legitimate for non-Muslims to be concerned that someone with that sort of baggage is a Federal Minister —just like it would be valid for Muslims to be outraged if a Christian Minister has been shown to have espoused extremist views before they became Minister.
Yemi Osinbajo, for instance, has been accused of being an intolerant, narrow-minded Christian extremist who wallows in his Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) bubble, who employs only Yoruba people who belong to the RCCG, but while that is condemnable, no one has yet accused him of advocating views as extreme as Pantami’s when he was a Pastor.
Nevertheless, while I denounce Pantami’s past embrace of extremism in his public preaching, I want to point out that there is a vast disjunction between his rhetoric and his person.
People who know him outside the pulpit attest to his compassion, kindness, and peacefulness.
Although an April 15, 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable (exposed by WikiLeaks in 2011) about the religious crisis in Bauchi during that year said “Imam Fantami Isa, who preached at the mosque, had been previously thrown out of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University and of a Gombe mosque for preaching inflammatory rhetoric,” he is not known to have instigated any religious upheavals since then.
I also think he has evolved from the days of his fiery homiletic entanglements with stochastic terrorism. I can point to a few evidentiary proofs.
First, although he said in one audio that he wanted to push Nigeria to the point where there would be no iconography in our national currency and even political campaign posters, he now obviously loves photography.
Second, although previous sermons expressed contempt for working for the Government and even derided Islamic clerics who do, this is Pantami’s second political appointment. Before he was appointed minister, he was DG of NITDA.
Third, he earned a doctorate from the UK’s Robert Gordon University in 2014 and is now so enamored of the West that he even claims on his Twitter page and elsewhere that he was “trained” at “Oxford; Harvard; Cambridge; MIT/IMD” although he only attended a few weeks’ courses there after being in Government.
But the notion that these facts show evidence that he has changed is just my extrapolation. If he indeed has evolved, like I think he has, he should address a world press conference and say so. At the very least, he should give the context for his previous incendiary preachments.
No one can do this for him. Paying media houses to “fact-check” un-fact-checkable claims (such as whether he is on a watchlist), and to cleverly twist facts to deceive a gullible reading public— and social media “influencers” to muddy the discursive waters— won’t help him.
After all, in December 2020, Sheikh Aminu Daurawa who, like Pantami, countenanced Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the early to mid-2000s, released an audiotape renouncing his past. And he isn’t a government appointee.
As Desmond Ford reminds us, “A wise man changes his mind sometimes, but a fool never. To change your mind is the best evidence you have.
Farooq Kperogi, Ph.D, is a professor, journalist, newspaper Columnist
It is still a long walk ahead for majority of Nigerians waiting anxiously to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has announced that Nigeria had so far vaccinated only over a million eligible people out of its target of 70 percent of the nation’s population.
NPHCDA made this disclosure on its official Twitter handle, stressing that for the country to achieve immunity against COVID-19, it had to set an ambitious goal of vaccinating 40 per cent of its over 200 million population before the end of 2021, and 70 per cent by the end of 2022.
Nigeria kicked off vaccination on March 5, 2021, beginning with healthcare workers who are mostly at risk, being the first responders.
It noted that the vaccine roll-out would be in four phases, starting with health workers, frontline workers, COVID-19 rapid response team, laboratory network, Policemen, petrol station workers and strategic leaders.
“Phase 2 – Older adults aged 50 years and above. Those with co-morbidities aged 18 – 49 years of age.
“Phase 3 – Those in states/LGAs with high disease burden and who missed phases 1 and 2.
“Phase 4 – Other eligible population as vaccines become available,” it said.
The immunization agency said that as of April 15, 2021, just 1,051.096 shots had been administered in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), representing 52.2 percent of the eligible people to be vaccinated in the country.
The country took delivery of 3.94 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines through COVAX, a UN-backed effort that promises access to free vaccines for up to 20 per cent of participating countries’ population.
The delivery is part of an overall 16 million doses planned to be delivered to Nigeria in batches over the next months.
In addition, on March 21, 2021 the country received another 300,000 doses of the same vaccine from telecoms giant, MTN, whilst the Government of India also delivered 100,000 doses of Covishield COVID-19 vaccines to Nigeria on April 6.
The COVISHIELD, a brand of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, is used in over 71 countries, including the UK, Canada, India and Brazil.
With only about 4.4million doses of COVID-19 vaccines available in the country, Nigeria is still far from reaching its set target, according to health experts.
Due to limited vaccine availability, the Federal government has directed States to halt vaccination once they use half of the doses allocated to them because the country was not sure when the next batch of AstraZeneca vaccines would arrive the country.
“We believe that in a situation where, we still cannot specifically determine when the next batch of AstraZeneca vaccines will arrive, then wisdom only dictates that it is better for us to vaccinate people fully.
“And so that we can say that we have a pool of citizens that have been fully vaccinated, since this vaccination comes in two doses”, the NPHCDA explained.
In another development, the World Health Organization, WHO, has warned against the use of Remdesivir for Covid-19 Patients.
