By Majeed Dahiru

With its peoples deeply divided along ethno-geographic and religious fault lines, under a tense socio-political atmosphere arising from heightened insecurity, the situation in Nigeria today reads like a tragic plot from the Sudanese playbook. Like Nigeria, Sudan was a British colonial creation, in which the colonials lumped racially, ethnic and religiously diverse peoples together in a self-serving scheme of nation-building experimentation.

Nigeria, like Sudan, is almost evenly split into a predominantly Muslim North and a Christian South. Whilst both countries are rich in the oil mineral resource, most of it is located in their Christian Southern parts, but the power to decide who gets what, when and how from the accruing oil mineral revenues, have been domiciled in the Muslim Northern sections for most of the decades since independence from the British in 1956 for Sudan and 1960 for Nigeria.

Sadly, the British experiment of making a nation out of a vast Sudanese country, stretching over a land mass of 2,505, 800 square kilometres, with a mosaic of over 40,000,000 people, failed spectacularly in 2011, when the country splintered along its festering ethno-geographic and religious fault lines into the two countries of a predominantly Christian South Sudan, and Muslim Sudan (north). Whereas, the British succeeded in creating Sudan in 1956, the constituent peoples of the country failed to build a Sudanese nation fifty-five years after independence.

The failure of the original Sudanese state and its subsequent division into two ethno-geographic and religious entities was a long time coming after several years of the purveyance of Islamist separatism, northern regional exceptionalism and trans-border ethnic nationalism by the Arab Muslim power masters of Sudan.

These tendencies gave rise to a northern dominated central government of Sudan that was high on sectionalism, bigotry and irredentism, which resulted into the marginalisation and discrimination of other sections of the Sudanese country.

Separatist agitations and several decades of armed struggle for self-determination, including two civil wars between the South Sudan Liberation Movement, led by rebel leader, John Garang, and the Sudanese national army, were reactions to the historic injustices and systematic marginalisation of the mostly Christian Southern Sudanese people by successive northern Muslim dominated regimes in Khartoum.

The unfolding tragedy in today’s Nigeria is reminiscent of the final hours of the demise of the former Sudan under the leadership of Omar Hassan al-Bashir. In the manner of Sudan’s President al-Bashir, the man who led his country down the road of disintegration, Nigeria has a President Muhammadu Buhari. And, also like al-Bashir of Sudan, President Buhari is from the Muslim North of Nigeria, and he similarly rose to power through the support of the forces of Islamism, northern regional exceptionalism and trans-border ethnic nationalism. As was in al-Bashir’s Sudan, a defining feature of Buhari’s Nigeria is the elevation of the sectional interests of his Muslim North, over the collective interest of the plurality of Nigeria, to a state policy. Consequently, the policies, programmes, actions, inactions and official communications of the Buhari administration are characterised by ethnic chauvinism, nepotism, cronyism, bigotry and favouritism, all in advancement of the parochial interests of the Muslim north; a situation that has resulted in an unprecedented level of marginalisation of the oil rich Christian South of Nigeria. 

Again, in Sudan’s Hassan al-Turabi, an influential Islamist political hardliner, a one-time Minister of Justice and the man who has been variously described as the brain behind the rise to power of al-Bashir, Nigeria has a Dr Ibrahim Ali Pantami, Buhari’s Minister of Communications. Arguably one of the most influential Islamic clerics in the Muslim North of Nigeria in the present Fourth Republic, Ali Pantami, a prominent Salafi preacher of Islamist separatism and a purveyor of political Islam, played a significant role in mobilising political support for President Buhari in the Muslim North. As was the case with Sudan’s al-Bashir and al-Turabi, Ali Pantami is a close confidant and trusted adviser of President Buhari, whose influence over the decisions or otherwise of the government is believed to be far-reaching.

Most significantly, in place of Sudan’s Janjaweed militia men, Nigeria has the killer herdsmen. Mostly drawn from the nomadic Arab camel herding tribes of Sudan and neighbouring Chad, the Janjaweed militia men, who share the same race with al-Bashir, were backed by his government to carry out violent attacks of genocide proportions against the sedentary communities of Darfur, over natural grazing lands and farmlands. Similarly, killer herdsmen, who are mostly drawn from the nomadic Fulani cattle herding tribe of Nigeria and the rest of the Sahel, are currently waging a war against sedentary communities across Nigeria in a fierce battle over land resources. And like the Janjaweed militia and al-Bashir, President Buhari shares the same ethnic (Fulani) affiliation with the marauding killer herdsmen.

Whereas, unlike the government of al-Bashir, which actively backed his Arab Janjaweed militia tribesmen in their genocide in Sudan, there is no evidence yet that president Buhari’s government is backing killer Fulani herdsmen in their violent aggression against sedentary communities in Nigeria. However, the Buhari government is seen to be doing very little to contain and combat their violent activities, which have resulted in the loss of thousands of lives and the displacement of millions more. In fact, rather than declare killer Fulani herdsmen as terrorists and deal decisively with them, the Buhari administration is notorious for making excuses for their violent activities, which it always blames on the encroachment of traditional grazing routes and reserves by uncontrolled urbanisation.

In the thinking of the Buhari administration, the solution to the menace of killer Fulani herdsmen is not the enforcement of law and order and the scaling up of security measures to combat the so-described fourth most deadly terror group in the world, in the defence of lives and properties of Nigerians. Instead, the Buhari government is advocating on behalf of the killer Fulani herdsmen, for the creation of grazing reserves across sedentary communities in Nigeria as a panacea for peace and security. In this instance, like al-Bashir of Sudan chose his Arabic race over his Sudanese nationality, President Buhari has chosen his Fulani ethnicity over and above his Nigerian nationality. 

With heightened separatist agitations in the Southern half of Nigeria in reaction to President Buhari’s divisive rule, by which he is perceived as championing an agenda of Northern domination, Fulanisation and the Islamisation of Nigeria, it has become abundantly clear that a nation can survive a materially corrupt leadership but no nation can survive a leadership that is high on sectionalism. As Buhari appears to be driving Nigeria down the rough road to Sudan, he must pause to spare a thought for his beloved Muslim North.

After six years of being power, President Buhari has not solved any of the pre-existing problems of insecurity, illiteracy, disease, poverty and desertification of the Muslim North. Most importantly, President Buhari has not been able to wean the 19 states and 419 local government areas of the region from the oil mineral revenues of the Christian South through a purposeful economic diversification strategy.

Under his government, the Muslim north has been reduced to one of the most impoverished, backward and unsafe places to live on earth. President Buhari’s sectional tendencies, which has alienated the rest of Nigeria has only benefited a few of his family and friends. Currently bedevilled by a complex web of complicated security challenges, ranging from the Boko Haram insurgency in its Eastern flank and cross border banditry in the Western corner, the landlocked and oil poor Muslim North will start it’s on journey to Somalia if Nigeria is allowed to get to destination Sudan. Like al-Bashir was in Sudan, will Buhari be the last President of a united Nigeria? History has a way of repeating itself, but the problem remains that mankind ever hardly learns from it, by avoiding actions that result in consequential and unfortunate reactions.

Majeed Dahiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja, Nigeria. He can be reached through dahirumajeed@gmail.com

By Zubaida Baba Ibrahim

Despite being Africa’s highest producer of rice, Nigeria spent an average of $4.2 billion on the importation of the commodity in 2018. This statistic, in relation to the size of the foreign exchange revenue of the country that it was taking, formed the basis for which rice importation was banned subsequently.

The ban on importation was also motivated by the quest for the revival of the nation’s economy, which is mainly agrarian. However, the laudable strategy did not stop the smuggling of foreign rice into the country by wayward local and foreign merchants, especially from the neighbouring countries of Niger, Cameroon and Benin Republic, which are not producers of rice but exporters of the commodity.

The smuggling of rice into Nigeria has impeded the positive strides being made by both the private sector and the various government investments in the rice sub-sector, to increase local production capacity.

Bearing the brunt of this misdeed has been the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS). Each time the menace arises, the NCS is presumed to have acted in cahoots with lawbreaking individuals, to bring in the prohibited commodity without any scrutiny.

However, on Tuesday May 4, the Senate Committee On Ethics, Privileges and Public Petition ordered the NCS to return the foreign rice it had confiscated from the shops of traders in Ibadan, alleging that the officers who carried out the raid, had erred by descending on the market.

This directive led the Rice Processors Association Nigeria (RIPAN), represented by its Director-General, Andy Ekwelem, to call upon the Senate at a press conference to revisit their resolution on the matter.

“Indeed, we are shocked at the fact that now that the Nigeria Customs Service has decided to do its duties creditably well and wield the big stick against rice smugglers, they are being antagonised and reprimanded by no other organ of government than the Nigerian Senate”, Ekwelem said.

Although it seems like the Senate has no concern for the plight of local rice farmers, rice processors, and the Nigerian economy at large, there are few factors that could give grounds to their order.

One of them is the supply deficit of rice across the country. Rice, as we know, is a staple food in Nigeria, which is consumed across all the geopolitical zones of the country and the socio-economic classes. Yet, KPMG Nigeria has revealed that only about 57 per cent of the 6.7 million metric tons of rice consumed by Nigerians yearly is locally produced. If the population totally depends on the domestic supply of rice, the country could be vulnerable to chronic food shortages, which will skyrocket the price of the commodity way beyond affordability.

Meanwhile, during the press briefing by RIPAN, some journalists pointed out that foreign rice is cheaper in the markets, in comparison to the locally-produced ones.

While imported rice sells within the range of N21,000 to N23,000 per 50kg bag, the domestically produced ones sell within the range of N28,000 to N30,000 for the same quantity, despite being home-grown. They also observed that rice produced in Nigeria is of a much lower quality.

In its response, the RIPAN spokesperson pointed out that some of the challenges in the sector were due to the fact that the processing of rice, from the harvested paddy to tabe-ready edible rice, entails parboiling the raw rice, drying and milling it before it is then destoned, which is an important and distinct feature of its production. The equipment for carrying out this latter stage of the processing cannot be afforded by the small-scale processors, who make up 80 per cent of the local rice producers.

On the raiding of the traders’ shops, the members of the Senate committee argued that the NCS breached the Customs and Excise Managements Act (CEMA), which empowers the agency to only impound smuggled goods within a 40-kilometre radius to the country’s borders.

However, their argument appears as not tenable because the same Act, under section 147(1), states that when there are reasonable grounds to suspect that anything liable to forfeiture under the Customs and Excise laws is in existence, any officer, without prejudice, can, without a warrant, enter a building or any place at any time, and search, seize, detain, remove any such thing.

The interference of the Senate committee in the operations of the Nigerian Customs Service, in response to a moral dilemma, is in every respect ill-judged.

Primarily, it compels one to believe that the Committee is just giving backing to smugglers and economic saboteurs at the expense of the efforts of Customs officers.

Likewise, it also disregards the hard work of the multitude of large-scale farmers, rice processors, and individuals, who are investing in paddy aggregation and agro-input dealerships for the betterment of domestically produced rice.

And if this persists, it can lead to the crash of the entire rice processing and milling sub-sector that employs between thirteen to fifteen million Nigerians, which will lead to the loss of jobs in a country where the labour market is not favourable.

The progress of the local rice production industry in Nigeria is inhibited by several factors like high transportation costs, low mechanisation of rice farms, and the scarcity of labor due to alternative and more remunerative off-farm employment opportunities.

Similarly, other factors include rural-urban migration, high cost of land preparation, and the broad use of genetically inferior varieties that exhibit low productivity.

For this reason, the Federal Government has expended millions to grow local capacity in the rice sub-sector. Nigeria’s Agricultural Credit Scheme (ACSS), Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme, and many other initiatives are the government’s efforts to fund Nigerians who want to grow their own paddies to ensure food security, the conservation of foreign exchange and the diversification of the national economy.

It would be a priority misplacement to embolden miscreants and destroy the collective zeal in the pursuit of guaranteeing Nigeria’s upgrade from a food importing country to a food-producing nation for the benefit of the economy.

Zubaida Baba Ibrahim writes from Abuja, Nigeria. She can be reached via Zubaida71@live.com  

By Yushau A. Shuaib

“Mallam Yushau, can you see me at Niger Barrack today?” – General Attahiru

I received the above message on my phone on Sallah Day, Thursday May 13, from the late General Ibrahim Attahiru, the former Nigerian Chief of Army Staff (COAS), just a week before his death, alongside other military officers in a plane crash in Kaduna.

The nation was thrown into mourning over his death, even as his immediate predecessor and ambassador-designate, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai (rtd), noted that Attahiru was on the verge of making the nation proud in the national counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism efforts when the tragedy occurred.

Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State also admitted that the late COAS was evidently committed to the fight against Boko Haram and determined to contribute significantly to ending the insurgency.

Similarly, President Muhammadu Buhari praised Attahiru for his gallantry in the war against insurgency and described him as a military chief who led from the front. Equally, former President Goodluck Jonathan commended, highly, the late Army Chief and other officers who we lost in the course of service to the country as patriots who died with their boots on.

On that Sallah Day when I received his invitation, I reached out to the Army spokesperson, Brigadier-General Mohammed Yerima and we both drove to General Attahiru’s residence. There, we were received by his then ADC, the now late Major Lawal Hayat, who ushered us into the lobby, since the COAS was then with the Chief of Intelligence, now late Brigadier-General Abdulrahman Kuliya, and his Chief of Staff, also now late Brig-Gen Mohammed Abdulkadir.

While waiting in the lobby, I recalled my first encounter with Attahiru about eight years ago, precisely on November 29, 2013, when the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) had hosted security spokespersons and top editors of media houses to an interactive forum intended to create and sustain a working relationship between the media and the security sector, towards promoting the national interest.

Attahiru was then the Army spokesperson and Director of Army Public Relations. It was the outcome of that meeting that gave birth to the Forum of Spokespersons of Security and Response Agencies (FOSSRA). During the meeting, he was articulate and demonstrated eloquence, as he emphasised the desirability of information-driven by the media, intelligence gathering inspired by communities, and counterterrorism championed by the military and other security services.

It was after that encounter that we sustained a brotherly relationship and I gradually came into a greater awareness of Attahiru, not only as a very keen professional who understood his brief at each point and always delivered on this to the best of his ability, but equally as a highly humane person with a strong sense of empathy, support and solidarity.

As fate would have it, he had recorded successes in the various offices he held, even if these were just brief stints. He accomplished assigned tasks when he was a Military Commander in the Bakassi Peninsula and the Niger Delta region before becoming General Officer Commanding, 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, Enugu.

While he was Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole in North-Eastern Nigeria for just six months in 2018, he brought relative stability to the region, with the elimination of several Boko Haram commanders and the surrender of their combatants.

Similarly, his outstanding records were glaring when he was Deputy Chief of Policy and Plans at the Army Headquarters, and later as the Chief of Defence Transformation and Innovation, and the Chief of Defence Logistics at the Defence Headquarters, Abuja.

Apart from acquiring higher levels of education at institutions in Salford, Bournemouth, Nairobi, China and Geneva, Attahiru had served as an Instructor at the Depot Nigerian Army, Nigerian Defence Academy and the Nigerian Army School of Infantry. He later became Chief Instructor at the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, Nigeria.

On his appointment as Chief of Army Staff, the late military tactician exhibited a very national outlook in the deployment of officers, with his approach also anchored on the principles of seniority, professionalism, and competence.

For strategic reasons, he had deployed heroic field commanders of Southern origin for operations in the North of Nigeria, and similarly, gallant officers from the North were assigned to operations in the South. It was, therefore, not surprising when he retained some of his course mates in the service and assigned one of the most senior Army officers, General Ben Ahonatu from Anambra State as the Chief of Policy and Plan (COPP) at the Army Headquarters.

Apart from his nationalistic deployment of officers, he undertook several risky missions to the theatres of operation nationwide to motivate the troops and give assurance to host communities.

He occasionally gave deadlines for military operations. For instance, on February 22, while on the frontline in Dikwa, he ordered the troops of the then Operation Lafiya Dole, under the command of General Faruq Yahaya, to clear and recover “Marte, Chikungu, Wulgo, Kirenowa and Kita in Borno State from terrorists within 48 hours.” The nation was delighted when the military met the deadline by eliminating scores of terrorists and rescuing many victims. He had also been very resolute and passionate on the indivisibility of Nigeria that he was determined to tackle secessionist agitators frontally.

While it would be inappropriate to delve into the nitty-gritty of intelligence work, the late COAS’s deployment of Brigadier General Kuliya as the spy chief was widely celebrated in the security services as that decision played significant roles in disorganising terrorist camps through strategic infiltration.

Following the penetration Kuliya had engineered, violent confrontations broke out among fighters of the Boko Haram and ISWAP groups, leading to the reported death of the erstwhile Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, among others.

As I ruminated over Attahiru’s accomplishments within a short period in office, Major Hayat walked into the lobby with the information that the Army Chief was ready to receive us. We then ran into and exchanged greetings and banters with Brigadiers-General Kuliya and Abdulkadir, who were on their way out of the residence.

On meeting him, General Attahiru had asked after the preparations we were making for the then forthcoming training of Army Public Relations Officers (PROs), which was scheduled for the following week, from May 19 to 22. I informed him that everything was going well, according to the coordination plan of the Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC) and the Department of Army Public Relations (DAPR).

Attahiru believed that a mutual relationship between military spokespersons and the media would go a long way in achieving positive results in counter-insurgency campaigns. He always advised security spokespersons to enhance their conflict-sensitive communications skills, in order to build mutual trust with the civil populace.

General Attahiru had assured us that he would be present at the Opening Ceremony of the workshop before we left him that day as he prepared to travel to the frontline to celebrate the Sallah Festivity with the troops the following day.

On the first day of the workshop, he could not make it because he was attending a Conference of General Officers Commanding (GOCs) in Ibadan, Oyo State. On the second day, he could neither make it to the training because he had to attend an Air Force programme with the Minister of Defence, in Makurdi, Benue State. Still, on the third day and closing ceremony of the PR workshop, unfortunately General Attahiru could also not make it to the event as he attended to important security engagements, while yet preparing for another official trip on the same day. After his afternoon prayers, he was flown out of Abuja to Kaduna for the newer official assignment, and the plane crashed just before their arrival at the destination.

Yushau A. Shuaib is the author of “An Encounter with the Spymaster”; www.YAShuaib.com

By Obiaruko Ndukwe

The discordant tunes in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, that once held sway for 16 years in the reins of power in Nigeria has taken a new turn as a major plan was hatched over a year now by the Governors elected under the party in the old Eastern region.

The decision to swell up the ranks of the ruling All Peoples Congress, APC, by these Governors who have actually held tight the party’s stronghold in the South East and South South States is part of a planned coup to ouster the owners of APC in a bid to grab power again in 2023.

It is obvious that since most of these Governors who are the major financiers of the PDP are rounding up their second term in office may not be able to weather the coming storms prior the next election and the only platform that can offer them an easier chance is the existing one – APC, particularly when the party has managed to remain one in spite of their own internal battle for control. It is like the case of a party united in diversities while that of the PDP has worsened under the Uche Secondus leadership. Theirs is best described by Chinua Achebe’s popular lines, “Things fall apart, the center can no longer hold”.

I was privileged to be in a discussion eight months ago with a high profile Nigerian who revealed how one of the powerful leaders in the South South had called him to inform him of their decision to move en masse into the APC, as that is the only way to guarantee their protection when they must have finished serving out their terms as Governors and the immunity garment removed from them. This Governor was said to have expressed fears that if they failed to join the APC, they could be jailed after office, if a particular leader in APC eventually emerged as President, succeeding Buhari. Although I reminded my host that there are still yet those who moved to APC and are yet facing prosecution in Courts. That, anyway is not a guarantee!

Yes, it’s a strategic plan to hijack the party but it is not without the consent of some interests in the APC leadership who are building a new structure outside the existing ones tilted along the lines of Bola Ahmed Tinubu on one side and Chibuike Amaechi on the other side. The third force which is the emerging group led by the Acting National Chairman of the party, Gov Buni of Yobe state is busy wooing these Governors over as they in turn will help him strengthen his alleged ambition to emerge as the running mate to whoever becomes the Party’s flag bearer from the South. This was part of the reason this group visited President Goodluck Jonathan in order to woo him into the APC and drag him into the Presidential race. The idea to get a Southerner who will govern for only one term and power returns to the North, and Jonathan fits into this agenda having completed a constitutional first term of 4 years as elected President. While this seems sound logic but it is more of a selfish plot to deny the South and particularly, the Eastern Nigeria with reference to the Igbo tribe.

But gradually, the Buni group seem winning the fight as they are daily increasing the numbers in their fold. The Governors have a huge financial war chest as well as strong followership in their States who are always willing to shift grounds even where principles and morality are compromised.

What many do not know is that the defection of these Governors will bring an implosion in the political arena as many leaders in the APC will be upstaged, especially in the PDP controlled States. A little but cursory observation in some of the states reveals this truth here.

In Ebonyi State, the leader of APC, Senator Sam Egwu was scarcely involved in the defection program of Gov Umahi into APC. Same with Cross River State, where former Governor Clement Ebri was neither informed nor invited when Governor Ayade made his way into the APC. Next is Akwa Ibom State, where Senator Godswill holds sway, albeit it fractionally notwithstanding that by the APC Constitution, he ought to be the leader of the party as the highest political office holder and former Governor. The sudden turnaround of Governor Udom is regarded as a kite flown by the former protégé of Akpabio as he finally makes his alliance with APC public. Udom, like Wike, has enjoyed the support of a faction of the APC leadership at the Centre. It is not clear yet if the Governor has reached out to Akpabio, although he may be enjoying the support of the Buni group in Akwa Ibom led by Senator Akpan Udoedehe who happens to be the Acting National Secretary of APC. Which way ever the pendulum swings, Akpabio may survive the planned onslaught since he was solely responsible for the emergence of Udom as Governor. Besides, the former Governor is not a stranger to political fights having survived the last one between his Ministry, Niger Delta Affairs Nddc and the National Assembly.

The next is Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State, my state of origin. He is coming after Udom in the coming weeks and it is not unlikely that Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, a major member of the third force under Buni. But Orji is not the only one building the party in Abia. The likes of Ikechi Emenike and Uche Ogar remain territorial forces that cannot be dismissed around Abia North and Central. Ikpeazu will break the hold of PDP in Abia South which has been a major decider and Flashpoint of elections in Abia. It is not clear if former Governor TA Orji, Ikpeazu’s benefactor, would be joining the APC as he had earlier revealed he was quitting politics after his tenure in the Senate. But his son, the heir of his political structure is still in PDP and may likely remain if the coast is not clear for his alleged Governorship ambition or at most, to step into the shoes of his father in the Senate.

In all of these, the most intriguing defection would be that of the River Governor, Nyesom Wike who has been having a bad time controlling the structure of PDP since the coming of Atiku Abubakar into their fold close to the 2019 elections.

Wike though an fiery and ardent critic of the APC Federal Government is one of the highest beneficiaries of support from a group in the APC. Wike’s soured relationship with his predecessor and former boss, Chibuike Amaechi, has been his greatest tool in winning over the anti Amaechi forces within the APC. He was the hatchet man employed by Jonathan and his wife when the need to break Amaechi’s strong hold on the PDP when he was Governor of Rivers State.

If again the forces in APC want to scuttle Amaechi’s perceived presidential ambition, Wike may again come in handy coupled with the fact that Rivers APC which Amaechi controls has had it’s fair share of woes. The party was carefully and systematically excluded from the ballot in the 2019 elections and it is fighting to recover from what is largely considered an internal sabotage.

The question becomes, if Wike joins the APC, considering his irreconcilable differences with other PDP strongmen, will Amaechi be involved or ignored?

These and many more are the issues that may lead the APC into implosion as the older veterans battle the new ‘intakes.’

Obiaruko Christie Ndukwe, a publisher and columnist based in Port Harcourt, Nigeria