All metaphors of the dame

The call in the land is, let us pray,
          For we all are prey,
Caught in the way of predators of yesterday,
          Dinosaurs be they that roam our lanes today.

Present thyself, dame of infamy,
          To wit, a game of villainy,
Stashed away in the servant’s coffer,
          You reach now, the loot to recover.

Will they have known their name was rich,
          Never a day again for them to twitch,
Abused they were to conceal a crime,
          Yet to them, not a dime.

Promoted you were beyond your competence,
          Not once strung together a good sentence,
Married to him who rose without rectitude,
          Much educated beyond his aptitude.

The sheriff sued the serf for possible theft,
          Then you entered the stage from the left,
With an embarrassment of legal pandas you came,
          Black from white you all knew no shame.

The loot is mine you cried,
          As we asked what could you have tried?
No job you ever did altogether could have paid,
          What is now to be reclaimed.

Then you opened up a treasure trail,
          A bank account tells a money tale,
For how your term as first greed,
          Is not the last of help you’ll need.

Yet, you will walk away scot free,
          Not to say how the filthy lucre tree,
Watered your purse with riches real,
          For that is how we deal.

We have implicitly enshrined,
          In the law of the land most refined,
Every means to allow the perfidy,
          Of immunity for gross impunity.

Nigeria: Roll Back These First Lady Red Carpets

A Brief History of First Ladies

The concept of First Lady and the aura of officialdom that it carries was invented in the United States of America where the spouse of the sitting President or a lady relative in the case of an unmarried or widowed President served as the hostess of the White House.

Whilst there is no constitutional provision for the First Lady, there are elements of protocol and dignities conferred on her by reason of the position her husband holds.

Lisa M. Burns in her book First Ladies and the Fourth Estate: Press Framing of Presidential Wives (2008) suggests the following themes in First Ladyship in the United States of America as public woman (1900–1929); as political celebrity (1932–1961); as political activist (1964–1977); and as political interloper (1980–2001).

A Vulgarity of First Ladies

The same idea seems to have taken hold around the world with cliques of regional First Ladies gathering for all sorts of projects spanning one, some or all of those themes and more.

Nowhere has this role become even more prominent to include another theme of political aggrandisement and abuse than in Nigeria.

Sadly, the more recent First Ladies in Nigeria have left the graces and comportment one would have expected of them to become vain as exemplified sadly in the death by misadventure of Mrs Stella Obasanjo after a botched cosmetic surgery procedure, greed as depicted in the Wikileaks exposés of Mrs Turai Yar’Adua and Mrs or rather Dame Patience Jonathan appears to combine vanity, greed and a lack of moderation that leaves one astounded beyond words.

A Truth Commission Bites

Whilst it is difficult not to catch a whiff of vendetta against the previous governor of Ogun State, the establishment of the Ogun State Truth Commission under the chairmanship of Hon. Justice Pius O. Aderemi JSC (Rtd.) has brought some focus that should hopefully start the discourse about the role of First Ladies in Nigeria, having recommended the prosecution of the wife of the erstwhile governor of Ogun State.

Justice Pius Aderemi as a former justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria I will presume is of the legal mind to properly assess these roles and even offer recommendations on how these roles should be undertaken.

Take Notice

A number of key statements in his recommendations are important to note and develop.

“The proven excesses of Mrs. Olufunke Daniel arose from the widespread abuse of spouses of Governors and Presidents when there is no legal basis for the office of First Lady in Nigeria. The State and Federal Governments should evolve an administrative mechanism that ensures that wives of Governors and Presidents carry out what they perceive to be their duties unobtrusively.”

“It is the view of the Commission that the victim established a prima facie case of criminal offence against Mrs. Olufunke Daniel,” Justice Aderemi said. “Mrs. Olufunke Daniel undoubtedly held herself out as a Public Officer by moving to the Petitioner’s house with armed police escorts and ordering the policemen to beat Mr. Odunaya.”

These two paragraphs are without doubt very lucid in the arguments that form the basis for putting the so-called First Ladies of any sitting official or even First Gentlemen, First Spouses or First Partners in their places.

The inference drawn here is that certain wives of Governors and Presidents have been given to both excess and abuse while answerable to no one, even though the immunity from prosecution their spouses have does not apply to them.

As We Stand

However the key points I want to make from these two paragraphs are the following.

• There is no legal basis for the office of any First Lady in Nigeria.
• An administrative mechanism that ensures that wives of Governors and Presidents carry out what they perceive to be their duties unobtrusively is need, more like a Code of Conduct and Ethics.
• The wife of a Governor or President can be criminally liable and is not above the law if anyone might need to seek redress for their actions.
• The wife of a Governor or President is not a Public Office, whilst they might have protective detail by reason of their status they do not have authority to use such detail to exact the law or forment activities that should be delegated and commanded by law enforcement officers.
• Now for reasons of protocol, the First Lady with her spouse present should be accorded the status, respect and dignities commensurate with her spouse when accompanying him.

Diplomacy and Courtesies

There is however nothing in the Order of Precedence Act that identifies a Nigerian First Lady of any description in her own right, no wives of any public officials are accorded any relevance in the absence of their husbands.

The fact that the wife of a Public Official is NOT a Public Official just by reason of marriage means they are not covered by the Order of Precedence.

Husbands may however confer rights of representation to non-official functions on their wives to stand in their stead and officiate thereby but not in the substantive office of their spouses.

Any dignities, graces, courtesies and respect accorded the wife of a public official is by reason of the respect given to her husband, that respect does not automatically endow a right or status of superiority on the wife when her husband is absent.

Proscribe this anomaly

However, crude this may sound, the excesses and abuses of First Ladies in Nigeria now requires we roll back the red carpets, dispense with the nauseating obsequiousness and tone down on the unnecessary genuflection and fawning.

They should return to being hostesses of the Presidential villas and Governor’s houses to be sometimes invited to cut the tape at garden bazaars. The entourages and corteges of the sycophantic apparatchiks clogging up our streets to the inconvenience of the many should stop forthwith.

In fact, we should only see or hear of the those First ladies when their husbands are out and about, this whole charade has become nuisance that even the utterly uncultured can no more abide.

Away with the Marie Antoinettes of our age.

References

Flash: Truth Commission Recommends Gbenga Daniel’s Wife, Monarch, Others For Trial « News Bytes

Nigeria: The First Lady Syndrome | AllAfrica

Order of Precedence of Public Officers in Nigeria [PDF Download]

Nigeria: Presidency seeks the nth opinion

The captain needs crew

Steering the ship of state called Nigeria can be an arduous task and one should not begrudge a president the availability of human resources and more to concentrate on that job so as to perform to the best of his ability and hopefully for the best of Nigerians the dispatch of this responsibility.

The reference article from AllAfrica.com might soon be archived and hence, I take the liberty to quote extensively from it for record purposes in this blog to ensure that the context is maintained.

allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Jonathan Appoints Danjuma, Anyaoku Into Policy Committee

Soon after President Goodluck Jonathan took office as Acting President, he appointed a Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) [1] which was formed to “provide alternative inputs into policy formation; promote good governance in the areas of power, economy, security, infrastructure, social sector, the electoral process and the fight against corruption … It will evaluate policy implementation and advise Jonathan on areas requiring adjustments.”

“The council will also advise the Acting President on how to maximize the benefits derivable from government's efforts; advise on such actions and programmes that may improve credibility and performance of the government; and advise on any other matter referred to it.”

The PAC packed with expertise

The council was headed by Lt. General Theophilus Danjuma (Rtd.) and constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze as deputy with the other members being a “former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Alfa Belgore, former Secretary-General of Commonwealth Emeka Anyaoku, former Inspector-General of Police M.D. Yusuf, former Minister of Science and Productivity Bartholomew Nnaji, pioneer Managing Director (MD) of Guaranty Trust Bank Fola Adeola {recently selected as a Presidential Running mate of a rival aspirant}, Mallam Abubakar Gimba, ex-Shell MD Basil Omiyi and Ambassador G. B. Preware.”

“Others include Chairman, National Economic Summit Group Sam Ohuabunwa, ex-MD of FSB International Bank, Mallam Muhammed Hayatuddeen, former Deputy Speaker Chibudom Nwuche, former Justice Minister and Attorney-General of the Federation Kanu Agabi and President of Africa Business Roundtable and former Minister of Industry Bamanga Tukur, former Mtel Chairman Hajiya Halita Aliyu, Chairman, Allied Energy Kase Lawal, Alhaji Ismaila Isa, Alhaji Magaji Danbatta, Prof. B. G. Bajoga, Dr. (Mrs) Sally Bolujoko and Mrs. Mariam Uwais are also members of the committee.”

The Nigerians called to service to advice the president on this council could not be faulted for their wealth of experience in governance, law, business, academia and international relations; they represented a broad cross-section of advice made available to a neophyte President who could do with all the guidance he could get.

The PAC belittled

The PAC recently produced a report that criticised the size of government and the need to trim down ministries and presidential aides to which an unnamed source within the presidency has responded saying, “that the Danjuma group is made up of people who do not understand the workings of government.”

The source further stressing that, “Danjuma and his people have become infamous because of the report. To them, the group does not understand issues like national character or the constitutional provision for the engagement of assistants.”

Having now been in office for over a year, it would be sad to conclude that power is already having a corrupting influence on this accidental president such that hubris is clouding his judgement that he feels that the PAC have no idea of what they are talking about.

The constituents of the PAC seem to be people of greatly independent means and they could easily have been gainfully employed in other activities than to have their counsel belittled because they have refused to play sycophant or genuflect to the Presidency by rubberstamping all actions especially where it appears the National Assembly has abdicated their responsibilities for oversight and moderation of the powers of the executive arm of government.

The Court of Goodluck the First

No limit has been placed on the number of advisers the Presidency can employ but that does not mean that there should be a race to break records for the numbers that can be engaged to prop up the office and offer it a mystique of distance and unapproachability due to courtiers exuding self-importance that comes with closeness to power.

The Presidency now has 133 aides [2] in hierarchies of duplicated functions with that atrocious setup that allows the First Lady to have two protocol officers and the aristocratic luxury of ladies-in-waiting; who being a Dame of dubious provenance has become Nigeria’s equivalent of Marie Antoinette.

Too many advisors hamper decisiveness

It is utterly absurd that there are six physicians to cater for the health of the President, his wife and the vice-President, all of them in their different cadres of seniority might introduce a confusion of diagnosis where normally people might be satisfied with a second opinion; the possibility of an nth opinion in critical matters might stifle decisiveness, thoroughness and agreement leading to complications and poor treatment of assessed situations.

Insult is added to injury with a Senegalese and Malian tailor on hand to make the President’s clothes and other personal assistance with grandiose titles that include special assistants on presidential household matters, domestic affairs, domestic matters, household administration, social events and household matters.

Why matters should differ from affairs escapes me but there must be some reason behind the madness and the semantics that create the differentiation between the roles that allows for the abuse of office that engenders a Presidency that has suddenly come into power and is at risk of intoxication redolent of absolute monarchies of old.

Not needed better heeded

The First Lady does not need her coterie of genuflectors just as the President cannot suggest that the presence of these acquiescent followers at best and entourage of fawning backscratching groupies at worst makes him more effective at being the best President Nigeria ever had.

Their presence risks distracting from the business of government as the elixir of megalomania is fed the President appealing to his vanity through adulation, toadying and mastery of grovelling for attention and self-promotion and selfish interest.

The President might well heed the good advice of the PAC, they have nothing to gain or lose from giving him good counsel; so rather than castigate the PAC, the truth is some excess load needs to be shed allowing for refinement and quality before the making of the Court of Goodluck the First becomes the finest parody out of Nollywood.

Sources

[1] allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Jonathan Appoints Danjuma, Anyaoku Into Policy Committee

[2] 234Next.com | President Jonathan's 133 aides

They damned the consequences

19

I am still numb with disbelieve that Benazir Bhutto has been committed to earth, time and again, I have hoped for a playback to just before the 27^th of December where that scene could be reprised with a different act and outcome.

19, an age where most in the West are still tied to their mother’s apron strings whilst pretending to be grown-up. There is no doubt that people grow up faster in other parts of the world.

They take on responsibility beyond their years and stoically approach life with a resolve that leaves people in their 30s here, in shame. As recorded by Paul Hardcastle in his hit 19, the average documented average age of a US serviceman in Vietnam was 19.

Bilawal (One without equal) Bhutto Zardari, at 19 takes on the mantle of leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party from his murdered mother, 6 years too early to run for parliament and having hardly started at the Oxford University – the responsibilities that dynasties thrust on their younger members can be burdens too great for mere mortals to bear. I wish him well.

Feudal Politics

Asian politics suffers the feudal encumbrance of political dynasties where merit suffers at the expense of nepotistic succession because the name and the mystique of the cult of personality of Bhutto (Pakistan), Gandhi (India), Aquino (Phillipines), Bandranaike (Sri Lanka) carries more gravitas in their localities.

It takes populism and pandering to baser instincts for others to gain control of the political levers of government, sometimes through extreme violence – the fastest way to gain control however, is through a military putsch on the premise that the leaders deposed have been corrupt.

What worries me about Pakistan is the way the perpetrators of this heinous act of violence have damned the consequences of their actions not caring to the life of others, the stability of the country or the opportunity for people to chose their own leaders.

If Al Qaeda is denying they had any involvement in the murder of Benazir Bhutto, the man in sunglasses looks smart enough to be part of the unruly Pakistan intelligence services that Musharraf has presided over with cack-handed incompetence. They really did damn the consequences and their denials are sounding too shrill to listen to anymore.

Living with Corruption

I did hope that Kenya being one of the most tribally diverse countries in Africa would produce an electoral victory for Africa where the votes tallied would match the votes cast.

Naively, after watching Living with Corruption and the spotlight on Kenya, I should have known better. Up to 4 of the electoral officers have announced that there were serious irregularities in the tallying that gave President Mwai Kibaki a second-term in office.

This is a man who was first made a minister in Jomo Kenyatta’s government in the year I was born – 1965 – I am still amazed that there are too many grand-old men who cannot make way for the youth to lead their countries to more promising prospects than the entrenched patriarchy that keeps the poor poorer and allows corruption to grow without abatement.

The First Jezebel of Kenya

I had hoped I would be writing about the electorate slapping down of that dreadful First Jezebel of Kenya – Lucy Kibaki, the President's wife – with a much deserved rejection. She has become a law unto herself and literally out of the bounds of legal restraint and due process.

Going around assaulting people because she is the wife of the president, one of the most ignominious examples of first-lady excess as exemplified in the death by misadventure of Stella Obasanjo who died due to cosmetic surgery complications in Spain or that of Grace Mugabe – the First Shopper of Zimbabwe whilst people starve in what was once the bread-basket of Southern Africa.

These women in steeped in the spirit of Imelda Marcos and Eva Braun do all to make the good work of other first ladies like Graça Machel who has been first lady of both Mozambique and South Africa or other demure but positively activist ones like the first ladies of the United States of America.

Shameless complicity of the West

However, I cannot believe the stance of the West at the rotten results of the Kenyan elections where indeed the violence must stop but the talk of reconciliation which implies accepting the results rather than going to the right result of the votes is unfortunate.

We need to fulfil the demands of democracy first before we devolve to the machinations of diplomacy and not the other way round – we are being sold short again.

When would Africans be allowed to get the government they have really voted for?

When would we be able to say with all confidence that our votes have been tallied and the numbers announced are clearly representative of what happened in the privacy of the ballot box cubicle?

It is saddening that people are protesting to have their votes counted properly and they are being shot down, killed and burnt severally by the police, the army or intra-ethnic violence for seeking what is fundamentally a human right in the West but almost certainly a death sentence in Africa.

Too many times, we have failed to deliver the truth of a basic democratic process, especially when we have to contend with an incumbency-beholden electoral commission so typical of the one in Nigeria.

And like the Nigerian one , they damned the consequences of their actions. Somehow, we still have a plague in Africa of leaders who care nothing for the legitimacy of their standing as long as they can wield power and suppress dissent – we are sentenced to being ruled rather than being lead or governed by men of honour, dignity, who are honest and who command real respect.

In Pakistan and in Kenya some people just damned the consequences and blood flows unabated for what could have been better managed if these people ever knew what was right to do. We need to have ways of seeking and getting just for these actions.

Changing pictures of news

More analysis than fact

Developments from yesterday’s news stories about Nigeria have been myriad. When the last dispatch came through, the crash site was in another location with the possibility of over half of the passengers being survivors.

By which time, credit was being paid to the kind of pilot skill that allows for there to be survivors from a plane crash.

At the same time, on hearing the news of the death of the president’s wife in Spain from the complications of an undisclosed surgery, speculation became rife about why it was in Spain and for what ‘ailment’ in particular.

Crashing close seeking further

Looking at the facts of both events, if the plane was lost from radar 3 minutes after take-off and the Boeing 737 has a cruising speed that ranges from an economical 796km/h to a maximum cruising speed of 943km/h then the plane would have been between 39 to 47km away from Lagos as the crow flies, putting it some 100 km or more South of the initially suggested crash site.

Where the idea of survivors came from one cannot tell, but it appears that it was hope against adversity to help fill the gap between actual event and getting the real facts – a rather cynical ploy of rumour mongering for nobody’s benefit than the responsible agencies that should have shown more competence.

Now, it appears the plane crashed at speed creating a deep crater and leaving no survivors. We await evidence from the flight recorders if they are ever found to reveal the truth of those circumstances.

Heart Surgery is not a Marbellan speciality

On the case of the death of the “First Lady”, the puzzle with all deference to Spanish medicine and their health care system is why any rich Nigerian would go for surgery in the coastal resort of Marbella.

Germany, the United States or the United Kingdom seem to be the usual choices.

A simple search on Google with the words Marbella and Surgery can be rather revealing. If the death certificate reads, “Death by misadventure”, well, many things do carry the risk of death.

The speculation however gathers around augmentation rather than therapeutic – a new YOU in death really does not make good reading.

I suppose the reasons for surgery would remain undisclosed.

References

Airliners.net: Boeing 737-100/200