By Obi Nwakanma

Three matters deserve our urgent attention this week. I will address them in an omnibus way, and hopefully amplify the cautionary tale and circumstance for readers of the orbit who may have read of the appointments made by Imo State governor Rochas Okorocha of his coterie of advisers and special assistants.

At the same time, just across the border from Imo State, is the brewing controversy over the cost to the Rivers State government of Mr. Chibuike Amaechi’s attempts to upgrade his private jet. Thirdly, is the raging debate that is also currently firing up the religious right at both ends of the Religious divide in Nigeria between Christianity and Islam. I speak of the Central Bank Governor’s project of licensing what he calls “Islamic Banking” in Nigeria. Sanusi has set alight, the tinderbox of religion.

But first, to Mr. Okorocha’s quite theatrical performance: as most people know, I had expressed grave reservations about Rochas Okorocha’s abilities to provide the kind of insightful and purposeful leadership which a state like Imo needs, here and now, to progress and to prosper.

His recent appointments confirm and heighten my reservation. Okorocha has certainly reduced the office of the governor to a slush pond. 4First is the “come chop” mentality behind these appointments. In response to questions raised by these ridiculous appointments, an aide to the governor suggests it has far less to do with the needs of the state but a means of rewarding “the boys and girls” who worked in his campaign.

Aside from plumbing old tunnels of corruption and patronage politics, what the political theorist  Jean Francois Bayart calls “politics of the Belly,” which has done so much to undermine public governance, these appointments reveal something very troubling in a different respect. It makes mischief of the authority to govern.

How else can any rational, tolerable explanation be made of the responsibilities assigned to these offices, if it is not gubernatorial mischief? Take a few samples: “Special Assistant Lagos Affairs” “Special Assistant Lagos Liaison” What is that? “Special Assistant Niger Delta” “Special assistant NDDC” “Special Assistant Protocol” “Special Assistant Advance Protocol” ‘Special Assistant Religious Affairs” “Special Assistant Government House Chaplain,” and so on and so forth.

As you, dear reader, would have noticed, aside from the absolutely ridiculous schedules created to siphon both energy and resources from the state, these duties are duplicated and bloated. And now, you can’t touch this: Special Assistant on Comedy or what has been designated the Office of the “Chief comedian” for Imo state. Okay, I understand that sometimes potentates establish preferment for artists as a means of extending both cultural and artistic vitality of the realm, as did Charles II of the Stuarts who kept the poet Dryden at court during the restoration. Perhaps that is Okorocha’s line of thought. He dreams of a court full of court jesters.

It is ridiculous for a state which the governor, only just recently in his inaugural declared almost insolvent to embark upon creating shadow positions for the governor’s sidekicks.

How does Okorocha plan to pick up the extra slab on state revenue as a result of his extremely bloated cabinet? What is the justification for spending money on a few while many more in Imo state are out of jobs, and revenue is diverted to servicing Okorocha’s predilection for the absurd? It is job for the ‘boys and girls” alright, but it is a hard punch to the guts of the Imo tax payer who would bear the brunt.

Okorocha throws up questions about his abilities to govern. I think he should add to his list of aides, a Senior Special assistant on Shoe-shinning Affairs, to complete the farce of these appointments, which would have been very amusing were it not so tragic. This, by the way, brings me to the other matter of the neighboring governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State, and the current flap over the governor’s plan to acquire a new Jet.

Chibuike Amaechi has coffers flowing with revenue, needless to say. There are reports – and I’ve not been to Port-Harcourt in the last five years – that he has done some work in rehabbing Port-Harcourt, not so much now as the fabled “garden city” but as a boom town.  Good for him, I say. But Abiye Sekibo, the gubernatorial candidate of the CAN in the last election has raised alarm about Governor Amaechi’s plans to procure a new plane at the slanderous cost of $48 million in tax payers’ money.

This is squandermania by whatever names called. It is not only squandermania it is mania of a different, perhaps even more dire pathological kind: it is the mania of self-regard for a state that has declared itself unwilling and unable to pay the N18,000 chicken fee we call minimum wage to keep a private jet for the office of the governor. The story of the Jet is intriguing in itself. It was procured by Dr. Peter Odili, former governor of Rivers State, who had hopes of using it for his campaign for the office of Vice-President, until he was done-in by the foxy OBJ.

Following his exit, the plane became a sort of official vehicle for the governor of Rivers State. It is a privilege which the governor has enjoyed so far, to be chauffeured privately in the air at tax payers’ expense, and he has absolutely gotten used to the luxury. He needs a little more luxury in his life and has now ordered a new plane at humongous cost, Abiye Sekibo alerts us.

Mr. Amaechi has said, in response to Abiye Sekibo, that he is not buying a new plane, but that he is “trading in” the old one for the new. We know how trade-ins work, those of us who go to car lots. But the more fascinating of Amaechi’s response is his curt disregard of Sekibo’s concern, on the terms that his life and personal security depends on the new plane, and that he is not about compromising both just because of “an Abiye Sekibo.” First, Amaechi shows symptoms of absolute disconnection from reality and needs to step back a bit. Reality one is that the governor’s security and safety cannot, and must not be higher than the cost of security and safety of the public.

Second, it is a self-indulgent mindset that makes Chibuike Amaechi begin to see himself as set apart or deserving of special privileges. He ought like the rest of us to take public transportation. On his last visit to the United States, the British Prime minister, David Cameron flew on a regular BA flight to New York, and took the AMTRAK from New York to Washington DC. No extraordinary privileges. It makes the pretensions of a poor third-world governor who now claims that his life and security depend on the upgrade of a luxury private jet delusional.

And finally, on this score of delusion, I think the CBN governor, Lamido Sanusi can now be officially accused of delusion. Delusion in thinking that merely mentioning the Igbo as the largest investors and beneficiaries of his so-called “Islamic banking” grants it legitimacy. We are back, with this Islamic banking thing, once more to the fierce politics of the OIC, and the spectre of “islamization” or “Christianization” of the country, depending on whom you asked. The simple point is that Lamido Sanusi and retailers of “Islamic Banking” including the Sultan of Sokoto are playing dangerous politics with the secularity of the Nigerian state.

It is important, and this column here will not exhaust the issues, that we come to terms with the secular basis of the Nigerian federation. Non-interest banking should simply be what it is: a secular non-interest banking system, supported by a secular principle. It should never be called “Islamic banking” otherwise it excludes a wide swath of Nigerians, creates conditions for discrimination, and the fear of evangelization.

Above all it heightens the divisive politics of faith and religion in an already over-inflamed polity. The CBN should find newer, more inclusive terms for this banking system, and remove, from its very guidelines, the terms for spreading “sharia.” This is precisely the point of its opponents: it is sharia by other means and it quacks like a duck.