By Muhammed Adamu
‘A Clash of three powers’(09/03/16)

TO suggest that the Attorney General instituting criminal proceedings against the Senate leadership bears the imprimatur of the Executive arm undermining the principles of separation of powers, or that it constitutes a coup of one arm against another, is most uncharitable, to say the least…. The theoretical notion of the ‘independence’ of the arms of government is a misnomer. What exists in practice is functional ‘inter-dependence’.

Thus, the idea of non-interference in the affairs of one arm by another practically is a farce. Each arm in one way or another is constitutionally obligated to interfere in the affairs of the other.

Resolving crime cannot be the internal affairs of the legislature. It is the prerogative of the executive to prosecute those accused of committing crime, and it is the duty of the judiciary to determine their guilt or innocence. Legislators cannot hide under the guise of lawmaking to get away with high crimes and misdemeanors.

‘Still on the sick economy’ (05/09/16)

We managed to ‘swim’ under Obasanjo. We paddled hard to stay ‘afloat’ under Yar’ Adua. But under Jonathan, the ship of State had gathered so much moss it was already ‘drowning’. We had virtually slipped off the cliff already and could not have landed in one piece without a shattered carapace.

And now putting our broken pieces together so we can move on cannot be without some pain! There will be pain when the doctors apply the methylated spirit; there will be more pain even when they lay their knives and pincers.

Wastes and leakages

Yet, growth for us is that we have not only transited from a profligate Jonathan to a prudent Buhari, we have virtually put a stop to humongous theft, mismanagement, waste and leakages in the administration of the Commonwealth.

Growth to us is we are on the path of ‘regeneration’ –no matter how slowly so- and no longer in the throes of rot and decay. Growth for us is that our pain comes from the healing hands of a physician we can trust and not from the cursed fangs of a rabid canine that afflicted us all! 

‘Ali: A Tribute’ (09/12/16)

Although Ali graduated from college at the bottom of his class and had difficulty with the ‘printed word’, he had shaped up to be a ‘bad-ass’ wordsmith in a class entirely by himself. He had spun such excellent poetic barbs in assail or rebuttal of opponents as had made poets blush.

He would say: “I’ll beat him in EIGHT to prove that I am GREAT, and if he wants to go to HEAVEN I’ll take him in SEVEN; but if he keeps talking JAAZ, I’ll cut it to FIVE”. Ali was such a man of oratorical sleigh of ‘mouth’ that he gave instant witty retorts even to the most spontaneous turns of event. When his managers worried about a particular ‘ring size’ not being of regulated standard, Ali retorted: “I don’t care how small the ring is, I’ll fight that chum in a telephone booth!” In the segregated childhood days of Ali, there were two Americas: white and black; but by the time the curtains dropped for this greatest of all greats, America was one sending forth this illustrious son of the world, Muhammad Ali.

 ‘Ode to MKO: A Parody of  Shakespeare’ (06/20/16)

On the 12th day of June, a mandate was given; by the ‘many’ to one worthy of the peoples’ trust. He was a ‘man of the people’; he was the ‘peoples’ man’ -the great MKO, my Principal…. But the ‘freest’ and ‘fairest’ election, soon was cowardly annulled; and the mandate holder cruelly put to jail. And as though that was not enough , on the 8th day of July after years in their gilded gaol, the great MKO was felled at last…

Soon the army of exigency became marauders of mischief; avoiding remembrance of ‘June 12’ or the 8th of July. They came up with a barren ‘May 29’ which they say is ‘Democracy Day’. Meaning that between the ‘fig’, the ‘olive’ and the tree of ‘vine’, they chose the accursed tree of Jesus that bore no fruits.

And the question again is asked: What hath this day deserved? What hath it done that it, in golden letters should be set among the high tides in the calendar? If the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, June 12 is our ‘Democracy Day’.

‘Tinubu’s right of first refusal’ (10/05/16)

On contribution to the APC, Tinubu alone stands in a class all by himself. Many were neither there during the delicate pre-natal challenges of the formation of the APC nor at the trying ante-natal stages of uncertain expectation. They were hardly there during the excruciating pangs of the labour that occasioned the birth of APC. Tinubu was not just the revolution’s first rag-tag foot soldier, but the lone actor who laid both the geo-political and ideological infrastructure for the expression of the ‘idea’ that gave birth to the revolution.

Whereas his 8-years as Governor provided the ideological basis for a renaissance of progressive-governance, his one-man-army’s legal battle against the reactionary forces of electoral gerrymandering to re-claim the South West, provided the geo-political launch-pad required for a pan-Nigerian initiative to liberate the country….

‘Musdapher: The Voice not heeded’ (10/19/16)

Although time was at a premium for his barely eleven-month tenure as CJN, Justice Musdapher was the first to embark on a holistic judicial reform programme involving –for the first time- a no-holds-barred public exposé of the rot in the Nigerian Judiciary …

Moribund  procedures

He was the first Chief Justice not to follow the sedate, publicity-shy style of his predecessors. He was not about to keep quiet and sanctify the aura of judicial secrecy that had always shrouded the operations of the judicial system. He succeeded in getting the message across that the legal system is dogged no less by deficient laws and moribund procedures, than by corrupt judges and lawyers in the Temple of Justice.

And even as he warned that the inability of the Judiciary to provide remedy to the growing menace of cut-throat politics, was becoming worrisome, Musdapher also lamented “the gradual but steady flight of decorum, ethics and rules of professional conduct” from the Bench and the Bar.

‘The Texture of Justice’  (10/26/16)

Such was the greatness and practical sense of juristic propriety of British judges, and such was the texture of  justice, that Denning, in a feat of patriotic bravado said if “a future Prime Minister should seek to pack the Bench with judges of his own extreme colour”, British citizens would “need have no fear”, that such judges would be tools in the hands of political authority; because the judges of England “have always –and always will- be vigilant in guarding our freedoms”….The idea that the ‘hands’ of a judge are ‘tied’ by ‘unjust provisions’ so that he can only rule in a manner that does not achieve ‘justice’ is lame, escapist and untenable. The powers of a judge to decide what the law ‘is’ or what it ought to be, knows no bounds.  If the ‘law’ contains impurities not conducive to the attainment of justice, it behooves a judge not to surrender to those impurities but to ‘construct’ the law to work justice…. Thus said Denning, although a “Judge must not alter the material of which (the law) is woven”, yet “he can and should iron out the creases”.

‘NASS and the Buhari Initiative’ (11/07/16)

A President must take the lead role in executive-legislature relations. He must always be a notch ahead of his constitutional check-mates. How he does this is less a matter of theory than it is of expediency.

And whereas a jackbooted approach would be practically unsustainable, passive non-interference –which Buhari seems to favour- can be terribly self-harming! Rather than portray the President as respectful of democratic limits, it betrays a feeble presidential initiative and by implication a weak presidency.

Meddlesomeness and non-interference

 It is in tactfully striking a delicate balance between the extremes of meddlesomeness and non-interference that ‘strong presidents’ live up to their Executive billings. The APC lost the momentum when –no thanks to Mr. President’s ill-advised aloofness- it failed to corral its newly elected legislators to speak with one voice and to install party-centrist leaderships in both chambers. Since then virtually every internal crises of the APC owes its origin to that presidential indiscretion.

‘Now that Trump is president’ (11/16/16)

Now the fault lines in the American Presidential system of democracy are beginning to show signs of fatigue, the import of the fallacy of the ‘electoral college’ is made more poignant today than any theoretical study could expose.

Truth is: even when the founding fathers were shaping the union, there was no plan that the ‘people’ should be trusted to be their own ‘sovereigns’ -their right to ‘directly’ elect their president ceded to a manipulable elite club –the ‘electoral college’. Many delegates to the Conference did not believe that an ‘ignorant’ majority should be trusted with the task of directly electing the President.

In fact, Virginia’s delegate, George Mason said to allow that was tantamount to “referring a trial of colours to a blind man”. The ‘electoral college’ is not a product of superior wisdom, but a hurriedly-debated middle ground to calm feuding delegates torn between choosing ‘Congress’ or the ‘people’ as direct electors of the President.

‘Niger: My poor Orphaned state’ (11/23/16)

In the 16 years that PDP despoiled my State, Niger, I have written many titles either importuning good governance, or in moments of personal outrage, reprimanding the lack of it. Once, Gov. Aliyu in his typical do-nothing ‘stunt’, arranged to be physically launched on Zuma Rock to titillate his ego and to amuse hangers-on. This non-event was basis for governance discourse with himself as star actor who had done what Napoleon could not do. Ironically right beneath the Rock was a 30-year-old uncompleted and abandoned State-owned 5-star hotel. Aliyu the star-Rock-climber took the shine off this derelict metaphor of waste and shame. But it was to the ‘heroics’ of another do-nothing Governor, Kure that removed ‘Zuma Rock’ from the 5-naira note on the grounds that the Federal government’s use of it violated landmark rights. Since then apart from the historic landing of Aliyu on it, we have done nothing to exploit the tourist potentials of this Rock except lend its use to the Police on their crime patrol vehicles.

‘Still on Obasanjo’ (11/30/16)

Love him or loath him, you know where Obasanjo stands; from the ‘serious’ to the ‘ludicrous’; from the ‘sacred’ to the ‘profane’. He is neither covetous of your applause nor timorous of your disapproval. His ‘eccentricity’ is neither acted to enchant his friends nor is it staged to beguile his enemies. He is indomitably expressive in a manner that titillates his friends and taunts his enemies… Obasanjo has proved a man of such consistent self-evagination that much as you can predict, he’ll not disappoint the pleasant expectation of his fans, you know he’ll not fail the repugnant anticipation of his enemies.

Repugnant  anticipation

And with a bit of ironic flavor, his conduct that provokes revulsion in some, in others evokes admiration.. The Obasanjo genie, like an octopus in the deep, never ceases to unravel itself. It beguiles both the time and the surrounding. When you think he is just a ‘smoking gun’ or a gun waiting to smoke, beware, he may be the ‘bullet in the chamber’ raring to go; when you think he is the trigger to be pulled, he may be the itchy finger ready to pull.

‘Now that everyone is a Journalist’ (12/14/16)

There is something wrong with the media –especially in our own part of the world where the judiciary is hardly at hand, or rarely approached, to aid those whose privacy is daily invaded or whose reputations are frequently violated. And we must ask the questions; ‘is what is wrong with the society equally what is wrong with the press? Or is what is wrong with the press equally what is wrong with the society? Does the media take its freedom as an opportunity for self discipline in the sense of ‘voluntarily assuming responsibility’, or as an opportunity to give “the public too much froth –simply because- too few want substance?”

If too few members of the public want substance, do we have a civic duty as journalists to elevate the taste of the public away from ‘froth’ or do we have the professional liberty to exploit the public’s poor taste by denying it ‘substance’?

 ‘BUHARI, BIGOTS AND THE ANTI-CORRUPTION WAR’ (12/21/16)

The ‘do-nothing’ advocates on corruption say that unless Buhari is able to net corrupt persons all at once, he has not the moral right to net any corrupt person at all. That if he cannot catch them all, he must let all be: ‘do not arrest anybody, unless you can arrest everybody’. Or put this way: ‘unless you can arrest everybody, you must not arrest anybody’. Which is as dumb as saying: unless you can arrest all armed robbers, you must not arrest any armed robber. By the way, since they have also said that virtually ‘everybody’ except Buhari is corrupt, maybe what they are advocating is a ‘government-by-one puritan, for all’. Or if –as others insist- Buhari himself is corrupt, maybe then they are advocating for an ‘auto-piloted government’! Isn’t that wonderful? A nation of sinners with a hypocritical mind for the puritanical. They will neither be governed by any with a chink on his moral armor, nor by one with a blot on his moral escutcheon!