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In a recent letter to both President Jonathan and General Buhari as Presidential candidates of both the PDP and APC, Professor Akinyemi made it appear as if he is proposing a road-map towards a violence-free election. Professor Akinyemi predicated his “warning” on the certainty of violence on the upcoming elections, whoever wins, after which he proposed a solution. Before going into his solution, there is a need to address the presumed certainty of violence, for one will necessarily lead to the other. The Professor is being clever by half, having decided to feign ignorance of the reality of the current Presidency of Nigeria
Professor Akinyemi wrote: “The violence of 2015 is going to be horrendous and worse than the one of 2011 for the simple reason that the illegal massive importation of weapons into the country has reached such alarming proportions that I really wonder which is better armed, the militias on the one hand or the official armed forces on the other hand. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not imputing the illegal importation of arms to any particular zone. Some years ago, some Iranians were arrested for bringing in a shipload of weapons into Lagos harbour. They were tried and jailed and then smuggled out of the country. Some months ago, sophisticated weapons were discovered buried in the basement of a Kano house. All these have now fallen below the radar. These are the ones we know about. How many do we not know about?”

Professor Akinyemi admitted that the cases he referenced have fallen under the radar and there are many of such that are not known. The question is: who is responsible for the lapses? Obviously it must be the Nigerian Security Agencies of whatever description, and these Agencies report directly to the President. Nigeria has a substantive President in the person of Goodluck Jonathan; and it will be assumed that he must be held responsible for any and all untoward occurrences under his regime.
These agencies were used to intimidate opponents in elections, were utilized to militarize opposition states during elections; were used to harass even the Federal House of Representatives; wherein also, a Presidency that has been acting Unconstitutionally in removing Judges as well as the Central Bank Governor while encouraging the desecration of the judiciary by one of his Governors as well as having the National Secretary of his party retain his office, illegally and against judicial pronouncement; allowing a spurious “ceasefire” without repercussions yet court-martialing soldiers for their inability to confront Boko Haram insurgents, even when the soldiers claimed they were in desperate need for the wherewithal to fight especially when trillions of dollars had always been earmarked for defense etc etc.
Yet Professor Akinyemi would want us to believe that such a Presidency cannot or should not be held responsible for all of these; rather both the president and the opposition should be held accountable for any repercussions stemming from these failures by the Presidency.
There is only one person to be held responsible for any violence—and that is the President. The reason is simple. The President has never held anyone accountable for any high crimes, even as he himself is an active participant. Violence does not occur in a vacuum; conditions must have been set for its occurrence; hence when the security forces embark and engage in illegalities, on so-called “orders from above”; when state institutions are utilized for partisan purposes; it is no rocket science—as the Professor himself would say—- to know that its purveyors are setting the stage for violence.
So, his “warning” would make sense only if the President had been acting within the Constitution and laws he swore to uphold. But he is not, and he must be called into account for those lapses. That is the only way to begin to address the question of violence.
Of course, as President Jonathan is wont to do, blaming everyone for everything except himself, Professor Akinyemi now wants to hang on African and non-African states the responsibility of destabilization in Nigeria writing that they will succeed if we make “ enemies of ourselves and friends of our enemies.”
Yet the only condition for success or failure is the ability of either side to obey the ground rules of behavior, which the Presidency is clearly not obeying. Which is why the Presidency finds it very easy to absolve itself of any untoward occurrence knowing full well that his foot soldiers will go about promoting such chicanery.
Professor Akiyemi’s “Way Forward” is summarized as having the two candidates sign a Memorandum of Undertaking to have peaceful campaigns as well as having their supporters accept whatever the result is, all under the auspices of what he called a “Council of Wise men”.
This recommendation is a way to deflect responsibility of the President and until people like Professor Akinyemi are bold enough to tell it like it is, they will only be fanning the flames of violence they purport to abhor.
We cannot continue to behave as if what is happening is beyond our capacity to address. The problem is in playing the ostrich. Where was Professor Akinyemi when the President was acting illegally and Unconstitutionally; for over a period of 6 years? Is it the same president that will now sign an “undertaking” when his “victory” will be predicated on the same utilization of “security forces” to intimidate and harass citizens?
If the expected violence occurs, it will not be because of a lack of will to prevent it, but because the occurrence had already been predetermined by the Presidency. And the only way to actually prevent it is for the President to come clean, before the elections, as to his own unconstitutional and illegal behavior, with an undertaking not to employ similar means in the coming elections, aside from punishing those who had participated in previous illegal and unconstitutional acts; persons like Selenkere or the IG of Police, Musiliu Obanikoro, Jelili Adesiyan et al. That will at least, show that the Presidency is serious about these issues and that he actually had no knowledge of the illegal acts; and by this, any over-zealous “security detail” would be on his/her own and would face the consequences of his/her actions. Otherwise, this call by Professor Akinyemi is to create a ground for the Presidency to have its way, by hamstringing the opposition, and the Presidency, as usual will utilize the “security agencies” to force its way and the Professor Akinyemis would expect us to abide by the conditions of the undertaking.
“ooduapathfinder” is very curious about the role these Yoruba Afenifere-Jonathanistas are playing in holding the ground for Jonathan’s Presidency in the process of which extreme violence is done to basic human knowledge, logic and freedoms, all contrary to Yoruba(human) existentialism. If they are not promoting Goodluck Jonathan as championing “southern interests” against a “born-to-rule mentality” without telling us that a Goodluck Jonathan with nothing to show for his presidency is also promoting a “born-to-rule” consciousness, especially when he always denies knowledge of anything and everything under his Presidency yet wants to continue in office, they will be likening Goodluck Jonathan to Jesus Christ while condemning Islam as a religion as if there had never been Yoruba Muslims long before Uthman dan Fodio; if they are not defending Jonathan’s National Conference, they will be promoting issues defying all known principles of Federalism while calling members of the opposition all sorts of names, the latest being the statement credited to PDP’s national Secretary who goes by the name Professor Afolabi who is retaining his position all because the President is enmeshed in an illegal and unconstitutional act by virtue of his acceding to the PDP’s contempt for judicial pronouncement; if they are not blaming northern governors for Boko Haram insurgency, they will be acquiescing to Goodluck Jonathan’s conspiracy of silence on the Chief of Defense Staff’s “ceasefire” which turned out to be a hoax with no heads rolling over it and the list goes on and on.
Of course, “ooduapathfinder” knows that these Yoruba defenders of Jonathan have turned history on its head by their a-historical likening of the APC to SLA Akintola’s pre-1966 attempt at alignment with the North, which is also an evidence of the violence they are perpetrating on knowledge.
For Akintola, the basic premise was that the Western Region was not to be controlled by an external force, even as he entered into an unacceptable alliance with the NPC and embarked on a war of attrition against the Action Group. The point is, he refused and disallowed any external political party to dictate to him, hence, his first goal was to neutralize the Western NCNC and absorb it into his newly-created NNDP platform. Which shows us that even an Akintola recognized the necessity to be his own master in his house—which was why he was able to attempt a “détente” with the opposition, offering to resign his premiership in exchange for peace, in the closing days of 1965 but which the military intervention of January 15-16 1966 truncated.
[i]“ooduapathfinder” [/i]compares that period with today’s Yoruba Afenifere-Jonathanistas. Since the AD broke up, as it were, absolutely none of them have been able to hold their political ground; they are always at the beck and call of some outside forces bent on neutralizing Yorubaland.
This is a historical issue for us. The “north”, via the NPC and the “East” via the NCNC had always attempted to neutralize the West, for their own purposes; the failures of which also always end up in a North-East Conflict. Such that be it Akintola or Awo, both of them knew the importance of holding their political ground and hence would not contemplate ceding such ground for any external force even if they are to enter into an alliance with such a force for whatever purposes.
What we are experiencing now is the exact opposite; where the Yoruba Afenifere-Jonathanistas have already ceded the territory to Jonathan by not only overturning Federalism at the National Conference, but have allowed Goodluck Jonathan, who had declared the Yoruba as a minority in Yorubaland, to pick and choose who will be leaders in Yorubaland. And when he agreed to pick one of them as the Governorship candidate for Lagos, it was with a proviso of having an Igbo as his Deputy. In a nutshell, these people are even worse than the Akintola mainstreamers for which Akintola had been pilloried. They constitute a clear and present danger to Yorubaland and Yoruba people all over the world, for a “victory” for Goodluck Jonathan is the end of autonomy/self-determination for the Yoruba Nation worldwide.

Long but nice

The national confab report should be implemented now. Nigeria can not continue like this.