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Understanding Benjamin Kalu and the new burden on his shoulder
By Ben Benson-Okoli
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1786-1821, was a French Emperor and General whose brilliant victories over Australians and Russians singled him out and made him practically the master of Europe. Addressing his soldiers in 1796 while entering Italy, he said: “It is my design to lead you into the most fertile plains of the world………you will find honor, glory and wealth.”
This sounds familiar today. In his new approach, Rt Hon Benjamin Okezie Kalu, the deputy Speaker and the highest ranking Igboman in Nigeria currently, seems to be telling his tribesmen the same thing.
Also, in his “Maxims of War”, which he published in 1838, Napoleon Bonaparte sees a true leader, as one that “always keeps the element of surprise up his sleeves, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.” This too, seems familiar with the style the young Igbo political leader seems to have adopted. Focused, engaging and unpredictable, yet sustaining the interest of those the lot fell on him to lead, he has ostensibly found a sort of connect through his new styles tactics and strategies.
Back home, the late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Ezeigbo Gburugburu was the indisputable leader of Ndigbo, a position many have continued to lay claims to today, even without anything significant on ground to back it up.
The truth is that if Ikemba of Nnewi were to be alive today and had an opportunity to anoint his successor, it is undoubtful, whom he would have passed the baton to. It would have been a man, whose methods, means and mode fits perfectly into foresight and tremendous acumen. No doubt, he would have gladly raised the hand of BOK.
In my piece last year on the same issue, entitled: Enter Benjamin Kalu, the new eye of Ndigbo in Nigeria’s national politics, published in June 11, 2023, two days before he emerged as the number six man in Nigeria, I had x-rayed the man Benjamin Kalu, and his trajectory, showcasing how every inch seemed to prepare him for the current task thrusted on his shoulders,
May be a little recap: “Nobody knows what influenced his parents to name him Benjamin. But going by the narrative about the original bearer of that name in the scriptures, it seems to be turning prophetic in the place of Benjamin Kalu, the new kid on the block in the trajectory of Ndigbo in the Nigeria political firmament.
“Recall the biblical, Jacob, the father of Benjamin loved Rachael, so much that he had to work for the father for years to marry her. But tragedy came when she died while at child birth, not before she named her son Benoni-child of sorrow. But instead of retaining what would have reminded him permanently of the trauma of losing the loved wife, Jacob had to change the name to Benjamin- child of my right hand, child of consolation rather than pain.”
The journey to remove his people from the anguish of the sorrow of the ravages of the civil war started since June 13, when the lot fell on this deep thinker and purveyor of fresh ideas, Rt Hon Benjamin Okezie Kalu, to lead his people; a people badly bruised, wounded and broken by deliberate pummeling. He may have taken the road less traveled but he exudes the audacity of the Johnny Walker, the lanky fine gentlemen on the label of fine whisky, the man who knows where he is going.
Like a good choreographer, well tutored in Napoleon school, BOK has been hitting the right notes, building the right bridges and forging the right partnerships. He admits that his tribesmen are holding the short end of the stick but thinks that what is critical is providing the enabling environment that will re-birth the new Nigeria we all yearn.
His two pet projects, the PISE-P and SEDC are huge. They have the capacity to calm frayed nerves and engender massive economic growth yet to be seen. Peace in South East-Project (PISE-P), is a five-year initiative of the office of the Deputy Speaker, hinged on a non-kinetic method of solving the insecurity challenges in the SE and further reconciliation among the communities and individuals affected by past conflicts. It was unveiled late last year in the ancient city of Bende, in Abia.
BOK had this to say on its launch: “The journey towards peace is not a destination, it is an ongoing process, one that requires commitment and dedication.” Since then, the Bende Declaration, as it now called, has since taken off and on a sound note and the result is gradually showing with the South East becoming quieter unlike before it was a major theatre of war.
SEDC, the South East Development Commission, is another game changer. The speed at which it got the blessings of the House of Representatives, 54years after similar effort had failed, is descriptive of the enormous hardwork of the man who presented the bill. When established, it will not only become the first genuine effort to give Gowon’s triple Rs a meaning but will turn the South East into a massive construction site and a huge rehabilitation center with funds allocated to it from the federation account to address the consequences of the civil war, that is yet to be recovered from.
Given that there are still some naysayers – elements who seek to benefit from the hitherto restiveness in the land, like the avaricious and dignity-stripped onye Nze, and therefore do not want things to change.
They are the ones selling some of the illogical negative arguments all tailored to keep the zone boiling. They are the ones stoking the embers of the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu as the condition precedent for peace, without presenting a pragmatic and workable approach to achieve that end.
Yet, the release of MNK is one of the projects closest to the heart of BOK, as those close to him would readily confirm – a project he is consistently, but quietly undertaking without the threats and noise that had over the years made it impossible for the goal to be achieved. Just like Napoleon, the strategy remains embedded inside his chest.
If anyone had been in doubt about his leadership qualities, the setting up of the PISE-P, remains a demonstrable example. The foresight and precision as reflected in the selection of the personnel for the project, showcases not only his vision but the ability at head-hunting to achieve the goal.
No doubt this quality would come handy eventually in creating the political leadership that has eluded the South East in recent past, which is basically the ability to forging the right partnerships and winning the right friendships needed to take the people to the next level.
Even the naysayers and perennial critics, must now be convinced as to the reason BOK has never lost a battle. His uncanny ability to override all forms of distractions, no matter how strong and audacious remains the fundamental reason for trusting him to deliver at this critical time in the life of his people and in Nigeria as a major political force.
Those who know, have identified him as an eloquent speaker, an astute negotiator, a conscientious agitator, awakened mind and transformational leader, who carries with him the message of peace and understanding of the direction he wants to go and where to take his people. Definitely, just like, “the son of our right hand,” BOK will turn out well. That you can take to the bank!
Ben Benson-Okoli Esq., a journalist and lawyer, writes from Abuja
Dele Farotimi, lawyer and human rights activist, might soon be stepping out of the Ado Ekiti Prison, where has been detained since Wednesday last week on the orders of Abayomi Adeosun, the Presiding Magistrate, at the Chief Magistrate Court in Ado Ekiti, a day before the scheduled date for the verdict on his bail application.
Details are still sketchy, but reports say that the lawyer, who was arrested in his office on Tuesday last week and taken to Ekiti State to face criminal defamation charges against Afe Babolola (SAN) foremost lawyer and educationist, was granted bail by a magistrate court in Ekiti, a day earlier than the December 10 date the court had set to determine on his bail application.
Very little is known about how the sudden turn of events, in the matter which has seized much of the public space since the development in the defamation case, over a book titled: Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System, in which he alleged that the legal luminary corrupted the Supreme Court to procure a fraudulent judgement in the service of his clients – a publication that took the first position as Best Seller on Amazon, hours after his arrest and remand.
The twist in the story was broken by Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), who also broke that of his arrest, using the same X platform he employed last week to announce the latest development on Monday, where Farotimi, was reportedly granted N50m bail with a surety in the same amount, who must provide landed property as collateral. The case has been adjourned to 29 January 2025.
Sowore, himself a popular activist, friend and ally of Farotimi, leader of the Obidient Movement, and spokesman of Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 election, wrote: “The first hurdle was crossed. #DeleFarotimi was granted bail of N50 million surety in the like sum with someone with landed property. The case was adjourned to January 29, 2025.”
The development is coming on the heels of what could have been a major confrontation based on the demand by a group of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) for his immediate release from incarceration or be prepared to be met with heavy demonstrations, with the police in the state, serving notice that no such event would be entertained, as it could lead to insecurity.
Even with the police threat in which they warned parents and guardians to advise their wards to shun any act that is inimical to the peace and security of the State, as anyone who ran afoul of the directive would be dealt with in accordance with the law, the CSOs, insisted at the weekend that the protests would go ahead, not only in Ekiti, but across many cities including London.
Sunday Abutu, spokesman of the Ekiti State Police Comman, who conveyed the position of the command, had said on Friday: “The Command, under the leadership of CP Akinwale Kunle Adeniran, is assuring everyone of adequate security during and after this Ember months period while seeking for more support, collaboration and obedience to law and order.
“In view of this, the Command, to sustain the peace, parents and guardians are therefore implored to advise their wards to shun any act that is inimical to the peace and security of the State, as anyone who runs foul of this directive will be dealt with in accordance with the law.”
Regardless, the activists say they are not deterred and even extended their reach to Lagos, Abuja and the United Kingdom to draw global attention to what they termed the illegal arrest, detention and trial of Farotimi.
Apparently buoyed by the groundswell of condemnations from individuals and groups including the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), which in its initial reaction, argued that the offence for which Farorimi was arrested had been decriminalised under the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2011, and repealed by the Supreme Court in a case between Aviomoh v. Commissioner of Police & Anor (2021) in 2021, the activists vowed to press on with Tuesday’s action.
Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), who is among the leaders spearheading the demonstration, gave a lowdown on the plan, indicating that many Nigerians home and abroad had keyed into the event.
Using his X platform, he gave details of the protest, saying the point of convergence in Abuja would be the Ministry of Justice and Federal High Court, while the convergence point for the Ekiti edition would be the Police Headquarters Ado-Ekiti.
Regarding other locations, Sowore, who is also the publisher of SaharaReporters, an online newspaper, said the convergence point in Lagos would be the Afe Babalola Chambers at Emmanuel House, Plot 1, Block 4, CMD/Jubilee Road, Magodo, while that of the UK would be King’s College London.
Responding to the police threat, he wrote: “The @PoliceNG can’t ban protests anywhere; we are getting loads of Nigerian citizens to shut down Ado-Ekiti on December 10, 2024, from 7 am. Buses are ready for those coming from out of state.
#FreeDeleFarotimiNow 1. Abuja convergence: Ministry of Justice and Federal High Court, Abuja 2. Ekiti parapo convergence: Police Headquarters Ado-Ekiti 3. Lagos convergence: Afe Babalola Chambers, Lagos Address: Emmanuel House, Plot 1, Block 4, CMD/Jubilee Road, Magodo GRA, Lagos 4. London UK CONVERGENCE: King’s College London Address: Strand, London, WC2R 2LS global online and offline revolt against the nigerian judiciary! Date: December 10, 2024. Time: 7 AM West African Time.”
Farotimi’s troubles were linked to his book titled: Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System, in which alleged that the legal luminary corrupted the Supreme Court to procure a fraudulent judgement in the service of his clients – a publication that took the first position as Best Seller on Amazon, hours after his arrest and remand.
The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, is believed to have fled the country his family has ruled over for 50 years as rebels said they had captured the capital after a lightning advance completed in just under two weeks.
Two senior Syrian officers told Reuters that Assad had fled Damascus, his destination unknown. The report could not be independently verified.
The senior Emirati diplomat Anwar Gargash declined to say whether Assad was fleeing to the United Arab Emirates.
“When people ask where is Bashar al-Assad going to, I say, you know, when you really look at this, this is really at the end of the day a footnote in history,” he told reporters at a conference in Bahrain.
The Syrian leader had been publicly absent as Islamist militant insurgents spearheaded a sweeping offensive that began in a small enclave in north-western Syria, and within 11 days appeared to have toppled Assad’s rule.
In their first announcement on state television following the offensive that took the world by surprise, rebels said they had ended Assad’s 24-year authoritarian rule.
A group of people were shown at the state television news studio, with one reading a statement from the “Damascus conquest operations room” announcing “the liberation of the city of Damascus and the fall of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad and the release of all the unjustly detained from the regime prisons”, calling on fighters and citizens to safeguard the “property of the free Syrian state”.
Syria’s army command notified officers on Sunday that Assad’s regime had ended, a Syrian officer who was informed of the move told Reuters. But the Syrian army later said it was continuing operations against “terrorist groups” in the towns of Hama and Homs and Deraa countryside.
Rebels said they had freed prisoners from Damascus’s notorious Sednaya prison, regarded as a symbol of the Assad regime’s brutality, while video from Damascus showed a man climbing on top of a hospital sign to tear down a poster of Assad’s face. In the capital’s central square, people climbed on top of tanks and cheered as they trampled on a toppled statue of Assad’s father, Hafez, AFPTV images showed.
In Syria’s second city of Aleppo, claimed by insurgent forces just one week before, celebratory singing broadcast from the speakers of mosques was interspersed with the sound of ululating and cheering ringing out across the rooftops.
The Assad family have ruled Syria since 1971 when Hafez al-Assad seized power in a military coup, before his son Bashar inherited the presidency in 2000. Their control of the country was enforced through a vast security state, crushing dissent through a broad network of detention centres and government surveillance.
Bashar al-Assad suppressed a popular uprising against him in 2011, when Syrians first took to the streets of major cities to demand his overthrow. What began as peaceful demonstrations later spilled over into a civil war that is estimated to have killed more than 300,000 people in 10 years of fighting.
Assad willingly turned the full might of the state on his own people in order to maintain control, including pummelling the civilian population with airstrikes and using chemical weapons including the deadly nerve agent sarin.
“Today is the end of 54 years of the reign of Assad family in Syria. This is the only regime I knew all of my life,” said doctor Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian-American physician who organised medical missions into Syria, including hospitals in Aleppo that were targeted by Syrian and Russian airstrikes.
“I don’t cry often in my adult life but today I did. It has been 14 long years of horror. This is our Berlin Wall moment,” he said.
Intervention from Russia and Iran had allowed Assad to survive almost 14 years of unrest and civil strife, leaving him in charge of a fractured state. His rule over Syria had appeared inevitable, until an insurgent advance led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham began to seize control of major towns along a highway leading to Damascus.
As the insurgency drew closer along the highway that leads to the capital, rebel groups across southern Syria took control of a swath of towns south of Damascus. Armed opposition groups closed in on the capital from three directions as Syrian army officers retreated, or fled. Video from Damascus showed soldiers rapidly changing into civilian clothes on the streets of the capital before dispersing.
The prime minister, Mohammed Ghazi Jalali, said in a video statement that the government was ready to “extend its hand” to the opposition, offering to work with a transitional government.
“I am in my house and I have not left, and this is because of my belonging to this country,” Jalili said, without addressing Assad’s whereabouts.
Promising a “new Syria” in their own statement, the insurgents said: “We turn the page on the dark past, and open a new horizon for the future.”
As armed rebels swept cities across the country, they flung open detention facilities where rights groups estimated that at least 100,000 people were considered missing or forcibly disappeared since 2011 at the hands of the state.
This included the Sednaya military prison, a facility notorious as the site of particularly brutal and humiliating methods of torture. Video circulating online showed tens of people streaming into the streets around the facility, running into the night.
The exiled Syrian human rights defender Ranim Badenjki of the Syria Campaign said she was crying tears of joy at the news of Assad’s departure, as “it’s all too good to be true”.
“We always thought that Assad was lucky, supported by strong allies, and world leaders rushing to shake hands with him. But I’m happy to see that Syrians themselves made this dream come true,” she said.
“I am thinking of everyone we lost in recent years, killed for protesting or writing a post on social media. I think of the people tortured to death because they provided medicine or help to people in need. I think of my grandpa who was tortured by Hafez al-Assad,” she said.
Badenjki said her joy was also tinged with sorrow, fearful to learn the fate of some of the people missing or potentially lost in Syria’s labyrinthine detention facilities.
“I want to be happy – but I also want to see my friend’s father alive. He was forcibly disappeared by the regime 11 years ago. I want to know he is still alive and that he can be released. I want to know the fate of my missing cousin.”
Moayad Hokan, a Syrian analyst living in exile, said the events of the past day were “unbelievable.”
“Just a few months ago all of us were operating under the assumption that this day would never come,” he said. “Every time I say to myself the words the Assad regime has fallen, I still can’t really believe it.”
Culled from The Guardian
News
BREKING: Ghana’s ruling party loses again! Dramani bounces back as President *Ruling party loses again
John Dramani Mahama on Ghanaian President from 24 July 2012 to 7 January 2017, has bounced back to power eight years after losing power, defeating Mahamudu Bawumia, incumbent Vice President, who ran as candidate of New Patriotic Party (NPP), currently in power in the West African country.
Bawumia conceded defeat in a speech delivered on Sunday, where he acknowledged that internal data from his party indicated the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) had secured victory in both the presidential and parliamentary polls.
“Let me say that the data from our own internal collation of the election results indicate that former President John Dramani Mahama has won the presidential election decisively. The NDC has also won the parliamentary election. Even though we await the final collation of a number of seats, I believe ultimately these will not change the outcome.
“I am making this concession speech before the official announcement by the electoral commission to avoid further tension and preserve the peace of our country. It is important that the world investor community continues to believe in the peaceful and democratic character of Ghana. I accept defeat with all humility.”
Mahama, who succeeded Attah Mills, the Ganaian President, who died in office, had in 2016, lost his re-election bid to Nana Akufo-Addo, who the late President defeated in 2008, assuming power in a sort of relay race between the two dominant parties in the country and is expected to take office as president in January 2025.
BREAKING: Farotimi freed! *Granted bail hours to Ekiti ‘mother of all protests’
BREAKING: Assad flees Syria after 24 years in office *Rebels take over poser
BREKING: Ghana’s ruling party loses again! Dramani bounces back as President *Ruling party loses again
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