I write to you in the spirit of friendly caution over your series of outbursts on my principal His Excellency Capt. Idris Ichalla Wada, most especially your recent account on Facebook on the purported search for PhD and lost-of-hope at the tribunal siting in Abuja which you published yesterday (May 08, 2016 to be precise). If you do not respond, I shall be obliged to conclude, alas, that to all the questions I have set out below, just as to all the sad assertions, I have received your disappointing answers.
In as much as you are aware that all political office holders to Capt. Idris Wada while in office are in-hold until his return back to Lord Lugard House soon, in my case, I am still in his pay roll as his Spokesman. This new schedule has ruled me out of any boyish-sophisticated-communication and that's why I have NOT been talking either on Facebook, whatsapp groups, twitters etc etc but except when necessary as this.
Since your piece came on board, many people had asked for my reaction and a surprising number of them characterized it as a “shot across the bow” of democracy. I also write to you as a colleague of the pen, whose writing has appeared several times in your sister-blogs through my collections including my “2011- 2015 Predictions” articles where I correctly forecasted the Kogi fiasco of this present summer. Hopefully that establishes my love of credentials for your own sake, but it’s important that you reconsider whom you are maligning when you write. Perhaps you're not aware that in the history of the state, Capt Wada’s effort in managing the lean resources of the state is equal to none.
Though I began my career back in the times of deep stagnation when Nigeria was seeking for soft-landing from military to civilian rule in a capacity of Personal Assistant to the NADECO Leader who was exiled by Abacha; His Excellency Air Commodore Dan Suleiman (Rtd) OFR, and have been engaged in one way or another with government policies since 1998, I cannot but be amazed at certain aspects of the professional work of some of you today. My perplexity is deepened by the fact that I have pinched my tent in the family of elites and highly-placed government officials. In other words, in some sense I never lived outside politics. I know the game from national, state, down to the grassroot.
Even in the most gloomy years of stagnation, persons of any professional standing whatsoever could not but see that a very fierce political struggle was going on in Kogi state between reactionaries (hawks and APC-confusionists– name them how you will) and those who wanted to see a reform of the state, and who are in power or not. It is no longer news that all those who had even the slightest relationship with Kogi politics during the time of Capt. Idris Wada knows that in this struggle there are victims. Of course, these victims are among the reformers, not the reactionaries. Some of them paid for this with their lives, others, with their careers, yet others managed to remain untouched. But what maybe news to you is that the present government has no small risk out of a feeling of self-respect and their desire to improve lives in the state compared to Capt. Wada's era.
No matter how paradoxical it may seem, the situation cardinally changed once the collapsed took place. I also observed this to some of you in the press time without number to which I literally detested, seeking to distance myself as far as possible from the domestic policy of self-agrandizement, which are for me completely unacceptable.
I will not duel much on who will have the day at the tribunal. It is for the judges to decide but will not allow your streets-pep article on my principal to sail without a rejoinder. This is why I write to you to change you models.
My reaction to the “shot across the bow”?
It looks a whole lot to me like the bureaucratic torpedoes we’ve been firing at our own hulls for years. Once again, we’re mired in intractable structural discussions – like some grand naval exercise – rather than squarely focusing on nimble efforts to achieve small wins and eventual victory in moving democracy and journalism forward in the state.
To me, the attacks on Capt. Idris Wada was unreasonable call to action, neither a blast to the face. Oh! ...you would like him to take a gun himself and die and leave this world so the rest of Bello and Faleke would celebrate their days? Why disturbing an oldman who knows nothing than love for all? Is it by polishing him as a-yet-to-be-student in a PhD class that would reduce him to nothingness? what is the qualifications of Bello, Faleke and that of the late Audu? All you want to achieve is for the anti-PDP programs to use “common teaching" models, where the electorates are tenured alongside traditional leaders, so they could learn the techniques of abandoning their love for Wada like the bat-man in American movie through cutting-edge research.
The attacks didn’t say anything that hadn’t been brought up in any number of anti-PDP agenda in the 100 Days in the state or is it right to say 100-Part 1 of Yahaya Bello administration? None of us is sitting here and is not thinking of ways to innovate. PDP in Kogi state is still intact. Neither the late Audu camp can beat their chest that they are part of Bello's government. This is a government that it's party (APC) leadership in the state has been dropping her hate to Bello even in some 'burukutu' joints. If any one is out, it is Audu's camp. Wada/PDP is not out but on exit. You know all these. Isn't it so, bros? Many people may support your call of incorporating hate profession on Wada into the state political curricula, but we would rather support the “asymmetric” approach. (I would point out that anyone wanting to witness testy hierarchical battles over legal criteria, as well as stubborn refusals to update his or her mind on "Wada-Will-Rule-Again", should roam the halls of political academia for a day or two).
Your piece was a distilled version of an earlier outburst by Bello's administration that Wada has nothing doing now than loitering around Abuja. Bello's address to Kogites on Worker's Day where he failed to commend Capt. Wada for his struggle to have processed the bail-out funds for the state was a longer and, in my mind, far more a problematic approach that appeared to pit the present administration against any genuine motive. It also cast “top-tier programs” in relief against “the middle of the bell curve,” with the former clearly ahead in innovation.
He called on the electorates to destroy and recreate themselves. “Radical change requires radical reform,” he said in the prepared text for the speech.
After 100 days, what is the achievement of this administration? Is it the destruction of Audu's constructed roundabouts? We heard, this administration is cancelling a perceived spirits, hence the demolition of all the roundabouts in the state capital. Who then is he calling a spitualist; Audu or Wada?
On the other side, some of your boys in the media has asserted that: “we need to dismantle what the 'past' administration has been worshiping and pin down our own gods; that the digital age is turning upside down and inside out and we should improve in the same tactics of spiritual engagement.” So, who is the 'past'? Audu or Wada?
But in calling for this destruction as your boys has mantained, Bello uses infographics to propose a new structure for the state. Let me say that again. In asking for programs to catch up and then move ahead of a stunning age of destruction, he would like us to stop enjoying fancy, get it accepted and beyond that, create a comparative administration in spiritualism between that and the people. I’m sure he doesn’t know it, but the APC media just aligned itself with the exact reason so many of his mediocre “middle” class remain where they are. By endorsing massive corruption wholesale, programmatic change rather than individual, creative, self-course-based advances, reformers subvert the very innovation they claim to support.
We know what Bello is doing and where he is heading to. Bello believes his approach to governance without respect to either PDP or Audu's camp in APC, will get him more new ideas flowing through the state to curtail insecurity. I am sorry, sir, we simply do not have the time. This state is already advance and can't device to that in this jet age.
We cannot wait for un-directional change to meet the urgent needs of insecurity and the communities they will seek to protect. Instead, we have to take whatever freedom we have in our existing structures already laid down by Capt. Wada in the past administration and reform today. Right now.
I gave the same advice to all political teachers I teach, regardless of whether they come from the academy or the newsroom. I say to them, "pick one thing. Pick just one new idea, unfamiliar technology, emerging trend. Just one. And take that into your office or classroom in the upcoming season or semester respectively. Don’t wait for Bello's curriculum. Don’t get trapped by the “dinosaurs” you tell me stomp through your faculty meetings and delay reformation. Don’t care about the 'Dean’s' approval". Leave all that behind and move one thing – just one thing – forward right now.
I have been incredibly fortunate in my political career. I had my initial core-experience right from the wake of democratic journey in this country and I can bet you that what we need to promote our future is unity and have a leader with direction but I don't know how we can continue like this.
Our past leaders did blew up their old siloed, medium-based goals and did it back years ago (including late Audu). They left in its wake an approach that seeks to enable experimentation and innovation. We have been lucky to operate free environment for years and have never been held up in tailoring our challenges in whatever way we sees fit. While Wada was in government, the state have channels tested radical collaborative digital environments, big-dream entrepreneurial assignments and every variation of social engagement it could imagine being productive.
We succeeded without any dirty spiritual assistance, though failed and faced more than a few question marks but we have always risen.
And most of the time, we have done it alone in a wilderness of self-training and self-doubt. Imagine if our times were also in an environment that had a restrictive plan and little faculty support, we would be lost before Bello's arrival.
This is where your attack on my principal Capt. Idris Wada fails. You prefer the one-eyed models of Bello's approach but you’ve missed a critical component of that approach.
If Bello and fellow founders want broad-based, systemic improvement and innovation in the state, they need to create and fund a system of continuing of Wada's approach of selfless service. No such undemocratic models will improve the state in the latest techniques and tools in securing the community and producing news vital to this democracy.
What we need is to encourage Yahaya Bello to pay more attention to the people and use their influence with news community to leverage hunger. I don’t mean major grants to individual section of the community.
We have no shortage of political educators who want to bring evolution or even revolution to the material in their 'courses' and the ways they deliver it. But so many of them lack the support to do it.
I am not talking about rote technology training – “click this button to do that thing.” Instead, I envision the kinds of opportunities that stimulate the people to experiment in their homes, to dream up new assignments that hurtle familes toward inventive thinking. They will need a sense of belonging, certainly. But they’ll also need inspiration and lasting resources, including the guts of social engagements, grading rubrics, economic troubleshooting guides and conversation space.
We already have some effective efforts of Capt. Wada in place before Bello's arrival. That was a start. Change can not come and go. Change out to be constant. They need support to keep up and then become the incubators for new ideas.
If the APC agents wants to bring 'change', they should abandon the quagmire of structural debates. Get down in the guerrilla warfare of providing the state the necessary resources and instruction they need to train on the current state of the art and to inspire them to develop whatever is coming next but not to demean the personality of Capt. Idris Wada in a campaign of calumny and vendetta.
In closing, I’d like to say that we’re all tempted to go with the herd precisely this season. Standing up for the truth, being that lone voice speaking against the multitude, it is a scary proposition – but that’s what I signed up for.
Cowardice is no excuse, nor is laziness. Either you own your words – or your words will own you. The truth comes out eventually – and when it does, you’d better hope that you’re on the side that’s being vindicated.
Best of luck with all your endeavours and I look forward to reading your retraction.
Thank you.
DAVID ALFRED-DOGWO
(Fmr. Senior Special Assistant to Capt. Idris Ichalla Wada on Communication & Strategy) and former Aide to Air Commodore Dan Suleiman (Rtd) OFR
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