I am still amazed at the way Murtala Nyako, the impeached governor of Adamawa State, kissed the dust without a whimper. Going by the way the man carried on before his impeachment, you would think that he has a backbone. But the former governor has proved through the way he crashed out that he was an empty vessel, indeed, a cold, impotent ash.
That is most surprising, considering Nyako’s background. This man was a retired Naval officer. He held command positions in the Navy. He was former Chief of Naval  Staff and former Deputy Chief of Defence Staff. He also served as Military administrator of one state or another in those days of military rule. Given this pedigree, the expectation was that Nyako could not be a pushover, that he could hold his head high and stand his ground. We thought that he would be able to weather the storm when the shove became a push.
But contrary to our expectations, Nyako collapsed like a pack of cards. Since his fall, the former governor’s Party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) has been crying blue murder. The APC has accused the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of being behind Nyako’s impeachment. The APC said money was used by  PDP to facilitate Nyako’s removal. I think that this argument misses the point.
The real issue before us should have been: was Nyako guilty as charged? The Adamawa State House of Assembly leveled charges, bordering on gross misconduct against him. The former governor had opportunities to appear before the Panel set up by the Chief judge of the state to respond to the 20-count charge brought against him. But he shunned the panel. At the end of its sitting, the panel found him guilty of 16 of the 20 charges. We should be talking of the charges against him. We should be talking about the processes that led to his impeachment. Were they credible? We cannot but accept them as such because Nyako lent more legitimacy to the action when he refused to appear before the panel. Such refusal amounts to impunity.
It is disrespect for constituted authority. We should condemn Nyako for this. Seeking to make somebody a scapegoat in this matter is to beat about the bush.
Ultimately, Nyako has himself to blame. For his misconduct. He overreached himself. He bit more than he could chew. He did not see clearly. He was deluded. His case was also not helped by the many self-seeking aides that populated his administration.
They misled him terribly and the man was not discerning enough to read the hand writing on the wall. The consequence is the unmitigated disaster that he turned out to be.

Echoes of Biafra
After taking a cold, hard look at the politics, called Nigeria, a lecturer at the Nigerian Turkish Nile University, Abuja, has called the bluff of advocates of an indivisible and indissoluble Nigeria. In his new novel, entitled: “Verses of Uncharted Heaven: The Second Coming of Biafra”, Dr. James Onyebuchi Ile, who teaches Literature and Literary History of Ideas at the Nile University, assigns himself the role of the devil’s advocate, the stone in the sling and fly in the ointment. Whereas certain creative minds will choose to speak tongue-incheek, Ile breaks loose from all strictures and allows his imagination to roam freely.
He anchors his radicalization of creative enterprise on what he thinks the role of the writer in society should be. As a Language scholar, Ile craves to utilise the latent creative energy in him and satiate his nature of its thirst for intellectualism. He believes that knowledge should be functional by making those who acquire it better human beings. Writing as an idea is used to capture the realities of the time. Those who choose writing, as a vocation must, therefore, express their ideas about life and the society they live in. Since ideas are vehicles for change, a writer must write with a view to effecting a change in his environment. This is the author’s craving. It is the force that propels him.
Since a committed writer cannot turn a blind eye to situations around him, Ile could not ignore the Nigerian condition. He could not overlook the fact that Nigeria has a problem and that the fact of it being a country makes it rather suffocating. In his rage, he blurts out. He jibes at the pretenders who pay lip service to the idea of one Nigeria.
He charges at the oppressors who want the country to remain one because they benefit from the skewed system in the land. In his creative fury, the author presents us with a fictional narrative in which he is both a participant and an observer.
Whereas one of his major characters, Lumumba, has tales of woe to tell about his nasty experience in the hands of tribalists with whom he has been forced to co-exist, the author-narrator complements Lumumba’s effort by presenting his own embarrassing experiences in the hands of the same tribalists. These stories of disappointment and regret find expression in the idea called Biafra. In the book, Biafra is both real and imaginary.
It is not the Biafra that came and failed. The author creates a new Biafra, which is at once an idea and a state of reality. The book, therefore, oscillates between fact and fiction. Faced with the factual world of Nigeria, Lumumba, the protagonist, ruminates on the
Injustice of Nigerian State. He laments that the injustice is preying on his people. But warns that this epoch will mark the end of a long journey from a world whose beginning is here. He sees the beginning of the end. There is uncertainty in the air. His father was unjustly murdered in Hafana, a fictional creation, which, in reality, represents Northern Nigeria. The pain of his father’s cold-blooded murder by ethnic bigots eats him up. He bears a terrible pain. He is unable to come to terms with it. He envisions a new country, which will supplant Nigeria.
And injustice. The narrator says he is propelled by the same feeling of pain to write. His objectives is to use the medium of writing to liberate the people and give them freedom. In the novel, Biafra is the issue. But it is not about the Biafra that was. It is a new Biafra whose advent, whose birth will mark the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new one. The narrator’s faith and belief in Biafra is made more poignant by the unsavory state of affairs in Nigeria. He loathes corruption in the land. It is disdainful. He laments the discrimination, the nepotism, the tribalism and the sectionalism that have vitiated growth and progress in the land. He bemoans the bastardised state of the country. He is worried that the injustice against Biafran people are stultifying. He remembers the organsed massacres against Biafran people in the north.
He recalled the abandoned property saga. He  is infuriated by the grand design to keep the People of Biafra in check. He argues that the fact of not wanting to entrust political power to participate   and therefore a case of accepting our inability to live together as a country. That is why the call for unity sounds inchoate to him. He repudiates it.
The narrator tells his story with a heavy Heart. He was once idealistic about Nigeria That was why he chose to have his university education in Hafanaland. But he is rejected by the university on account of his ethnic origin. He is stupefied by it all. He could not believe what happened to him. In his helplessness, he laments that justice has been murdered,  merit has been thrown overboard, indolence and mediocrity have been celebrated and sentiment has been worshipped. He weeps for his fatherland.
The narrator’s anger against the state is expressed through Lumumba. He was born in Hafanaland. He speaks their language Yet they refused to accept him. They denied him admission in their university on ethnic grounds. And as if that was not enough, they murdered his father on trumped up charges. For Lumumba and the narrator then, the mantra is Biafra. They insist that Biafra must prove itself. For the narrator, Biafra is an uncharted heaven.
Even though it exists in his imagination, he envisions an Eldorado in the Biafra of his dream. But the author, in the end, does not lose sight of the fact that he could be misunderstood. He says he is not a bigot but is driven by his choice of vocation which makes him the watchdog of society and the custodian of life. He declared that he wrote the book “to show the world the consequences of domination and to show Nigeria what was at the end of the road they had chosen without proper reflection to continue on” .
The author espouses further: “ I intend to let them know that my belief in a new Nigeria was based on a conviction that for Nigeria to move ahead, every falsely raised structure must collapse – either by itself or by an external prompting.” The author argues finally that his intervention is necessary because he relives human flaws that aid conflict. His effort will serve as clarification of the eventual understanding of the situation. The book is a radical addition to the unending debate about Biafra.

The fall of Nyako