Dr Doyin Odebowale, popularly known as High Priest, is a former Senior Special Adviser (Special Duties and Strategy) to the late former governor of Ondo State, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu
You are a known face in the course of nation-building. Nigerians are eager to hear your view about the state of the nation. How would you describe recent developments across the country?
Thank you for having me. As regards happenings around us, the most pressing issue has to do with security, though there are other issues bothering on state affairs too. But security occupies the position of top priority in whatever discourse we can have about Nigeria today.
Just some few days ago, bandit were already at the old Oyo National Park here in Oyo State where they killed five guards. Unlike before when we felt that the phenomenon is restricted strictly to the northern part of the country, it is now a reality that we have them in our midst. What we must also try to look into is the commitment of this administration (President Bola Tinubu) to combat this menace. Successive administrations have been paying lip service to this issue of insecurity; a lot has happened.
Are you saying the Tinubu administration has not been doing enough to tackle the problem of insecurity across the country?
I will not be that brash to say he is not doing anything. Enough? Well, I will say that they are not doing enough; and I am saying this with all sense of responsibility. I think the problem is structural. The security architecture of this country is organised in a way that allows any stupid fellow, any ill-bred character to just gather people of like-minds together and begin to disturb us.
We pretend to be running a federal system of government, and we have a centralist administrative structure that has worked against us in the main. Most of the duties now given to the Military, especially internal security, are ordinarily meant for the Police. But that institution has been so emasculated by several factors that they are not even doing what they are supposed to do. The Military is over-stretched, whether we like it or not.
And we have several impediments militating against the operations of the Military; some statutory, others politics -internal politics- and overall, you can see that it is just of recent that we started to hear about the exploits of the Military against the so-called terrorists.
Granted that these people who are now called terrorists or bandits or whatever you may call them that what our soldiers engaged with are asymmetrical; it is not a case of war that they were trained to engage- they were trained to neutralize, not to arrest. These people will just emerge from nowhere, they hit soft targets and they will run away. They hit and they go. So, it has been so difficult.
But from what we have been reading too, we have been having several instances of internal sabotage. I can quickly remember the case of that young man, Abba Kyari, that former Deputy Commissioner of Police who is now on trial for something else. His men arrested one kidnapper, Wadume. They went to pick him. That Wadume is a big criminal in the society. The Police tracked him; they arrested him. But as they were taking him away, an Army Captain led a counter-insurgency operation against Abba Kyari and his men and they killed about five or six of them. Wadume escaped and he was later found. Where? Nobody ever wants to say anything about it now. The Army Captain must have been promoted about more than twice now. Nobody wants to say anything about it. These are the issues that would make you to want to disbelieve whatever propaganda that may be coming from any of them. I was saddened by that event.
And there have been several other cases like that. An Army Brigadier-General was killed; his killing was too cheap. There was the case of Sule Abu, that young Lieutenant Colonel, a very brave soldier who was betrayed by his own people; you know, internal sabotage.
Even from what the US said recently, and from the exploits in the last few weeks, you can see that it was as if our men are reluctant to fight for a combination of reasons; either they have not been properly mobilised or for whatever other reasons.
US President Donald Trump recently intervened in the northern part of the country, bombing some parts of Sokoto in the war against terrorism. This has attracted both condemnation and commendation. What is your own take about the intervention?
Well, from what I read, I think he didn’t do it unilaterally; that the US team worked with the internal security architecture and the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) also acknowledged that they knew they were coming. The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) knew. The way these things work, you will not know and they would not write anything about it.
But there were two conflicting reports on the bombing incident. James Bwala, a top appointee of President Tinubu said they were not aware of the coming of the US troops, while the Minister of Information categorically said it was an attack coordinated with the awareness of the Nigerian authorities…
I will want to take what the Minister of Information said because, having been in government, I understand and I know a little bit about how government works. The Minister of Information is the one who coordinates communications within the government. Bwala may not have known that anything like that happened. In fact, who is he? He is just a Special Adviser on Communications. They would not have discussed such things with him. In fact, if he was authorised to speak at all, that authorisation must have from the Office of the Minister of Information.
But how do you see such conflicting statements from two top government officials affecting public trust in government activities and policies?
I think that it is a matter of indiscipline. Bwala, maybe he was too jumpy; maybe he wanted to talk. Because what I would have done is to refer whoever wanted to know about an operation that I am not permitted to talk about – I was the SSA, Special Duties and Strategy. I know quite a lot, but if I was not authorized to speak on any issue, I hold it. It is not everything a journalist will put a call across to you that you will talk about. You will need clearance from the NIA, if it involves any international body. The NIA must talk with the ONSA; the ONSA will now give you the go-ahead. You cannot just be saying anything about security matters like that.
So, I think Bwala jumped because the man who coordinates anything that has to do with information, including the activities of Bayo Onanuga and all of them, is the Minister of Information. That is the Cabinet Office that coordinates all agencies and departments.
But let us now talk about the substance. Donald Trump, as regards the allegation that he made that Christians were being killed in Nigeria. Many people wasted too much time on whether Christians were being or not. It wasn’t only Christians that were being killed; human beings were being killed. For many years, this government appeared helpless. These animals will just walk into some villages and wipe off everybody there and they will rename the villages and nobody is talking about that. That is far worse than saying Christians or Muslims were being killed. Human beings lived in a place and some people came from nowhere and wiped them off…
Is it that the government is helpless or that they simply just don’t want to work?
At a time, I wanted to believe that there were complicit. At a time, I had a reason to believe that this government was complicit. I don’t mean the individuals, but the government was complicit. You cannot claim not to know that certain villages have been wiped off. You don’t reduce this act of genocide; that is genocide. There is genocide, but you don’t now say that it is either against Christians, or Muslims or traditional worshippers or even non-believers. Some people from outside of this country, supported by those in this country, moved into villages under the guise of grazing their cattle and they killed everybody and you now reduced it to farmer-herder clashes. That is not right.
And the government, at a time, became incapable or unwilling to address that issue. Those who came to kill, not one person, has been arrested till date. It is just of recent that they decided to be picking certain people from the Benue and Plateau axis that they were involved in some recent incidents. But the ones that had happened and recorded while the late President Muhammadu Buhari was there, Fulani people went into villages and wiped off everybody and we watched the mass burial. So, it was not left in the realm of rumour or speculations; we watched that bodies being lowered into the graves. After that, the people could not go to their farmlands again. Those who came to kill them settled on those farmlands and were collecting taxes from the indigenous people.
That is why I don’t want to get too excited over some recent events that American troops went to Sokoto to bomb some terrorist enclaves, Lakurawa or others. We are calling them bandits now. When we wanted to establish Amotekun, I mean when the attacks became rather unbearable, the Federal Government, under President Buhari pretended that the issue was not serious enough. This same Malami who is now standing trial for alleged corrupt charges was telling us that we risked being arrested for bearing weapons in this country. While Buhari was the president and Aminu Masari was the governor of Katsina State, Masari met bandits, criminals carrying AK-47 openly and not one person was arrested. And that was after President Buhari said that anybody found with AK-47 should be arrested. The situation had remained largely the same until very recently now that the American president sent in troops to Nigeria.
Before the American intervention, the present administration had claimed that banditry, killings and all sorts have reduced drastically. But does the situation on ground reflect the claim by the government?
I will say that there has been no significant reduction in the spate of killings at all. All I just know is that the people involved in those brigandage are retreating because of the onslaught because the international communities are now becoming more interested, unlike before when we were just left to deal with the issue by ourselves. People are now taking interest and they went straight to the North-West, as against the North-East. That is very instructive; North-West is the base of Lakurawa. And these pretenders who say they are Muslims, Sokoto is their seat; it is the Seat of the Caliphate, the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA). Their Sultan is there; not one statement has come from the Sultan of Sokoto, condemning the activities of Lakurawa. But the Sultan will be interested in servicing Sharia in Oyo State. He must know about them. The way the Caliphate is structured, no strange persons can enter without the Sultan and his chiefs knowing. Can he claim not to know these people when they go to villages and start extorting money and taxes from people, killing people freely. The Sultan is complicit. All of these so-called religious leaders are complicit.
Look at the other guy, the man called Sheikh Gumi. This guy will go and be sitting openly with people armed with AK-47 and sub-machine guns. Of late, he was talking, saying these people must not be shot or killed; that we must understand. That they must be treated the same way they treated the Niger Delta people. But with whose resources. The Niger Delta militants had a right to fight.
Let us talk about the injustice in this country, after all, people are talking about taxation and local government autonomy. But nobody is talking about resource control. We destroyed the Niger Delta; all of us sat down. We hinged our aspirations on exploiting; on killing those people in the Niger Delta. They cannot fish, they cannot farm. We have reduced them to nothing. We want to be the governor, senator or president; our aspirations are hinged on the resources of the Niger Delta people.
So, anybody who is comparing banditry and terrorism with the genuine agitation of the people of the Niger Delta and the way they faced existential problems is evil. Gumi is an evil person and he knows. They have been mining for gold and lithium in Zamfara State for ages. They have been mining in the so-called Sambisa Forest. These mines belong to individuals known to these criminals in the North; those who will ensure that their children don’t go to school. The poor people don’t go to school; it is only their children that go to Harvard. Gumi’s son just got commissioned into the Nigerian Army as a Second Lieutenant. His own son should be among the almajiris that they are dumping on all of us here; the almajiris who are their foot soldiers; who are the real bandits; who are the terrorists. They know them; they are the ones producing these terrorists. Gumi is supporting terrorism, but why are they not saying so?
The system up north supports terrorism. The Sultan cannot claim not to know; he retired as a Brigadier-General from the Nigerian Army. A Brigadier-General should know because he is in command of a Brigade. The Sultan should know when some foreign elements would enter a place, especially in your own traditional seat of authority. And right before your very eyes, they are collecting taxes; they brought in weapons. He knows about weapons, more than some of us who are just using our brains. You were trained in art of violence; you were a manager of violence. You now became the Sultan, having the traditional authority, now before your very eyes. But nobody is asking him to abdicate his throne. He came to Oyo State to come and influence the Alaafin of Oyo. Anywhere they are doing anything in Yorubaland, he will want to come there, introducing Sharia. He wants to turn our own land to Lakurawa enclave too.
Reports have it that the bandits and terrorists are fleeing, relocating from the North-West to the South-West. What do you think the governors are doing…?
They are already here with us. The governors are doing almost nothing now; I think they have gone to sleep. The last time I was at the Oke-Ogun axis of Oyo State- I went to Itasa and Iwere-Ile- to challenge a miner there, we saw Fulani with weapons and I came out to say it openly. We saw their settlements in the two places; they are everywhere. Go to Ogbomoso and find out. In fact, they are more than the indigenous people in Itasa and Ago-Musa.
Did you notify the appropriate quarters?
We did. These people are here with us. So, it is very easy for anybody to come and attack us in Oyo State and in Yorubaland with those settlements and with those young men we saw there.
And have you forgotten that Bala Mohammed, the current governor of Bauchi State granted an interview on Channels TV? It is on YouTube. He said he and some people brought in Fulani from the Sahel because they were wandering and that they considered Nigeria as their base and that Nigerians should be ready to have more and more of them and that they should accommodate them. He further said that they will be giving them a re-orientation.
And you also heard what Buhari said: “They are your brothers. You live with your brothers.” When we were talking about the National Identification Number (NIN), they got it before many of us. While our own children could not get NIN to register for JAMB, WAEC and NECO, they already had.
But a Yoruba man is the Minister of Interior. Do you think he is doing enough to correct this anomaly?
I think it is beyond him now. He will be overwhelmed. I mean, what can do Minister of Interior do without authorisation? Now, he goes about talking about International Passport. I don’t know how many people are the beneficiaries. Well, he has done well in some aspects, unlike before now, when you want to get your passport and you have to wait till eternity. We should commend him for that. But we cannot reduce the Ministry of Interior to issuance of passport; it is too pedestrian when it has to do with the issue of internal security.
One issue that is making the people to have distrust in those in government has to do with too much of official secrecy. An example is the issue of the new tax regime. Nigerians are confused about the authenticity of the document back up the policy. How do you see secrecy affecting policy implementation?
If you claim to be governing on behalf of the people, your activities should not be shrouded in opacity. As a matter of fact, whatever policy you want to formulate for the benefit of the people should come from us; it should be a sort of feedback from the people; the challenges we face and how you want to solve the problems. That should form the bedrock of whatever policy you want to formulate.
When you have a government that is distant from the people; distant in the sense that you talk down- it is not from bottom up- and ask people to go to hell, and you want to collect tax on behalf of the people. Okay what of if I tell you that we need a tax holiday, as a people? At least, you are ruling on our behalf. Or what of if I say, ‘that tax, can you suspend it and let us work later?’ But you are now telling me that you are the leader. You are not elected to direct us in any way you like. You are to consult; you are to debate. Of course, the semblance of legitimacy that many of these activities have is that they have the rubber stamp at the National Assembly; the Parliament is the Assembly of the people because we have the representatives of the people in the Assembly.
Why did you call it a rubber stamp Assembly?
Most of the assemblies the world over, in this neo-liberal democracy we practice are rubber stamp. Donald Trump of the US just went to pick the president of another country, along with his wife, right from their bedroom and they are now in jail. All these talks about sovereignty, about international law and foreign policy of the United Nations, are they correct?
But there was a treat of impeachment against Trump over his action in Venezuela…
The fact that he did it and he damned the consequence. He came to Nigeria, but of course, there was a collaboration. So, they will not say that of Nigeria was a unilateral decision. So, that was not an act of war against Nigeria. Venezuela is a clear case of aggression.
As regards a parliament of the people, we should now be refocusing on the quality of representation. Those who represent the people must be those with sufficient knowledge of the issues- existential issues that affect the wellbeing of the people. You don’t just elect people on the basis of belonging to Party A or Party B. many of those who represent us are bereft of ideas; they don’t even understand the issues. What do we discuss these days? Defections. We cannot pretend to run a federal system of government and now be centralising authorities.
But President Tinubu is taking some steps towards decentralisation, especially state police…
Mere avowals should not be taken for the real thing. He has said it that we need state police, but at a time he was against it. Now that he has gotten to Damascus, he has become a born again; he has been converted to what we have always been saying- that it is a misnomer for you to have a central police command in a federal system of government. That depicts us as been illiterates to shout that we want a decentralised police as if we are doing governors some favour. Some are saying the governors will abuse it. Is our president not abusing the federal police now? Are policemen not following people to their social events? Are they not guarding miscreants? Don’t the NURTW people have police escorts? Is that not a function of abuse? Were the policemen given to the NURTW people by the governors? It is a central command.
Talking about state police, you are not doing anybody any favour. We are simply affirming that we have been to school. If you run a federal system of government, you cannot have a central police command. You will have the federal and the state as the tiers of government recognised by law or by the constitution. Then, the state must be able to legislate on internal security. The state must have its own law, its own constitution, as it is in the US and every where you claimed to be copying the system from. We are just talking about local government autonomy now. Is that not fraudulent? You talked about local government autonomy but you are not talking about resource control. Are you not fraudulent?
Which one should come first, local government autonomy or resource control?
I am even saying that it is an act of illiteracy to talk about local government autonomy in a federal system of government. That is the crux of the matter. Many of us don’t read again and that is why they just push anything to us. You cannot talk about local government autonomy in a federal system. Even the law you bandy as the 1999 Constitution (as amended) does not give any local government any autonomy. It is true that the Section 7 of the Constitution guarantees the existence of the local government, but that is also a misnomer. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo started it with the 1979 Constitution and the Local Government Reform of 1976.
So, you cannot have an autonomous local government and you have a state. You write the names of the local government areas in the constitution. Where is it done other this Banana Republic? And some are now saying Tinubu has given us local government autonomy. The Supreme Court did not say so.
What then is the stance of the Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court says the allocations accruable to all the 774 local government areas must be paid direct to their accounts, now that it has been established that the state governors abuse the joint account that the state and local operate. That is all. We allocate money; nobody is generating resources. We just share and it is oil resources and VAT. There are many states up North that don’t generate One Naira, yet the share; they break beer bottles but they share money from VAT. They don’t allow brothels, yet they share money from VAT. They don’t sell pigs, the farms that operate pay VAT, pay taxes and you share from it. The cattle that they rear, nobody takes One Kobo from it; it is taken to an informal market, yet they are the major cause of problems in this country. You move about; your activities have been destructive.
Anybody that is talking about local government autonomy in a federal system of government is either an illiterate or a mischievous person or both. You cannot be talking about autonomy and don’t talk about resource control. If you really want the local government to be truly autonomous, release their resources and let them pay royal taxes to the centre, as it used to be in our First Republic here. Here in the West, we were in charge of our cocoa; the North was in charge of cotton and groundnut; the East was in charge of palm oil, rubber.
Resource control is key when you are talking about federalism, either in a regional or federal system of government. You cannot just be creating states. And how is it your business if a state chooses to have 70 local governments? The idea to have local governments must come from the state. Even the law recognizes the right of the state to regulate local government. The House of Assembly is given the right to regulate the affairs of the local government. So, why are now behaving like a busy-body?
We have been dealing with the issue of certificate scandals in public offices since 1999 and it is still very much alive. How and when can this monster be stopped?
You see, I will want us to trace it back a bit. During the colonial era, social mobility was informed by certification. Most of the early elites were those who went to the Church who had one or two things to do with the missionaries and the colonial administrators. They were either interpreters or catechists in the churches, etc. every other person wants to have a bite and so the issue of training your children to participate in the goodies became the order of the day. There was this rural-urban drift. Many people left the villages, and even those in the villages started sending their children to school.
But not many people adverted their minds to the fact that the quality of education given to our people in the New World is of more importance than the certification itself. The certificate was perceived as a meal ticket. When you commoditise values, you reduce a certificate to a meal ticket. When the certificate is not an evidence of capacity; it is evidence of what you can do to address the problems facing a particular society. After all, education is not just about acquisition of certificates; it is about being trained to address the challenges posed by our natural environment. And the extent to which you are able to interact with our natural environment shows how educated we are. Education is not just about abstraction.
But in Nigeria, starting from the colonial era, the mindset of the missionaries was to train those who will be able to assist them in evangelism. The rest is for exploitation. Then the colonial administrators came and they also wanted clerks; they wanted middle-cadre workers- those who even be used against their own people. That was why they didn’t bother to establish Department of Engineering and the rest, they allowed technical works so that they can have people who will be able to help them to join wire, remove and fix car batteries, repair train tracks and stuffs like that. They didn’t expect us to move beyond that.
But even at that, our own people entered this rat race and went to outdo one another when we are talking about peoples now brought together by colonial fiat. Our brothers from across the Niger brought in so many people into Lagos and the South-West, towards the sea. 10 members of the same family could use one certificate. That was how it started; you have one John Okafor and then Okafor John. One person will sit for the certificate and if a man died, the certificate was not dead. The certificate was transferable during the colonial era.
It was only in the South-West (and I am not saying this because I am a Yoruba), after the Universal Basic Education was launched in 1955 and the vigorous campaign started. Then, vocational centres sprang, and we now had semblance of proper training. Then, our people- those in government- felt we didn’t have the capacity to train real engineers, were sent abroad. They came back and started working in the Public Works Department and so on. So, our environment was evolving before the January 1966 coup.
So, coming back to this issue of certificate scandals, our society ha been made to believe that, unless you possess a certificate, you are useless. It is now that it is changing, unless you are a member of the NURTW or you are a politician. What we were taught, the curriculum does not matter to us; it is just that paper. That is why we have been have this issue and we will continue to have it for as long as we believe that values can be commoditised and you reduced your certificate to meal ticket; and not evidence of capacity.
But if anybody walks to you and ask, what qualification do you have? I am sure that you can boldly tender your certificates as your evidence. How about these people in power creating controversies about their own?
I am going to anchor. I know where you are going to. Now, you find our children looking for miracle centres; you find even schools encouraging teachers to teach students during exams so that enrolment will shoot up. It is like that all over. I just read a piece, purportedly released by ASUU warning parents not to send their children to schools where they will make A1 in Mathematic but will not be able to solve simple factorization or simple Arithmetic. That is to show you that we have lost everything.
But it is highly reprehensible that you have public servants who will claim to have what they don’t have. There are no two ways about this; we should not pretend that we have not really gotten to the bottom of decadence. It starts long time ago, but the brazenness and audacity with which these people now do it, starting with this Fourth Republic. Salisu Buhari came in 1999 and became the Speaker of the House of Representatives. It was even his age that was the issue. A particular member of the House said he new when the father married his mother and that the father was his friend. The man initially silent and he was guilty of moral cowardice. It was when the matter broke out that he started talking. Salisu did his own and he was forced to resign; he not prosecuted. He begged and he became a hero.
Then we have the issue of Evan Enwerem, Evans Enwerem. That one came and left. The man still parades himself as a former Senate President and as an elder statesman. He talks about how to rescue Nigeria. So, we have had allegations upon allegations. It points to the moral decadence in our society. You cannot run away from it.
The most recent one and very pathetic; I don’t want to talk about the one concerning the president and the Chicago issue because if he was able to work with Mobil and he became the Treasurer, let us give it to him that, at least, he has some modicum of intelligence. But in his cabinet, a young man claimed to have graduated from the University of Nigeria Nzukka (UNN) and that he served. This young man was screened by the SSS and also screened by the Senate to become a minister, representing Abia State. This guy was accused of forging, not only the university degree but also his NYSC certificate. In this country, a woman, Kemi Adeosun, resigned because she was accused of forging a certificate that she did not even need. That is to tell you how entrenched this moral decadence that we are talking about. But this particular man became a minister with two forged certificates. When the news broke, he was accusing his political detractors and opponents. UNN came out to say he did not graduate from there and they deposed to an affidavit. But he was still arguing, believing that he could bribe a professor or the other. To cut a long story, our Minister of Science and Technology forged two certificates. The tragedy of this whole thing is that this guy has walked off. They just told him to resign and he left; he is freer that you and I because nothing says that he was never a minister; his CV will show that he was a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. That is not fair enough.
Before him, there was the case of Betta Edu. She was accused of fraud. She simply collected money and went away with it. Nobody is saying anything about her. This impunity in this country is reinforced by the silence of the authorities and the buck stops at the desk of the president.
You recently, in a video, challenged the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, to show to the public whatever certificate he is laying claim to. How far has it been?
Well, I am not particularly interested in bringing anybody down. I must say that. But I am for accountability and probity. I have been reading some reports on this certificate issue concerning him. When I was in Ondo State, I never met him for once. He was in the House of Representatives while I was with the Ondo State Government; up till now, I have not met him in person. He was in the news before the certificate issue before the certificate issue broke, and for something positive. He was receiving commendations from Nigerians, both at home and in the Diaspora, over how he had transformed the issuance of International Passport.
But I got worried that that should not be sufficient for him to keep quiet after being accused of not having what he claimed to have. If you watch my video, I did not condemn him; I did not even say he didn’t have the certificate. All I said was that he should come out with what he claimed to have; that he should not keep quiet and that silence is not golden. You can keep quiet as a private person, but as my minister, he cannot. I made mention of NIN. Internal security is right on his table; he controls the Prisons, Fire Service, Immigration and the Civil Defence, as well as all our borders. The NIN thing that NIMC warehouses is under the Ministry of Interior; it is one of the agencies that he must monitor.
So, if you are given the responsibility to monitor us, to know everything about us; about our movement; when we move out, when we move in; what we do, what we claim to be; if you can interface with foreign agencies on us, on what we claim to be; if any expatriate coming into this country needs you to stay or to do anything; if we, as Nigerians, need you as our gate-keeper who will not allow any undesirable element to come in, you must be above board. That is my point; that is the issue I am making. Whatever you claim to have, within five minutes you should be able to present them.
I went as far as saying that I have five degrees. I didn’t have a School Certificate but I have GCE ‘O’ Level and that there is nothing to be ashamed off by one’s past. The fact that you have been able to gain some prominence in the polity; that people now know you as the Minister of Interior and as somebody who has done very well in the House of Representatives and now a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I think he has achieved so much as a young man at 43 or thereabout. That was why I came out.
Many people, including journalists have been asking me questions, but I told them that I did not come out to play any useless politics. Some politicians actually wanted to cash in on that issue. Those who have not called me in two years since I left Akure started calling. Those who were abusing me when I was there, calling me Babalawo Aketi and saying I am a non-indigene of Ondo State suddenly saw a person they want to destroy and they felt they can use me. They wanted me to help me to destroy a young man who has not offended me in any way. They failed to see the enormity of the accusation that the Minister of Interior does not have certificate. I saw through the façade of their calls. I pick the call of one of them and I lambasted him.
