The Nation Newspaper

Author: The Nation

  • Another note on restructuring

    Another note on restructuring

    THE underlying problem with the structure of Nigeria is that of perspective, a pervasive and destructive perspective which has now become engrained in our national DNA and is being handed down from one generation to the next without any reflection on its usefulness. Indeed, there is nothing useful about it but try telling that to any Nigerian and you will soon find out that you are barking up the wrong tree.

    The late President John Kennedy gained instant fame when in his inaugural address to the American people he demanded that Americans should ask what they can do for their country rather ask what their country can do for them. That admonition may well be put to any generation of Nigerians since independence and the response would have been loud and scornful laughter because we have been brought up with the conviction that we have no responsibility towards the state, rather it is the state that has been saddled with the responsibility of taking care of our every need. I have attended a number of university inaugural lectures in my time and one necessary portion of every lecture contained an appeal to government to take care of some special need in the manner of children presenting a list of their wants,  couched in the form of urgent  needs to their long suffering father. After all, he was the one who took the trouble to engineer their birth. To tell the truth, this portion of inaugural lectures always rubbed me the wrong way round so that when I had the privilege of delivering an inaugural lecture myself, I was careful not to make any demands on government and must have caught a lot of people unawares when I wound up my lecture without any reference to an unsighted government which in all probability was in any case, incapable of hearing anything.

    It is clear to me that nobody is born with the desire to take everything to the government in prayer and it is not clear at what time in their lives that the average Nigerian develops this destructive dependence on the state. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that it all started in the period just before independence when our politicians, in trying to win electoral support began to throw public funds into private pockets with promises to provide a package of state sponsored welfare items to enrich the people whoever they may be and wherever they were to be found. Such recklessness defined that time in many countries all over the world. In the period immediately after World War II, people who had somehow survived that murderous conflict were convinced that they deserved to be paid some substantial reward for their loyalty to their respective countries in the form of enhanced welfare. In Britain, the Atlee Labour government founded the NHS to provide free medical service to every Briton at the point of delivery and nationalised several key companies so that the services provided could be made more people friendly than before. Over in the USA, the welfare bug did not bite very deep but even there, the face of capitalism began develop incipient laughter lines as for example, the GI Bill of rights gave veterans the opportunity to attend university without paying a dime in tuition fees personal insurance and help with decent housing. At the same time, social security arrangements were enlarged to cater for needs of a substantial number of people. Kennedy, for all his Democratic Party sympathies was no doubt alarmed by the cost of these services to the government which is why he appealed to his compatriots to think more of what they could and indeed should do for their country rather than ask the country to do things for them.

    In Nigeria the state was just beginning to come into her own and the urge to put the best foot forward was very strong. Not surprisingly, the decision was taken that to accelerate the development of the state, it was necessary to put the resources of the state at the disposal of her citizens. Just at the time Americans were beginning to worry about the rising cost of whatever the government was doing for her citizens, the various governments in Nigeria were asking the people to come forward to claim the reward of citizenship. The size of the unwieldy welfare system began to grow and as it did, the expectation from the citizenry increased until the government began to look as if it did not exist beyond her obligations to the people of Nigeria. This being the case, the citizens began to look up to government to give and continue to give.

    Given the situation on ground, it became clear that for any particular individual to get his share, he has to be as close to the government, any government as he could possibly get. The Federal government from which all blessings flowed was deemed to be too far from most individuals and in any case, the competition was so fierce at that level that only inveterate gamblers would knowingly leap into that pool. It was no doubt more profitable to jump on the band wagon of a conveniently placed State government from where the low lying fruits which were to be found in some profusion on local trees could be plucked and devoured. Our unreflective elites, having worked out this simple strategy proceeded to lobby for the creation of states in every part of the country and because there is really no obviously sensible reason for the creation of a particular state, there was nothing stopping the agitation for even more states and so, from the clamour for no more than six states; three of them in the South and the other three in the North, we were suddenly given twelve states which over the years grew steadily to thirty-six states, each of them with a governor and the whole paraphernalia of a State, complete with a first lady or two, the obligatory radio and television stations and these days, two or more universities where the available facilities on ground beg the question of their relevance. Apart from Lagos and one or two other states, these governing units are spectacularly incapable of running a functional economy and depend on hand-outs from the Federal government in order to be able to carry on the pretence of catering to the needs of the people who clamoured so vociferously for the creation of the State in the first place. And yet, the states are not the unmitigated failure as one would have expected, at least by taking stock of their miniscule achievements.

    The main reason why states have been so popular is that they allow certain portions of the country to have a share of the country’s resources. The reasoning behind state creation is that these units bring government close to the people. One of the first things that happens as soon as a state is created is that all the major roads, and usually there are not many of them in the new capital are given a coating of tar and some buildings are rented at exorbitant rates from the privileged indigenes of the state so that the brand new civil service of the state can be accommodated and this is one of the immediate benefits of the new state. In a few months the two most prominent streets in the capital are broadened by a few yards and a row of street lights are planted in the middle of the road which on the basis of this is instantly converted into a double carriage road. The lights work for only a few months but remain as constant reminders of the new status of the town, at least for as long as there is sunlight by which they can be seen. The people navigate their way at night by feel or through stored memories.

    The states, like their newly acquired street lights are not really expected to be very useful beyond bringing the share of the national cake to some obscure corner of the country. The current structure of the country is therefore a means of bringing money from the centre to as many places on the periphery as possible. Most of the states contribute nothing to the national economy and those that do, do so purely by accident. I am talking in this case about those states in the Niger delta from where crude oil is extracted, at one time only through the expertise of foreign companies who owe no allegiance to anyone in Nigerian since their shareholders live far away from the unfortunate areas which are repeatedly raped and rendered unfit for human habitation. In spite of this, the indigenes of various states are working assiduously in the field of oil exploration so that those respective states are numbered among the ‘fortunate’ oil producing states which enjoy the dubious benefits of derivation payments, a lot of which disappears into the pockets of those who lobbied for the creation of those states in the first place, leaving very little, if anything in the tattered pockets of those who bear the oily burden of prospecting for crude oil. I wonder what will happen to oil production exceptionalism when virtually all states would have discovered oil in varying degrees of magnitude on their premises.

    Those clamouring for the restructuring of Nigeria know, or at least should know, that whatever structure that they come up with will be spectacularly irrelevant in next to no time just as the twelve state structure did not survive for more than a few years even though that structure went far beyond the expectation of state creation warriors when it was unveiled. The question that is begging to be asked concerns what would happen to the existing states when we would have created a new structure. People have suggested that the country should be parcelled into six geographical zones and many would recognise the six zones as being three from the North and the same number from the South.  That sounds not only fair but reasonable. In the event that the six zones come into existence however, what would happen to all those thirty-six states with all their gubernatorial entitlements? Are we ever likely to see the pre-eminence of Ibadan, Kaduna and Enugu ever again at the expense of Osogbo, Asaba, Jalingo and Yenagoa to name some of the recently promoted capital cities?

    The structure of Nigeria as it is now stands for nothing because there is neither rhyme nor reason to the existence of most of the states which make up the Federation. Creating so many states has not solved any of the myriad problems plaguing Nigeria for the simple reason that the force behind the creation of those states is for no reason other than to be a conduit pipe for the movement of money to the periphery from the centre. The states are therefore not economic or even reasonable social entities and tinkering with them in the hope of creating a prosperous and harmonious nation sits squarely in the realm of delusion. Nigeria will only be restructured profitably when we curb our appetite for squabbling over unfair shares in a feast that we did not and are not ready to prepare.

  • Avoidable Naira swap crisis

    Avoidable Naira swap crisis

    When I shared a post on my Facebook timeline last Wednesday, it was meant to express my frustrations and that of many other Nigerians, especially those who don’t live in the cities and are finding it more difficult to cope with the challenges of getting Naira to spend.

    In my post, I stated that the currency crisis we are experiencing was avoidable. “Avoidable Naira problem. Did we have to redesign our currency and withdraw the old one when the CBN does not have the capacity to meet the demand for new notes? My people call it Afowofa (self-inflicted problem)”

    Instead of accusing anyone of being responsible for the problem, I choose to note the inability of the institution responsible for providing the currency, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to meet the demands that have resulted in Nigerians buying our currency and not the foreign ones at very explorative rates.

    A colleague, for whatever reason, was so angry that he accused me of blaming the Governor of the CBN Godwin Emefiele (though I didn’t mention his name) instead of President Muhammad Buhari.

    “How you can ascribe what is happening with the Naira scarcity and absolve Buhari is something I did not expect to hear from you. That Emefiele can single-handedly print new Naira notes, hoard them, inflict this hardship on Nigeria and disobey the Supreme Court no matter how absurd the ruling might be is an unbelievable assertion. I cannot understand what all of you are up to with this kind of thinking,” he stated in a shocking response that made me wonder what was responsible for his unnecessary attack on my person.

    Even when I bottled my anger and simply asked “How did I absolve Buhari? I didn’t even mention Emefiele,” he still had a pun-intended response.

    “Alright. You only mentioned CBN.  Maybe, I mistakenly inferred that Emefiele has something to do with CBN. My unreserved apologies.”

    I have no doubt that he had a good point about the CBN Governor not acting without the approval of the President, but he didn’t have to make it seem Emefiele was simply doing the President’s bidding alone on the matter. The President can be blamed for approving and supporting the ill-timed policy, but who came up with the idea in the first place and who has been defending it with all kinds of explanations that do not make any sense to the average Nigerian, who based on the CBN directive deposited their old notes and can’t get the new one to spend?

    Who should be blamed for not envisaging the shortfall we are experiencing due to the alleged roles of banks and some influential persons mopping up what CBN claimed to have supplied? Why did the CBN underestimate the hitches that have come up with the Naira swap and are now trading blame with banks?

    Nigerians are not interested in the long story about the avoidable crisis which the government and the CBN forced on them, they want the money they have deposited in banks.

    I deliberately did not mention Emefiele’s name in my post because individuals who head any institution are not supposed to be bigger than their agencies. They are supposed to take decisions after careful deliberations on policies they want to implement.

    Their policies will have several implications on the citizens, like the currency swap is not supposed to be the brainwave of just one person, but a carefully thought out one with how to implement it by the top management.

    President Buhari has owned up to approving the currency redesign in his broadcast, but who or which institution sold the idea to him?

    What was he told about the preparations for the implementation? Who is assuring him, typically, that all is well and the situation is under control when some Nigerians have to stay overnight in banks to collect sometimes as low as N3000 from the ATM when they are lucky to find one dispensing cash?

    There is so much tension in the country over the scarcity of the naira and even other normal banking transactions have been disrupted when necessary steps should have been taken to ensure a seamless swap of the currency within a reasonable time.

    Long after leaving office, Buhari’s tenure will not be forgotten for his deeds and misdeeds, the names of officials who aided the shoddy implementation of policies that put Nigerians through unnecessary hassles, as the naira swap, will also be top in the book of remembrance.

  • Nigeria as a republic of the future

    Nigeria as a republic of the future

    I have deliberately crafted the topic of this piece to link the status of the Nigerian state as a republic to the aspirational desire, embodied within the forthcoming election, of transforming the fortune of the country through a decidedly ideological willpower that aligns the future to a vision of Nigeria. When the electorates go to the poll in all democratic context, that act is symbolic of a desire and yearning to keep drawing the state closer to an ideal. And that is done either through the removal of a leadership that seemed to have fractured that vision or through the election of another who the electorate believed could facilitate the transformation that takes the state closer to an idea of utopia. Abraham Lincoln had something fundamental in mind when he insisted that “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” And I think William Shakespeare fathomed what that meant when he made Cassius to utter, in Julius Caesar, that “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” Cassius juxtapose fate and human character and will power to make whatever one wills to happen.

    The historical evolution, developmental trajectory and future possibilities of the Nigerian state are not in our stars (which is evidently divinely enabled in more than equal measure), but in our determination to transform the limitations and resources of the state into a policy architecture, national value capital and productivity framework that make life worth living for Nigerians. And since independence, Nigeria, through its consecutive governments, have been reaching for that ideal of a developmental state that is capable and efficient, without ever achieving it. I am not sure if the situation of ancient Athens was worse or not, as historical comparisons have their limitations and utility. However, we have the evidence that the democratic experiment had decayed so badly in Athens that the leadership no longer saw the significance of a critical citizenry in what Socrates and his interlocution meant to achieve. Socrates had to die for tyranny to keep reigning.

    In 1963, Nigeria became a republic. Over the cause of its conceptual trajectory, the meaning of the republic has shifted, first, from any government defined around the idea of the common good, to a form of government where the leadership is procedurally elected according to constitutional imperatives. This differentiates a republic from a hereditary monarchy. In contemporary times, a republic is a democratic government where sovereignty lies with the people who then govern through their representatives. It is in this sense that Nigeria declared herself a republic to claim the possibility of translating the wish of Nigerians into a solid policy architecture that produces tangible development results. From the first republic to the fourth, the Nigerian governments have been straining at the governance and development equation without much significant successes.

    Three out of the four republican experiments were taken over by military rule. The experimentation with democratic governance began all over again in 1999, and so far, it has been turbulent as all Nigerians know.

    When Plato, the Greek philosopher, began writing his magnus opus, Republic, it was a work motivated by disillusionment and hope in equal measure. Socrates, his teacher, had been killed and the democratic experiment was in freefall. The death of Socrates, for Plato, was the final death knell about the corrupt tendencies of democracy. So, if democracy could preside over the unjust killing of someone like Socrates, Plato argued, there is then a need for another government, an ideal one, that will take justice seriously. And so, Plato began crafting the contours of an ideal society that has the capacity to facilitate the good life through good politics. Plato’s Republic is a fundamental act of reformist social re-engineering. From the guardians who have the reflective capacity, in the mold of the philosophical king, to the educational system that generates them and others, who properly situated, according to the law of justice to render service, transforms the Republic to become the site of good governance.

    T. S. Eliot was perceptive when he insisted that “There is no absolute point of view from which real and ideal can be finally separated and labelled.” The real and the ideal are coterminous. We move to the ideal from the perspective of the real. Or, what is the same thing: the ideal is what enables the strategic re-construction of the real. This is what gave birth to Plato’s Republic. And if we contend that Plato wrote about a utopia, then we can counter that it is the vision of the utopia that precede the emergence of the real. The House of Maktoum saw Dubai from the lofty core of a vision. Even the name of the city, from the Arab proverb, “daba dubai”, speaks about the influx of money. And consistently for many decades, this vision passed through the strategic and focused policymaking architecture of this family until Dubai arrived as a site of governance wonder out of the shape of a mere village.

    The Nigerian republic was equally preceded by several visions. As part of the founding negotiators of the Nigerian state, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was equipped with both the historical, political and philosophical sagacity to assess and reflect on the past and future of the Nigerian state. This is what he did in The People’s Republic. It is a serious and strategic act of vision that locates Nigeria’s present in a critical assessment of her colonial past, and envisioned a vision that subordinates Nigeria’s greatness to upholding the social contract in a true service to Nigerians. For Awolowo, the Nigerian constitution constitutes the institutional framework for reconstructing the Nigerian state. It is the constitution that outlines the framework for ordering a good society. The constitution encodes the blueprint by which the leadership desires, through policy initiatives, to keep rearticulating the direction of a state. The anomalies that Awolowo saw in the first instantiation of the Nigerian republic has become aggravated over the next three instantiations. Even the democratic experiment has not been able to erase the deep ethnonational and institutional cleavage that make divisiveness and underdevelopment possible.

    This, perhaps, demonstrates the essential basis for restructuring the Nigerian state. Unlike the vast desert of the Dubai, Nigeria began life as an amalgamated territory. With independence, the plurality that defines Nigeria, as a mere geographical expression, rather than be federalized to facilitate the belongingness of the diverse constituents, was through bad policy unitarized into a centralized entity supposedly operating a federal constitution. This constitutional lopsidedness has been the source of many institutional and governance aberrations. Nigeria’s monocultural economy, for instance, draws strength from crude oil to centralize Nigeria’s wealth and kill regional innovation and initiatives. It swallowed the cocoa plantations of the southwest, the groundnut pyramids of the north and the coal industries of the east. Restructuring the federation simply means making it more constitutionally possible to allow for the comparative advantages of each geopolitical zone to manifest in advancing the governance possibilities of Nigeria. Even more critical to the constitutional restructuring is the need to empower local governance into a developmental mode. Within the unitary dynamic of Nigeria’s federal constitution, the local governments have become comatose in developmental terms. As is, no local government can supervise grassroots governance in Nigeria. It is that bad. The exclusive and concurrent lists of the constitution have emasculated the residual list and taken the developmental and democratic initiatives out of the reach of the local governments. The exclusive list contains sixty-eight items.

    The concurrent list, powers shared by the federal and state governments, further decimate the capacity of the local governments. Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones could facilitate regional governance and development corridors that could become the strategic component of a reconstructed and diversified economy, complemented by crude oil. And no incoming leadership should be deceived that local governance sustained by the principle of subsidiarity can be exempted from such vision of a constitutional re- engineering. The grassroots are where a large swarth of Nigerians want to participate in democratic dynamics, as well as contributing to the economic growth of this country. It is where the social contract can factor them into good governance, especially through the many traditional institutions (like the traditional chieftaincy), local frameworks (like the thrift societies), and local governance arrangements (like the Optimum Community approach—OPTICOM—recommended by the late Professors Ojetunji Aboyade and Akin Mabogunje).

    From Plato’s Republic to Awolowo’s The People’s Republic, the fascination of the ideal for building a great nation cannot be underestimated. A nation is constituted by the visioneering of the ideal by the leadership, and concerted efforts of all others, including the people, within the change space where good governance is concocted in tune with democratic aspirations and developmental objectives. The excuse of anyone that will take on the task of re-engineering the Nigerian state cannot be that of being bereft of ideas and frameworks of the ideal. What Nigeria can and should be is very clear. What is lacking is the administration and leadership acumen, backed by a transformational political willpower, that will translate the visions of the ideals and the appropriate ideological framework into institutional forms that can then deliver good and services, as well as infrastructural miracles, to Nigerians.

    •Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary &Professor of Public Administration tolaopa2003@gmail.com

  • Nothing has changed

    Nothing has changed

    • Nigerians remain cashless nine days after Council of State meeting, and three days after presidential address

    Still on our wobbling and fumbling Naira redesign tragedy. I was somewhat fascinated by what thecable.ng quoted Femi Adesina, special adviser, media and publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, as what former President Olusegun Obasanjo said during the Council of State meeting on the matter on February 10.  Chief Obasanjo’s position is worthy of attention because the Buhari administration has always taken on the former president whenever he expressed his usual candid opinion on some of the government’s policies.

    One thing you cannot take away from Obasanjo is the fact that he does things the way they seem to him. He has had cause to criticise the Buhari government several times, like any rational human being. Whereas where we were as a country before the currency redesign made that imperative, our situation today, barely three months to the exit of the administration, makes it even more so. That there is no love lost between Obasanjo and the Buhari government is public knowledge.

    But the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Buhari government conveniently forgot that the same Obasanjo openly tore his membership card of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) when he was fed up with the stench that became the defining characteristic of the then Goodluck Jonathan administration. Lest we forget, PDP is not just Obasanjo’s political party, it was the party that fetched him the presidency in 1999. At the time the man tore his membership card of such a party in the open, it was sweet music in the ears of the APC-in-the-waiting government then. But the Buhari government seems not to reckon with the wise saying that a man who tramples on his own clothes would not mind tearing someone else’s (eni to te aso ara e mole, o le ya teni eleni). If it ever did, it would not have had the guts to criticise Obasanjo whenever he says the present government is not doing well. And is it?

    It is the same way that the government took on Transparency International in our current corruption rating. As this paper said in an editorial on this aspect, such attacks should not be the right mindset. It is true the government has succeeded in jailing some politically exposed persons and what have you, the point remains that a lot still needs to be done on anti-corruption. If the war had succeeded, banks would not be messing up the currency redesign, at least that is the claim by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele.

    Against this background of the Buhari government/Obasanjo cold relations, therefore, whatever made the government to single out Obasanjo’s comment from the lot must be worth interrogating, especially if the headline actually reflected the story: “Femi Adesina: Obasanjo commends Buhari on Naira redesign, says ‘resistance to change is normal’. Adesina did not cast the headline. I guess those who did must have done that for attention-getting purposes. And I must confess I am one of those that the headline compelled to read the story. Has Baba been bought over? I must equally confess that after reading the story and some of the quotes, I was not disappointed. Baba still dey kampe!

    “Change was necessary from time to time, and resistance to change is normal”, Adesina reportedly said, in Obasanjo’s words. This is true. As a matter of fact, Adesina said Obasanjo cited the raising of feeding fee in the universities in his time as military dictator in the 1970s, leading to violent protests in the country as an example. Although I have always disagreed with this decision, I leave my reservation on that to another day.

    For me, the most important thing, that is, what I see as takeaway from Obasanjo on the matter of Naira redesign at the council’s meeting was “The Naira change is good, but implementation is the issue. If there’s inadequate supply, let’s have more. If there are unscrupulous people sabotaging the policy, let’s deal with them.”

    That is Obasanjo for you.

    It could not have been better said. And this is what many of us who are not politicians are saying. As a matter of fact, this was my position in my very first article on this matter. I have no problem with the government aspiring to stop voter-inducement. I have no problem with the government redesigning currency if it is convinced it would reduce kidnapping or lead to strengthening of our currency. But I have a problem with the implementation of what seemed a policy that was not well thought-out, hence the various problems the ordinary Nigerian has been going through since its implementation began.

    Unfortunately, it seems the government is only interested in listening to itself by ramming down the policy in spite of the huge cost to the economy and the country at large.

    As a matter of fact, the desperation to continue on this seemingly wicked route is making more people to begin to believe that the policy was designed to achieve some ulterior political motives rather than the reasons the government put forward for introducing it. If for instance, you say you want to stop politicians from buying votes, is it across board or a selective matter? Even for me, the selective nature of the policy is becoming apparent. What I may not tell for sure now is whether President Buhari is part of the plot or he is just working on the ostensible benefits of the redesign as sold to him by the CBN and the cabal in his government. Again, if the intention is also about checking the influence of money in politics, I do not think it is working because of the mammoth crowds at political campaigns, especially those of the major parties. I guess the government believes such crowds can only be procured. In that case, where did the parties get the money to procure such crowds, in view of the noose-tightening on the banks and the economy generally?

    If there are no other motives behind the ones advertised, the government should have gone beyond what it has done to assuage the pains of Nigerians. What we have been going through in the past few weeks of the redesign is worse than what we suffered during the Coronavirus pandemic. At least COVID-19 was a global experience which seemed to be beyond human comprehension until man was able to get the vaccine to combat it. What makes the Emefiele experience worse is the fact that it makes it impossible for Nigerians to access their bank accounts. Since my secondary school days, I had been taught in the Economics class that money confers liquidity on its owner. As in most things typically Nigerian, that popular belief was demystified by Emefiele. We have a situation where money has failed woefully in this regard. Both the hardworking and the indolent in Nigeria are now suffering the same fate. Not for one week, not two, not three. Nigerians who never begged their entire lives, no matter what, suddenly became beggars overninght.

    And in the midst of the untold sufferings, the government is asking people to bear with it without any concrete solution in sight. Today, Nigerians are still refugees in the banks where they have their hard-earned money. So, of what use was the meeting of the Council of State, if nine days after their resolution, things have largely remained the same? Nigerians are still awaiting Emefiele’s elusive cash; even the N200 notes that the president magnanimously approved are nowhere to be found. Emefiele says it is temporary pain. In Nigeria, no pain is temporary. It is only enjoyment that is temporary. If many public policies brought enjoyment to Nigerians, then there must have been a mistake somewhere.

    At any rate, can Emefiele face those who have lost their loved ones during this avoidable crisis and tell them that their loss is temporary? Would that sermon have made sense to Emefiele and his co-travellers (who have been so long in government that they don’t know what those outside are going through), if they were the ones that lost their sons or daughters or other loved ones, either directly from the bullets of security men unleashed to protect the evil agenda, or indirectly through the pangs of hunger or inability to access own money for emergency medical attention?

    Yet, it doesn’t seem to me that the government is in a hurry to make cash available to Nigerians. Otherwise, banks would have opened on Saturday and yesterday as they did when they were collecting people’s cash. Perhaps there is no cash to dispense because these days, you don’t know when government is saying the ruth and when it is lying.

    Emefiele said bankers that he superintends are the ones frustrating his policy. How many bank chief executives are facing the music? Holding the small fry alone is not enough. But that is the problem with Nigeria. Instead of facing those frustrating enjoyment of subsidy by Nigerians, government believes in punishing the ordinary people for its incompetence and lack of political will to deal with the thieves. But this luck should not be overstretched so it does not become ill-luck. What is on ground now is worse than police brutality that caused EndSARS  in 2020.

    It is for the same spirit of either incompetence or lack of capacity to do the rightful that the government is now  blaming politicians for the protests that have been caused by the elusive cash. Does the government expect people who have their money trapped in banks to simply fold their arms at home and wait for death? Does it not border on sadism to be flogging someone without expecting that person to cry? As far as Nigerians who are the direct beasts of burden of this inhuman policy are concerned, the government would do better by ordering the CBN to ask the banks to serve whosoever comes for their personal money again Gamalin 20 or Sniper, so they could drink and die, instead of constituting public nuisance to the government by pouring to the streets when hunger strikes. At least that would put an everlasting end to their misery.

    And, in case it is true that there are some people in government who have other motives beyond the general elections and think they had perfected their plans, they should not lose sight of the fact that God has His own ways of destroying the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent. But those who are now pricking Nigerians with pins should first try it on themselves.

    Permit me to end this piece with the prayer or wish I had been avoiding since the crisis started: those responsible for all the plagues (I mean ALL, as in ALL) that have been visited on ordinary Nigerians in the name of this policy would also at one point or the other experience the plagues. The only saving grace is if they actually did what they are doing to make Nigeria better.

    I don’t need to tell you to shout a loud ‘Amen’ because I can hear the thunderous ‘Amen’ even from afar.

  • Presidential Poll: Pointblank!

    Presidential Poll: Pointblank!

    Constitutionally, in a presidential poll, winning a state or losing it is not the major contention. There are two prerequisites aftermath of the election to be declared a President-Elect. Firstly, the candidate, a bona fide flag bearer of a registered political party, must score the highest total votes cast in all the polling units of the country. Secondly, he must garner at least 25% of votes cast in not less than 24 out of 36 states of Nigeria … Imagine this scenario shared by an analyst: “A win in just one state out of 10 may actually cover and compensate for a loss in 9 states. How? For a candidate to be declared a winner, he must concentrate on states and districts where he could achieve great margins of victory referred to in political circles as landslides. In essence, Candidate A may win in just 10 states and be declared winner at the end of the day while candidate B who won albeit with narrow margins in 26 states, will eventually lose. If Candidate A eventually garners more than 25% of votes in over 28 states, he becomes the winner!”

    It is commonly said that a day may be too long in politics! In essence, as the days beckon to the poll of Saturday, 25th February 2023, anything is still possible. The presidential poll is less than a week by the time this publication will be in the public domain. There are lots of undercurrents of political scheming and horse trading between politicians of all political parties, especially the major ones. It is both interesting and intriguing that among these major parties, namely the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Party (APC), there are seeming incidents of inter and intra party conflicts that could marginally counter successful outcomes at the imminent poll if not checkmated! How faring or prepared are the other two seemingly major parties – the Labour Party (LP) and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP)? Talking and tinkering on spread and structure, both the LP and NNPP are not politically strong in many states and districts of the country. Presently, within Nigeria’s context, and in a presidential poll, spread and structure are very big issues: these cannot be discountenanced. There is no need to be emotional and sentimental about these regarding actual political dealings at the grassroots nearing the day, and even on the day of the poll. For instance, a party that could not boast of a registered agent in almost 70% of the polling units of the country, should stop day dreaming of winning the presidential election. It has not happened in any presidential election in Nigeria, and will not even happen in this present digital age in which most followers are so vehement and vociferous on social media but unfortunately neglect their civic responsibility on election day! If the emphasis has been on altruistic service, sacrifice and strategizing, especially months before the election, the gains of the LP on social media would have been converted to more meaningful enhancement of spread and structure. However, most of the followers were harping on their social media tantrums to whip up sentiments for their principal with the tinkering that more followers would side with their perceptions. Unfortunately, things do not work that way politically at the grassroots. As for the NNPP, the presence is more felt in Kano and possibly some few states in the north. Practically, the voice of NNPP is silenced in most south west, south east and south south states. In essence, the presidential poll will be a straight two horse race between the main opposition party, PDP, and the ruling party, APC.

    Presidential Pendulum: Deciding Factors

    Constitutionally, in a presidential poll, winning a state or losing it is not the major contention. There are two prerequisites aftermath of the election to be declared a President-Elect. Firstly, the candidate, a bona fide flag bearer of a registered political party, must score the highest total votes cast in all the polling units of the country. Secondly, he must garner at least 25% of votes cast in not less than 24 out of 36 states of Nigeria. In order for any candidate to satisfy these requirements and be declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), one core, crucial and cogent issue, is margin of victory. Simultaneously, the issue of garnering at least 25% of votes cast in at least 24 states out of the 36 states of the country comes next. Imagine this scenario shared by  an  analyst: “A win in just one state out of 10 may actually cover and compensate for a loss in 9 states. How? For a candidate to be declared a winner, he must concentrate on states and districts where he could achieve great margins of victory referred to in political circles as landslides. In essence, Candidate A may win in just 10 states and be declared winner at the end of the day while candidate B who won albeit with narrow margins in 26 states, will eventually lose. If Candidate A eventually garners more than 25% of votes in over 28 states, he becomes the winner!” I concur with this stand and stake of the analyst. Consequently, it is vital and imperative for any candidate that desires to win to concentrate on the margins and spread. As succinctly and saliently stated in the introduction of this article, the jostling for the presidency is strictly speaking a two horse race between the candidates of the APC and PDP, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar respectively.

    Pinpointing Presidential Preference

    Who wins the 25th February 2023 presidential poll?

    There are already lots of permutations, prophecies, predictions and/or postulations regarding where the presidential pendulum would swing. However, it is good to state at the outset that, 2023 elections would be decided more on preferential or primordial interests than other factors that many would think will produce the winning edge. Definitely, there is already a thin line when one looks at the political party’s basis. Moreover, regional raison d’etre to vote for a particular candidate is giving way to rational decision based on interests whilst religious lines are getting blurred due to some emerging realities, courtesy of grassroots’ politicians. This columnist is of the perception that more than any other factors, primordial, patrimonial and /or  partisan interests will give the winner an edge. These interests will be directed and dictated by political lords looming large over states and districts within Nigeria.

    For instance, in the south west ern states (Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti, Oyo and Ondo) , there is hardly any state that Tinubu will not win; same for Peter Obi in the south east ern states (Enugu, Imo, Anambra, Ebonyi and Abia) . However, in the north east, it is likely to be battle royal between the APC and PDP: this is where the Shettima’s factor comes in. Senator Kashim Shettima is the vice-presidential candidate of the ruling APC and he is from Borno State. Definitely, Borno, Gombe and Yobe will be largely won by APC while Adamawa, Bauchi and Taraba will go to PDP with possible narrow margins. Looking at the north central, it is likely Kogi, Kwara, Niger and Nasarawa states will be won with some margins by ruling APC while Benue and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) will be narrowly won by the PDP. Plateau may be a battle ground between LP, PDP and APC. In the southeastern states, it is posited that LP’s candidate ,  Peter Obi, would hold sway whilst APC’s Tinubu will win at least 25% in Enugu, Imo, and Abia: courtesy of political lords dictating pace in these parts of the country. In the same vein, the south southern states will be between LP, PDP and APC; PDP may win slightly in Edo and Delta. Surprisingly, APC may win such states as Cross River, Rivers and Bayelsa with slight margins. The explanation for this is that the PDP’s structure in Cross River and Rivers states is aligning with APC’s winning courtesy of Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State whilst Bayelsa has shifted from being a PDP stronghold. Finally, the north western states of Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara, the APC will hold sway in virtually all the states. Nevertheless, the margin of winning will be seemingly slight in Kano and Sokoto. Simply and squarely stated: the votes of Kano State will be shared between APC and NNPP (the flag bearer of the party, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, comes from here), whilst Sokoto’s PDP that should supposedly hold sway is in tatters with a tingle of defections occurring almost on weekly basis to the rival main opposition in the state, the APC. The man in the saddle in the state, Governor Aminu Tambuwal, has not been able to stem the gale of defections and disaffection with his party, the PDP, in Sokoto State.

    Conclusively, it is the surmise and submission of this columnist that as things stand today within the political context of Nigeria, and with less than one week to the presidential poll, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is poised, posited or postulated to win with majority votes cast in all the 36 states and FCT whilst also satisfying the constitutional condition of garnering a minimum of 25% votes cast in not less than 24 states. It is amazing to virtually most observers and analysts that despite his rumoured ill health, Tinubu’s campaigns have revved up whilst that of his opponents have been downscaled! Regardless of the twin sadistic milieu occasioned by the fuel and Naira-redesign conundrum, with the apparent clandestine and mischievous intentions of the fifth columnists within the corridors of power, as succinctly and saliently stated by the Presidential Campaign Committee (PCC) of the APC, these irredentists, obsessed with the apparent objective of causing possible anarchy in the land that will surreptitiously lead to calling off the polls, have missed the target. It is a truism that most Nigerians desire that the polls go on as scheduled. Head or tail, Tinubu, the seeming stormy petrel of Nigeria’s political landscape is still the enigmatic man to beat!! Followers are flowing and following along with keen interest. Hence, courageous and exemplary followers who are registered voters must troop out on Saturday 25th February, 2023 to vote, and  so  make their voices vehement and vociferous! Enough of being noisy on social media;  it is high time to showcase  those  seeming online outbursts by voting on election day as responsible and sensible citizens!!

    Ekundayo, Ph.D. – can be reached via +2348030598267 (WhatsApp only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com

  • Naira scarcity: Businesses count losses in billions

    Naira scarcity: Businesses count losses in billions

    As the scarcity of the newly redesigned naira persists, businesses across the country which have continued to suffer low patronage and lull generally as a result of the new policy regime by the Central Bank of Nigeria are counting losses in billions, reports Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf

    As Nigerians across all walks of life continue to groan over the naira scarcity crisis, businesses are also counting their losses in billions, The Nation can authoritatively report.

    From small business owners, especially those within the informal sector, the new naira swap policy and its attendant challenges have had a rippled negative effect on their economic activities in the past weeks.

    From available information, the new Naira policy has caused immeasurable misery for Nigerians, hampering businesses, financial transactions and other daily activities.

    It may be recalled that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had last October announced a new Naira policy that will see the N200, N500, and N1000 notes redesigned and replaced with new ones. The old notes were expected to cease to be legal tender on January 31, 2023.

    But few days to the expiration of the deadline, the CBN announced a 10-day extension until February 10, 2023.

    However, before the expiration of the initial deadline, Nigerians have been finding it hard to access cash, either new or old Naira notes. The outrage that greeted the situation led to the extension and elicited a promise from the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) to resolve the challenges with the cash within seven days.

    Also, the state governments of Kogi, Kaduna, and Zamfara prayed the Supreme Court to halt the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Naira redesign policy. A seven-man panel of the Supreme Court led by Justice John Okoro, in a unanimous ruling, granted an interim injunction restraining the Federal Government, the Central Bank of Nigeria, and their agents and commercial banks from implementing the February 10 terminal dates for the now old N200, N500, and N1000 naira notes to stop being legal tender.

    Traders that are worst hit by the policy are those who sell perishable food items and have been throwing their goods to refuse dumps.

    Experts puncture holes on naira redesign policy

    Speaking with a cross-section of economic and financial pundits they spoke tellingly about the parlous state of the economy, which they blamed on the cashless policy being implemented by the CBN.

    Dr Solomon Vongfa, the National President of Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), who expressed concern that the Naira scarcity said it has adversely affected commercial activities in the country.

    He said that businesses of most members of the association were going down thus bringing hardship to them.

    “Also, the time limit they gave for the exchange of the money has brought untold hardship on Nigerians, people are fighting on the queue as they can’t withdraw their money.

    “It is not a pleasant thing. It has really affected a lot of people as so many businesses are down because of this situation.

    “For those who have bank accounts, you may say after the storm they will still go back to their banks and get back their money but people who depend on daily activities to run their business using cash may not survive it,’’ he said.

    Also Dr Abdulrasheed Yerima, the National President, Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME) said that the scarcity of the Naira notes has had a negative impact on the operations of SMEs in the country.

    “We cannot fend for some of our needs and at the same time most of our Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) cannot pay their staff, especially the casual workers.

    “More so, there are no banks and poor network coverage where they are operating, therefore, they cannot operate optimally.

    “Some of them don’t have accounts, especially those in the rural areas and some of them cannot afford a smartphone to enable an electronic transfer.

    “Their businesses depend on daily activities in the rural areas and they are also battling with the issue of power supply, so it is a lot of stress for them and it is affecting their businesses negatively,’’ Yerima said.

    Speaking in a monitored television programme yesterday, Dr. Muda Yusuf, the Chief Executive Officer, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise [CPPE] lamented that the trade sector, the agric sector and to some extent, the transport sector have been badly affected.

    “More importantly, the vulnerable sectors of the economy, the informal sector, which is where they do their economic activities, have suffered a lot. So the harm that has been done is enormous. So that explains all the anger, resentments.”

    Yusuf, who is the immediate past Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), observed that “One of the problems of the economy is the Means and Ways Finance which the CBN itself injects into the economy, over N22 trillion to control exchange rate stability. That is the problem. What is N22.7 trillion compared to N2.7trillion that you are now creating a problem about? So we should locate the problems where they are. It is most unfair to subject innocent citizens to the kind of pain, disruption, which the society has subjected them to in the name of pursuing a cashless policy. You don’t promote a cashless policy by sitting on peoples’ money.”

    Analysts further argued that the naira notes crisis could affect the projected easing of the country’s inflation rate for 2023.

    According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s headline inflation rate slowed for the first time in 11 months to 21.34 percent in December 2022 from 21.47 percent in the previous month.

    Also speaking on the naira scarcity crisis, Prof Jonathan Aremu, an economist who retired at the CBN as Acting Assistant Director of Research, noted that the apex bank deserves all the insults it is getting from all quarters because it went about the policy shabbily and shoddily.

    “The CBN policy with regards to the naira redesign and the attendant scarcity of the naira, to say the least, has led to serious disruptions of the economy in ways we cannot really explain. I can tell you most certainly that those impacted are the small businesses especially those involved in daily sales, transportation, farmers, and the entire food chain,” he stressed.

    “I had a personal experience too. I was out of the country and was returning to Nigeria with some people all the way from Guinea Bissau. When we got to the airport, the majority of those entering the country for the first time couldn’t change money into local currency because the money supply at the exchange units at the airport didn’t have any. For someone coming into the country for the first time that is certainly not a good experience. Would you have required the visitors to go and open a naira account before they can transact the simplest of business such as paying for a taxi, buying a soft drink and all? Imagine the kind of perception such people would have about Nigeria when they return to their country during their first business contact? That certainly is not good PR for the country.”

    Going down memory lane, Aremu recalled that there had been three circles of currency change in the country thus far.

    “The first one was in 1973. I was a primary school teacher in Niger State then. I was teaching in one of the remotest villages then. There is no issue. The CBN team even came to the villages and helped people exchange their old notes, pounds and shillings then to the naira. We just came out of the classrooms and had our money changed. In 1984, the money was also changed. I was at the CBN at the time. The new notes circulated within one week across the country. There was no problem. This time around with the benefit of improved technology everywhere I don’t see any reason why we should have any problems with changing our currency.”

    The Professor of International Economic Relations at the Covenant University (CU), Ota, Nigeria, who was unsparing of the CBN governor said, “What this has shown is lack of preparation on the part of the CBN. There was no proper due diligence analysis done before they embarked on the exercise and this is the most annoying thing. The feeble excuse by the CBN governor does not arise at all. The CBN needs to understand its position in the economy and act accordingly.”

    Investigation by The Nation further revealed that Point of Sales (PoS) vendors reportedly locked shops as they have not been able to meet up with the cash distribution quota.

    Confirming this development, the National Chief Aggregating Officer of the Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in Nigeria, Hussein Olanrewaju, said over 50% of the PoS vendors have all locked shop due to the shortage of both the new and old notes.

    Prof. Taiwo Owoeye, a Professor of Economics at Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, who took a swipe at the CBN policy on the redesigned naira note, said it smacks of poor understanding of the basic knowledge of basic economics.

    According to him, “Starving the economy of cash to reduce inflation is counter-productive. It will create a cash-crunch that will stunt the economy and inevitably cause social and economic chaos. Some of the items Mr Emefiele cited are perishable goods that will go bad if they are not sold on time at lesser prices, and with limited margin. The rest are livestock. Mr Emefiele seems to be ignorant of news items on how the prices of perishable food items are crashing in Nigeria because of the cash crunch. Farmers and traders are counting their losses.

    “If Mr Emefiele is aware of such news, he could have included tomato, pepper, onion, and the rest of his “inflation is coming down narratives”. If we follow this logic further, we may need to stop using cash all together to reduce inflation to the minimum. This is voodoo economics.”

    Raising some posers, the varsity don queried, “Do you need to close the economy, ruin the economic activities of ordinary people, and turn GDP growth rates negative to deal with politicians? The cost clearly outweighs the benefits. Policies are made to improve the welfare of the ordinary people not to make them worse off.

    However, the Director-General of the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), Adewale Oyerinde, who said the policy has good potential, noted that the implementation is poor and absolutely below par. With the challenges faced by Nigerians, he said the government was making a mockery of the monetary system.

    According to him, the economy thrives when consumer spending is enabled, while Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) thrive significantly on cash transactions.

    “Now, the economy has technically disenfranchised MSMEs because money is not available in the banks. At the OPS level, it is becoming a challenge for workers to go to work due to the cash crunch,” he said.

    Banks also count losses

    The Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions has revealed that banks have lost the sum of N5 billion across the nation, following recent attacks and destruction of bank facilities.

    The President of ASSBIFI, Oluwole Olusoji, disclosed this last Thursday at a news conference in Lagos.

    He said aside from bank buildings burnt and Automated Teller Machines destroyed, bank officials were also affected.

    Olusoji said 17 bank branches have been attacked so far.

    It will be recalled that several commercial institutions were destroyed by protesters across the country, following the scarcity of naira notes.

    Olusoji said, “Notwithstanding the insecurity due to the destruction of business premises within the banking industry, and the impact on insurance organisations, we remain committed to go the extra mile in providing service to our customers in safe and secure environments.

    “However, we value the lives of our members and colleagues and will not put them at any further risk. We have, therefore, put them on alert and shall instruct them without further warning to immediately stay away from their branches if these attacks on our members and facilities continue until such a time that they can be guaranteed of their personal safety and the security of their workplaces by the relevant authorities.

    “We call on the public to desist from threatening or attacking our members, or destroying our properties as they will be only proverbially cutting their noses to spite their faces. We can only give what we have been provided with and nothing more,” Olusoji said.

    NBS puts a lie to Emefiele’s position

    Contrary to Emefiele’s argument that the naira swap deal may have reduced inflation, indications from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that Nigeria’s inflation soared to 21.82 percent in January 2023.

    The report suggested that the soaring inflation might not be unconnected with the economic crunch across all sectors of the economy, which has been heightened by the CBN monetary policy.

    According to reports, the naira redesign exercise is causing acute banknote scarcity thereby upending financial transactions and plunging millions of Nigerians in untold hardship.

    NBS further stated that January’s inflation rate is a 0.48 percent point increase from the 21.34 per cent that was recorded in December 2022, pointing out that this is a new 17-year high after inflation fell for the first time in December 2022.

    The statistics body noted that the country’s inflation rate had been rising consistently for 11 months before December.

    In 2022, the NBS listed disruption in the supply of food products, increases in import cost due to the naira’s depreciation and a general increase in the cost of production as the cause of the rise in inflation.

    In its ‘Consumer Price Index’ for January 2023, the national statistics body said, “In January 2023, the headline inflation rate rose to 21.82 per cent compared to December 2022 headline inflation rate which was 21.34 per cent.

    “Looking at the trend, the January 2023 inflation rate showed an increase of 0.47 per cent points when compared to December 2022 inflation rate. However, on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 6.22 per cent points higher compared to the rate recorded in January 2022, which was 15.60 per cent.

    “This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in the month of January 2023 when compared to the same month in the preceding year.”

  • The salesmen

    The salesmen

    Wanderers shall never earn. They shift for profit in vain. No matter how shifty their logic, they shall not reap except the foul fruits of their labour. That is the conclusion one can draw from the new coalition between Aso Rock shadow men, LP Candidate Peter Obi and PDP’s Atiku Abubakar. They have shown where their moral mettle lies as Muhammadu Buhari instrumentalises currency policy to oppress the common folk. They have become adjectival warriors of doubtful pedigree as they say what Nigerians are suffering is “little” and “some” inconvenience. They do not the people, or they would side with the people in the face of tyranny. As Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel wrote, “the opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference.” Their indifference, while cynical, is criminal.

    If these candidates are dead from the neck up as people riot on the streets, die and pine for food and medicine, their intellectual salesmen are now out and about. Their toga of lawyerly erudition cannot pass muster as logic but as superficial and stinking like a corpse half buried in a shallow grave.

    The first salesman is one Chidi Odinkalu who says Buhari did not breach the Supreme Court order by foreclosing the circulation of N500 and N1000 bank notes. According to his ethereal wisdom, currency “cannot be legislated or brought into existence by a court.”

    Deploying circuitous syntax and clutching at straws to wriggle out of his self-imposed maze of thought, he wrestles with the idea of status quo antebellum. Hear the young sage: “The question then becomes, what was the status quo antebellum that you are trying to preserve? And this is where the laziness of the judicial system as well as the limitations of law actually come into view, because status quo antebellum actually, was the Central Bank circular on exactly when this thing should stop. I suspect this is the advise (sic) the President got, he has not breached anything.”

    Why is Odinkalu quibbling over what status quo ante was when the court specifically said the three bills of N200, 500 and 1000 should circulate ahead of its substantive ruling. He uses the phrase “I suspect” more than once on his view to show he lacks conviction.

    Suddenly, he is now wiser than the judicial system, or shall I say intellectually stronger as he cavils at “the laziness of the judicial system.” He is like his new-fangled friend Buhari who is now bigger than the law of the land. Much ego for this season. Maybe they see themselves as elephants. Buhari sees himself an elephant above the law. Odinkalu sees himself as an elephant of the law. They are now making love. The cliché says when two elephants fight, the grass suffers. As Lee kuan Yew asserted, “When two elephants make love, the grass also suffers.” These are rogue elephants swooning together in a distorted halo of sweat, saliva and blood, while the people groan.

    When did the Supreme Court legislate about the currency? The matter was brought before them, and it acted according to the constitution by interpreting and giving an order. Is he saying we did not have the currency? Maybe he is in bed with the myth of money in circulation like Emefiele who says we have money in circulation but no one sees it. He circulates ghosts of currency but we are corporeal beings. We are no spirits. We deal in what we can see and touch. We are tactile but not facile. Nobody can say there is money and we cannot see it. Unless Odinkalu wants us to believe that only Buhari and Emefiele can see. We are now blind. According to Odinkalu’s wisdom and his uncles, we the people are living in the republic of novelist Jose Saramago in which the citizens are all blind as narrated in his masterwork, Blindness.

    He also takes exception to state governors taking the federal government to court on behalf of the people. Hear the wise fellow again: “I don’t think it is proper for state governors to go around, issue orders countermanding a president on exactly the thing that a central government cannot negotiate – money and currency.” Then he adds, for emphasis: “what the governors are doing in this matter, verges on treason.” Forget his arbitrary use of comas, his argument is like thinker in a coma. Of course, he is entitled to his own coma.

    He calls himself a human rights lawyer and had the great misfortune to head a human rights agency, yet an issue that affects the majority of the people’s welfare and right to exist comes up and he bands together with a despot.

    This same fellow who has taken exception to Buhari on his issues about human rights is now a strange bedfellow because his presidential candidate is opportunistically paralysed on the lips. He and his candidate have acquired an ominous serenity as people die and rage on the streets. He would even deny governors their rights in a federal system. It is more than state’s rights. It is about the right to life. The right to earn a living. The right to survive. It trumps any other right. Rights are not created equal. The president has no right to deny anyone of their right to life.

     Lawyers like him need to go back to school and read their jurisprudence books like Law’s Empire by Ronald Dworkin and also study the roots of the African empathy that enriches our laws.

    Laws are made for men and not men for the law. This is not a matter of law alone. It is a matter of human existence. We have to have human beings before we can have laws. We have to have human beings before we have a currency.

    So, even as a matter of law, he errs. The right to life is the first principle of law. We cannot have security if all are dead. That is the first principle that this so-called human rights lawyer has turned a blind eye to for partisan gratification.

    Again, the governors have a right to defend those who voted for them. That is why they are governors. They did not take laws into their hands. Rather, they went to court, and have challenged.

    Odinkalu has suddenly become a feudalist. He says “You cannot be telling a president to yield up his authority over currency systems, that is not negotiable.”

    If anyone has committed treason here, it is not the governors. It is his logic that bustles with rebellion against the law. Odinkalu should remove his blinkers before he writes because he and his candidate come from the same heath and bedchamber.

    The other fellow is J.B. Dauda, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, who justifies the action of the president to defy the law. He argues that each arm of the law can act according to its own light. In order words, he is savaging the Supreme Court for vanity or waste of judicial calories. He asserts: “One arm of government cannot therefore prevent another arm from performing it’s sacred constitutional functions.”

    He, a puny mind, is trying to wage war against the tested principle of separation of powers. He is trying to say it is more separate that it is. He wants to make it less sacred by making it more separate. The French thinker Montesquieu gifted us the idea, and it has worked to restrain not only lawmakers but also men with despotic tendency. De Gaulle wanted to bring his military temperament to supersede the society but the law always had its way. He became an instrument in birthing its Fifth Republic.

    Dauda is a dubious salesman who cannot sell a sentence from the brain of the French philosopher or else he will get an intellectual life sentence. The concept of separation of power was designed to stop exactly what Buhari has done: To ensure that no president or chief executive acts above the law. By defying the Supreme Court, he thinks he can elevate himself above the law. He cannot be the Superman of this democracy in the lights of the German philosopher, Fredrick Nietzsche. Or the Napoleon that Dostoyevsky muses on in Crime and Punishment. As John Adams wrote: “Power must never be trusted without a check.” Individuals can exercise overreach. Maybe he needs to go back to Nigerian history and look at how Oyo Empire fell and plunged Yorubaland into a long fratricidal bloodbath. It was because the king wanted to defy the lawmakers, the Oyo Mesi, and the system crawled into a self-reckoning of blood and tears and the dislocation of a whole race. Just one man’s hubris or ambition. Hence in the Federalist Papers, James Madison wrote: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”
    Dauda was looking for a law to justify a president. Rather, he found tyranny.

    It is because of men like Odinkalu and Dauda that, in seeking a society based on the rule of law, we must be wary of falling captive to a rule of lawyers.

  • On the Afenifere debacle

    On the Afenifere debacle

    The above would have been a depressing catalogue of Yoruba comprehensive failure in the postcolonial Hades of Nigeria. But it is a profound irony that the argument eventually turns on itself. All the failings and weaknesses of the Yoruba people also happen to be the source of their strengths and successes in contemporary Nigeria.

    It is due to these failings and weaknesses that the scion of the Igbo ethnic group and the Yoruba greatest political rival for power would describe Obafemi Awolowo as the greatest Prime minister Nigeria never had. It is also not by accident that the frontrunner and the man to beat in the current race for the Nigerian presidency is also of Yoruba extraction.

    Thirdly, the moderate success that modernity and modernization has had in the South West of the nation is due to the liberal and accommodating nature of the Yoruba people. This is what has made the old region a magnetic hub for those absconding from the harsh economic and political brutalities of their catchment area and a Mecca for those in quest of cultural and sociological rehabilitation.

    Finally, in the unremitting harshness and bitter desiccations of the postcolonial coliseum that is Nigeria, the South West is still the most livable and most civilized segment of the nation. This is at a point when the other rival regions have virtually dissolved in chaos and commotion as a result of internal contradictions.

    Contrary to the postulations of later-day mischief-makers motivated solely by hatred and vendetta, the original Afenifere credo does not mean that one should love one’s neighbor more than oneself. The ethical thrust of the Afenifere maxim inheres in the equitable delineation of spheres of authority and jurisdiction. If this were not so, the original Action Group would have meekly surrendered the old Western region to Zik’s poaching and predatory antics.

    If your neighbors want to indulge in the futilities of unitarist dominion in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nation, he should by all means go ahead but he should not by any means attempt to corral or overrun your own region in the process. Two Yoruba proverbs explain what is going on.

    One has it that even the farmstead belonging to a father and his son must have boundaries. The other holds that if you find yourself and your child engulfed by flames, you must first try to rid yourself of the tongs of fire before you would be in a position to save your child.

    It is useful to recall that before the NCNC was subject to wholesale ethnicisation upon the death of its old supremo, Herbert Macaulay, and the ascension of Nnamdi Azikiwe as its leader, it was predominantly the party of the Yoruba coastal aristocracy comprising of Saro elites, Brazilian émigrés and the indigenous moneyed and propertied class. But by the time Zik finished with it, it had become the pre-eminent vehicle for Igbo political aspiration.

    This was the momentum that carried Zik to the old Agodi Gate thinking that the premiership of the Yoruba west was a done deal. The flamboyant master-propagandist did not betray any sense of outrage at this frank anomaly. It all seemed perfectly normal. But he failed to reckon with the fact that the Yoruba political elite know how to fight best when they have their back to the wall.

    As state-oriented people of empire, who have themselves thrown up one of the most remarkable imperium in pre-colonial Africa, the Yoruba know when to rock the boat and when not to stir things up. This can never be equated with timidity or cowardice. It is called state valorization. But it did not stop them from cocking a snook at the state when it overstepped its bound.

    No one knows how to fight their corner better than the people. For a long time during a crisis, there may be evidence of a moral atrophy or paralysis of the will. Empty verbal grandstanding or futile sabre rattling may be the order of the day. But when a consensus emerges often through the recondite means of aggregating the mutually hostile outlook and warring notions, Yoruba always manage to throw up leaders who show grit and determination.

    It is the leonine valour of an Herbert Macaulay. It is the grit and determination shown by an Obafemi Awolowo as he slogged his way through futility and heroic failure. It is the grit and determination shown by an MKO Abiola as he marched through aborted triumph and heroic martyrdom. And it is the grit and determination currently shown by Bola Ahmed Tinubu as his political blitzkrieg rolls relentlessly towards the coveted prize. Not many political purists would have given the latter duo a fighting chance.

    The ways of history are truly mysterious. Nobody gave Bola Tinubu much of a chance when the gladiators’ arena opened. It was seen by many as a bridge too far. But Tinubu has shown much courage and heroic indomitability in the way he has demolished opponents of mythical power. He has picked his way through the desert of a thousand vipers like a gifted snake charmer until nothing appears to be standing between him and the Golden Gate. It is the stuff of the greatest fiction.

    Unless something else is the matter, the former Lagos state Governor has demonstrated enough guts, conviction and steely resolve under withering fire to be admitted to the Nigerian Hall of Fame of exceptional politicians. Based on the events of the past few months, only the most biased and jaundiced would deny that Tinubu by his courage, character and cujones is an authentic member of the Yoruba pantheon of mythological heroes, those avatars who choose to dare gravity and court martyrdom.

    Let us now round up the observations. In the postcolonial coliseum, it is the emergent contradictions and new realities that throw up the type of leader most suitable for the moment and the mode of engagement. You cannot prescribe the ways and means of old heroes and their fighting strategy for new situations. This is what makes old revered savants look so helpless and pathetic under new light.

    It is the passage of time and unfolding realities that have made the peremptory order by a section of the ancient Yoruba leadership asking their political wards to refrain from participating in the presidential election to now appear in its startling and grievous magnitude. It is a flawed and fissured policy shot through with ideological and strategic errors.

    To start with, the order betrays an aggravating lack of fidelity and faith to what it is trying to copy.  Consociational bonding and pacting among the political elites of a fractured polity is usually preceded by widespread consultations and intense negotiations among all the elites and not by sectional grandstanding and one-upmanship. The Afenifere grandees compounded the initial error of judgment by showing open hostility to some of the contestants.

    Second, asking people to refrain from contesting under a severely flawed 1999 constitution which they themselves have openly condemned and contemned is like asking to be accorded priority of service in a restaurant you have dismissed as a public health hazard. More seriously, it is akin to tying up the hands of your own political wards behind their back in the context of a free for all fight.

    One can then imagine what would be the fate of Nigerian politics if Bola Tinubu had declined to contest the presidential election or if he had ducked out of a confrontation with the feudal limpets in APC in the same way and manner Peter Obi bolted from the apparatchiks of power in PDP. It is still morning on creation day. Tinubu may just be the lightning rod for a cause greater than himself. Those who refuse to profit from a dialectical reading of history are condemned to suffer the horror of its consequences.

  • Headwinds on the homeward stretch

    Headwinds on the homeward stretch

    As the nation finally wings its way towards the most momentous election in its post-independence history, one thing is now certain. This is not going to be election as a carnival. The mood of the nation is too tense and foul for that. There are times when a carnival-like gaiety takes over the electoral fortunes of a nation, usually as a precursor to great revolutionary changes in the structure and texture of the society. There is no such indication at the moment.

    As it is, there is no great ideological contest going on. The ruling elite have settled for liberal democracy, warts and all. The eponymous Nigerian masses and their former patrons in the intellectual sub-class are too inchoate and incoherent; too weak, too enfeebled, too disoriented and too structurally divided to mount any meaningful challenge to the dominant order. This, it seems, is not the time for any fancy stuff.

    The only beef among the various factions of the political elite appears to be the management or rather the mismanagement of modernity. Even at that, only one or two of the candidates appear to be adverting their mind to the fundamental crisis of modernity in a country hobbled by conflicting and countervailing modes of economic, political and spiritual production.

    Yet everywhere you turn in Nigeria, the mismanagement of modernity stares one in the face whether as seen in the casual and cavalier override of the supremacy of the Supreme Court, the inability of the Central Bank to submit itself to the rule of law, the economic onslaught on the socially disadvantaged and the endemic lack of capacity-building in the leading parties which has resulted in their inability to cohere and coalesce into organic political formations.

    At a time when other countries are taking developmental strides towards a new type of human society, it is a pity that we are still mired in a developmental stasis as we struggle to leave behind us the pre-modern epoch and its mindboggling incapacitations.

    The queues that surfaced this past week, of hard-pressed Nigerians hunting for their own currency like Stone Age people foraging for food is a sad reminder of how easy it is for human civilization to suffer a catastrophic reverse. The mindset that loathes modernization and its consequences is the greatest enemy of the nation-state paradigm in Nigeria.

    As the nation approaches its rendezvous with history, there is a seismic undercurrent which may not be apparent to the casual observer but which is nevertheless suggestive of a tectonic shift of attitude and perception among the Nigerian populace. First is the increasing preponderance and involvement of Nigerian youth in the struggle for power. This is a reflection of a shift in the demographic balance of voting power. Youth is a stuff that will no longer endure.

    One may of course regret the ungentlemanly and boorish conduct, the resort to foul and violent language particularly on the internet, the unethical deployment of fake news which has virtually compromised the efficacy of the legitimate channels of communication and the resort to fraudulent manipulation of public opinion through fabricated polls prediction. But when you look at it closely, these are all byproducts of the crisis of modernity. You cannot cherry pick your way through a crisis.

    Two issues keep cropping up in elite discussions, particularly among the concerned elite of Yoruba extraction. These issues reared their head once again in correspondence this past week with two avid readers of this column. They are both distinguished Nigerians, of different genders. The first position illustrates from an acute perspective what can be called the afenifere debacle in the postcolonial dystopia of Nigeria.

    The second is a lament about the de-civilization of Nigeria in the light of ongoing attempts by some state institutions to deny Nigerians the right to assert and validate their humanity. We give full hearing to the first position before rounding up with our own commentary.

  • FG cautions Obasanjo not to truncate electoral process

    FG cautions Obasanjo not to truncate electoral process

    The Federal Government has admonished former President Olusegun Obasanjo not to truncate the 2023 general elections with his inciting, self-serving and provocative letter on the polls.

    The admonition is contained in a statement issued on Monday in Abuja by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

    The statement was made available to the media by Mr Segun Adeyemi, the Special Assistant to the President (Media) Office of the Minister.

    Mohammed said what the former president cunningly framed as an ‘appeal for caution and rectification was nothing but a calculated attempt to undermine the electoral process and a willful incitement to violence.

    The minister expressed shock and disbelief that a former president could throw around unverified claims and amplify wild allegations picked up from the streets against the electoral process.

    “Though masquerading as an unbiased and concerned elder statesman, former president Obasanjo is in reality a known partisan who is bent on thwarting, by subterfuge, the choice of millions of Nigerian voters,’’ he said.

    Mohammed recalled that the former president, in his time, organised perhaps the worst elections since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999.

    According to the minister, Obasanjo is the least qualified to advise a president whose determined effort to leave a legacy of free, fair, credible and transparent elections is well acknowledged within and outside Nigeria.

    “As the whole nation waits with bated breath for the result of last Saturday’s national elections amid unnecessary tension created by professional complainants and political jesters, what is expected from a self-respecting elder statesman are words and actions that douse tension and serve as a soothing balm.

    “Instead, former president Obasanjo used his unsolicited letter to insinuate, or perhaps wish for, an inconclusive elections and a descent into anarchy.

    “He used his time to cast aspersion on electoral officials who are unable to defend themselves, while surreptitiously seeking to

    dress his personal choice in the garb of the people’s choice. This is duplicitous,’’ he said.

    The minister reminded the former president that organising elections in Nigeria is not a mean feat.

    He said the process was not a mean feat considering the fact that the voter population of 93,469,008 in the country was 16,742,916 more than the total number of registered voters, at 76,726,092, in 14 West African nations put together.

    Mohammed said that the process was not a mean feat considering the deployment of more than 1,265,227 electoral officials, the infusion of technology to enhance the electoral process and the logistical nightmare of sending election materials across the vast country,

    The minister said INEC was availing itself creditably, going by the preliminary reports of the ECOWAS Electoral Observation Mission and the Commonwealth Observer Group, among other groups that observed the elections.

    “Therefore, those arrogating to themselves the power to cancel an election and unilaterally fix a date for a new one, ostensibly to ameliorate perceived electoral infractions, should please exercise restraint.

    “They should allow the official electoral body to conclude its duty by announcing the results of the 2023 national elections.

    “After that, anyone who is aggrieved must follow the stipulated legal process put in place to adjudicate electoral disputes, instead of threatening fire and conjuring apocalypse,’’ he said.

    (NAN)