Author: The Nation

By Ayodele Ola Daniels

Although he signs off his recent garbled piece titled Igbos and The Battle for Lagos as a Mass Communications scholar and public affairs analyst, Bisi Olawunmi’s offering in that article exhibits neither the nuanced sobriety and wise caution of the seasoned scholar nor the rigour and meticulousness of the dispassionate analyst. It is even more tragic that a university teacher could write and publish in the media, an article so pedestrian in articulation, superficial in logic and bereft of facts that his reader cannot but wonder what quality of education he is imparting to the students so unfortunate to be under his watch.

What comes across most clearly in the article is Olawunmi’s acute bitterness and inconsolable pain at Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s emphatic victory first at the presidential primaries of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and no less impressively in the presidential election of February 25.

Commenting on the outcome of the APC primaries, for instance, Olawunmi  like an agbero, bolekaja academic, resorts to empty and meaningless sloganeering when he writes that “Godfather Tinubu deployed a combination of Agbero Politics of Intimidation (API) and Redemption of Political I.O.U (RPI) to successfully face down APC national chairman and President Muhammadu Buhari to snatch the APC presidential ticket “. 

Pray, what is the meaning of this laughable mumbo jumbo if not a cavalier indulgence in sheer Alawada sophistry? The APC presidential primary took place in the public space and was covered live on national and global television. Asiwaju won a fair and square landslide victory following the deployment of his trademark deft political strategies as well as an intensive nationwide campaign to woo and win over the vast majority of party delegates. Of course, Asiwaju has reaped bountifully from his investment in building bridges, forging friendships, building alliances and making strategic political concessions to reap enduring future gain over the years. This is routine practice in politics across time and space which a political illiterate of the Olawunmi hue cannot comprehend. 

Again Olawunmi’s pitiable and pathetic moaning: “That those he touted as getting into public offices through him contested the APC primaries with him, had signalled incipient unravelling of his structures. Many of such people are now on siddon look mode”. But for the fact that Olawunmi only pretends to be a democrat and lacks a genuine appreciation of the meaning of democracy, what exactly is wrong with anyone contesting the presidential primaries with Asiwaju? Is that not taken for granted as the fundamental human rights of such individuals? But what was the outcome and who emerged victorious? That Tinubu successfully and deftly meandered through land mines laid by the opposition and even from elements within his own party to emerge as President-elect demonstrates that Olawunmi’s talk of “incipient unravelling of his structures’ lies in the realm of political fiction.

It is obvious that Olawunmi is envious of the phenomenal political success Tinubu’s political tendency has enjoyed and achieved in Lagos over the last two and a half decades. It is surely no mean feat that the progressive tendency as symbolized in this dispensation by Tinubu and the parties he has helped to form, has retained power in Lagos, Nigeria’s most cosmopolitan, urban, diverse and complex state since 1999. This is a function of the mature, statesmanly, sensitive, intelligent and balanced leadership that Tinubu has provided for his political tendency and party in the state. 

In accordance with the constitution, every government that has exercised power in Lagos State since 1999 has come into office through duly conducted elections. These elections were conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which is under the control of the federal government. It is noteworthy that until 2015, Tinubu’s ACN and now APC were in opposition with the PDP controlling the federal government between 1999 and 2015. Nobody can therefore credibly accuse Tinubu and his political party of exploiting their control of the electoral process to rig elections in Lagos. They have been in power through the expressed will of the electorate as expressed in free, fair and credible polls. Luckily, but for the election of Babatunde Fashola in 2007 in which he led with nearly half a million votes, all governorship elections in Lagos State since 2003 have always been closely fought and highly competitive which speaks to the integrity of the process. All talk of one individual’s vice grip on the politics of the state is a function of the sterility of imagination and does not reflect the dynamics of political forces on the ground.

Olawunmi’s partisanship, personal animosity towards Tinubu and lack of intellectual honesty and integrity does not allow him to admit  that the most crucial factor in the electoral success of Tinubu and his political parties in Lagos since 1999 has been the unsurpassed developmental performance of successive administrations in the state in this dispensation. The economy of the state has grown to become the fifth largest in Africa. It’s infrastructural modernization and expansion has been systematic, continuous and consistent. In transportation, traffic control, urban planning, waste management and revenue generation among others, it has evolved institutions, structures, methods and processes that have been studied and emulated by many other states. As a supposed academic, one would have expected that Olawunmi to be concerned with the demonstrated comparative managerial experience, administrative competence, emotional intelligence and other leadership attributes of anyone who aspires to be governor of the fifth largest economy in Africa. No, he is too constricted by his pettiness and bitterness against Tinubu and does not care if the state is handed over to ill-prepared and untested hands.

Amazingly, Olawunmi accuses the APC of whipping up ethnic sentiments particularly anti-Igbo emotions in the run up to the governorship elections of March 18. He pretends not to know that the ethnic and religious factors were exploited to the maximum particularly by Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) in the February 25 election. While he scored over 95% of the votes cast in the southeast states, Obi also had block votes in parts of Lagos State with large Igbo populations while the Yoruba were more diversified and liberal in their voting patterns with many also apathetic due to the cash crunch, the fuel scarcity and the complacency of the ruling party. Obi also waged a divisive campaign rallying Christians against the APC’s strategic and pragmatic Muslim-Muslim ticket which predictably eventually won the election.

All this will change on March 18. People are now more sensitive to careless and arrogant statements by those who claim that “Lagos is no man’s land” while maintaining a hegemonic grip on their own ethno-regional zones.

In any case, does Olawunmi not exhibit his confused state of mind when he writes that “The irony for Tinubu is that he is the political leader who has most empowered Igbos in terms of public appointments and employment into the civil service as well as allowing them free reign in setting up shops in every available space in an unregulated Lagos”. If true, does the canon of morality recommend brazen ingratitude for a good turn on the altar of ethnic clannishness?

Olawunmi argues that the #EndSARS activists were a key factor in the LP’s victory in Lagos in the presidential election. But the #EndSARS protests were a nationwide activity. Its stated target was to stop police brutality and the Nigeria Police Force is an agency of the federal government, not the Lagos State government. Videos that have gone viral have shown leader of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, inciting the hitherto peaceful protesters to destroy government and private property all in the Yoruba dominated parts of the state. Lagos lost an estimated N2 trillion in the gale of destruction that followed. It is now obvious that the destructive #EndSARS protests in Lagos were clandestinely hijacked to pursue a conspiratorial ethnic agenda. Blinded by bitterness against Tinubu, the Olawunmis see nothing wrong in the destruction of Lagos engineered by an Igbo terrorist!

The pattern of voting in the last election confirmed that there is indeed an ethnic conspiracy and gang up to effect an Igbo power grab in Lagos. It cannot succeed no matter the malicious, malevolent and mischievous analyses of the Olawunmis of this world. After all, Olawunmi’s kinsman, mentor and sponsor, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, endorsed Peter Obi in the presidential election. Obi lost even in Pa Adebanjo’s polling unit. Yet, Olawunmi decries what he describes as “the underlying false assumption of the APC as custodian of Yoruba political hegemony”. But that is the undeniable current reality as demonstrated by the outcome of presidential elections in the Southwest in 2011, 2015 and 2019. On each occasion the Yoruba refused to heed the political trumpet call of Pa Adebanjo’s faction of Afenifere. They consistently voted against Pa Adebanjo’s choices. Pa Adebanjo is not known to have won any election anywhere in his life!  Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidency will by God’s grace usher in a new, brighter, more prosperous, stable, secure and United Nigeria. The Bisi Olawunmis of this world have a long, lonely, inconsolable winter ahead.

 By Antonio M.A Pedro

The confluence of shocks – the cascading impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and severe natural disasters – have eroded Africa’s development gains, resulting in a staggering 149 million previously non-poor Africans now facing the risk of falling into poverty. The growing number of new poor and vulnerable people is making it harder to close the gap between the rich and the poor. Moreover, Africa currently accounts for the largest share of the world’s poor. This inevitably has a far-reaching impact on achieving the sustainable development goals and the vision of the Africa we want.

The crisis, however daunting, presents an opportunity for the African ministers of finance, planning and economic development assembling in Addis Ababa from March 15-21, to make concerted efforts on providing concrete solutions. The theme, fostering recovery and transformation in Africa to reduce inequalities and vulnerabilities, should yield long term actions to move the continent forward on a path of prosperity.

 First, there is need for real action on reducing the high cost of trade. This can ease the burden on access to affordable goods for poor, hard-hit households that are losing out on health, education, and meaningful opportunities. It is also time to expedite the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCTA) as a powerful lever for poverty reduction. The AfCFTA’s promise cuts across all economic sectors, presenting a new pathway for broad-based growth. In the agri-food sector, which is critical to overcoming vulnerabilities associated with food insecurity for the over 300 million affected Africans, ECA estimates show that the sector will yield additional US$ 43.3 billion in trade revenue by 2045 if the agreement is expedited. Additional opportunities abound in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, vehicles and transport equipment, metals, and textile, apparel and leather products. 

Second, climate action must be mainstreamed in policy development and implementation.  We are living through the devastating impact of climate events that have led to the migration and displacement of some 85 million people in the region. Increasing temperatures have already contributed to a reduction by a third in average agricultural productivity growth, while the continent’s 38 coastal countries are facing climate-related threats to their blue economies. The climate crisis is not a fringe issue. It accentuates poverty through its impact on lives, livelihoods, and economies. Governments can finance development through innovative green financing, such as investing in nature-based sequestration which can provide up to 30% of the world’s sequestration needs. At 120 USD per tonne of carbon, up to US$ 82 billion per year can be mobilized from nature-based carbon credits in Africa. 

Above all, moving the continent out of these crises will require resolving the fundamental flaws underpinning the international financial architecture and acting on lasting reforms. In the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, “today’s poly-crises are compounding shocks on developing countries – in large part because of an unfair global financial system that is short-term, crisis-prone, and that further exacerbates inequalities.”

Reforming the system is key to reducing the shrinking fiscal space and allowing African countries to access affordable long-term financing with better lending terms by multilateral development banks, amidst increasing risks of debt distress. These funds are needed for a new cycle of sustainable growth and a reinvigorated business and innovation climate. The funds are also required for meeting the most urgent needs of the poor, for instance, through social protection measures. In addition, debt service relief and restructuring for the worst hit poorer countries and the extension of the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) will also help create the fiscal space for the kind of urgent spending needed.

 African ministers must turn up the volume in support of the Secretary-General’s advocacy for a modified G20 Common Framework for effective, fast-tracked, and broad-based debt restructuring. Furthermore, if multilateral development banks can expand the volume of lending, including concessional lending, it could be a game changer for struggling countries. This can be achieved through increasing their capital bases, better leveraging of existing capital and implementing recommendations of the G20 Capital Adequacy Framework Review, and re-channelling Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) through MDBs. Moreover, as long as African countries remain in need of urgent resources, the Secretary-General’s SDG Stimulus will also require a new round of SDRs, resulting in high economic rates of return on sustainable development.

For millions of the previously non-poor and for the poor who face a future of chronic vulnerability, Africa’s policy makers can use this meeting, ahead of the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings to tip the scales towards meaningful, long-lasting change.

 •Pedro is the Acting Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa.