Category: Steve Osuji

Clever by two-thirds. Bankers must be the cleverest people in the world (well, may be after magicians) and the average Nigerian banker is straight away an evil genius. Perhaps it’s something to do with managing money, which we all know is rooted in Mammon. You couldn’t co-habit daily with this malevolently avaricious spirit without being brought under its deleterious influences. The point therefore is that you can never beat the banks and you can never win with them. A former boss used to describe Nigerian bank managers as “legitimate criminals”, but on the other hand, he regrets that he could not do without them.

One knows a bit about Nigerian banks and I chuckled when they began to assail us with a rash of supposed delinquent loans list. List, what list, I thought to myself. The country will probably come to a stop if the real list of the raiders of our so-called banks are published. No bank would dare publish the ‘real’ list, one wagers; what we have are what I want to call boju-boju lists, that is, a make-believe lists.

 The real list may never come to light; the list which has the names of bank directors and major shareholders is not for public consumption. What about the list with the big moguls and political heavy weights; those would be in classified document files. Their delinquent loans are usually written off as bad loans or rescheduled. Some are even given new loans to liquidate old ones.

 First point to note is that there is no agreement among banks on the title of the debtors’ lists. Thus we have: “List of Loan Defaulters;” “Delinquent Credit Facilities;” “Schedule of Non-performing Loans,” “List of Bad Debtors;” etc. One supposes all these mean the same thing, don’t they?

Husband and Wife Nigeria Limited. Apart from one or two exceptions, most of the delinquents showcased by nearly all the banks are small time, husband and wife businesses and traders. Many of the big culprits who had raided the banks in cahoots with bank management have been sprung or kept in other ‘special’ lists.        Also to be noted is the fact that the showcased “outstanding balance” is only half the picture. For instance, if an initial loan of N100 million with a repayment value of N130 million over three years goes bad after the debtor had managed to pay about N110 million over four years, would it be fair to compound the interest on the outstanding N20 million and slam the debtor with an “outstanding debt of say, N70 million? In other words, the list ought to have presented the original loans as some of the debtors may have paid more than twice the original sum. Other notable features of the debtors’ lists include the fact that many banks are exposed to government departments, Houses of Assembly, local government areas, staff cooperatives and workers’ unions. How such loans were secured and managed considering the fluid nature of these entities is difficult to fathom. Another point to note is that most of the loans are overdrafts, some of them running into hundreds of millions of naira; even billion. How is this so?

The manner of presentation of the list only exposed the shoddiness in the procedure and processes of some of the financial institutions. You would notice some banks stating just one name (perhaps a first name) as the director or entity that consummated a loan. Then of course, while some banks have as low as 50 names on their lists, others ‘boast’ of over 200 delinquent debtors. That must say something doesn’t it? Is there something like a debt-drenched bank?

Central Bank culpable. Though we had said at the beginning that bankers are extremely clever people and that they jolly well do what they have to do to have, keep and relish other people’s money till the end of time, the quality of central banks often defines a country’s banking system. Where the apex bank is half as smart as the turks running the banks, sanity and stability would often reign.

In Nigeria’s situation, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has traditionally always trailed behind deposit money banks, especially since the deregulation era of the 1990s. You must have heard such things as jankara banking and we have witnessed all sorts of ‘minor’ storms and upheavals in the system these past quarter century, yet it is not certain whether our banks are better off today than those heady days.

The CBN was moved to insist on this ‘drastic’ expose of ‘debtors’ when it recently discovered that delinquent loans in the system had hit N400 billion comprising about 1,000 firms and some individuals. But this must be a tip of it all if one knew anything about our banks. What about all those king-sized debts AMCON was grappling with and the kings and deities behind them? Are we going to have a separate list for their ilk?

And where on earth was CBN when all these cash were being crunched by credit monsters in our midst? It is true that these boys are indeed clever and often keep at least three parallel accounts of business at any point in time but that is why CBN is the regulatory bank. How does it keep track of these plucky men and women in smart suits?

How come many of the banks always flout their lending limits? Why has CBN spoken about setting up a credit bureau (CB) for over 30 years, yet would not set it up? We would never have such serial and chronic defaulters if we had a functional CB, would we? At least we would not have such cases as one customer taking hefty loans from many banks.

Finally, now that we have seen the ‘earth-shaking’ lists, what next? What are we going to do with the preponderance of moribund husband and wife businesses, which seem like they are being ‘scape-goated’? What next? This is for the CBN to answer.

 Meanwhile, the current boss of the apex bank, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, is a thoroughbred alumnus of Nigeria’s new age bankers. He understands the ‘issues’ and he is sure-footed in this ‘jungle’, only he can ring the critical change. He must not be shy to push this change; history beckons, Mr. Emefiele!

El-Rufai as new ‘governor of example’

It was Babatunde Fashola, the immediate past helmsman of Lagos State, who wore that appellation (Governor of Example) during his eight-year stint. Today, Governor Nasir El Rufai may have quickly grabbed that tag, which authorship must be credited to Sam Omatseye, chairman of the Editorial Board of The Nation.

El-Rufai did not only touch down sprinting when his peers were still feeling through their commodious offices, he has been saying (and doing) all the right things. First, he has vowed to hand the LGAs every kobo that accrues to them and even more. Second, he abolished government’s sponsorship of pilgrims and he is ridding the streets of Kaduna of beggars.

However, and most remarkable, is his recent decision to cancel the vexatious indigene-settler ruckus that has plagued Nigeria since the beginning of time. Every Nigerian who resides in Kaduna is automatically a citizen, El-Rufai declares. Great leadership is made of stuff like this. We can only pray that he walks his talk.

About three years ago, I had written in this column that then fledgling Boko Haram was the shame of the northern elite. Expectedly, I was vilified to no end. But little did we (yours truly, his readers and drillers alike) know that what was happening then was mere child’s play. Between 2012 and now, so much innocent blood has drenched the Nigerian soil to the point that atonement may be impossible. But the point remains now as then, that the extreme criminality that the terror of Boko Haram has become, is the shame of the elite of the north. This point must be made without equivocation.

Three recent issues have warranted a reiteration of this view which is even more valid today. First is the ‘face-off’ between Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State and the beggars of Kaduna. The second is the new-wave sacrificial offering of nubile little girls in an endless festival of suicide bombings and thirdly, the recent $2.1 billion World Bank loan for the reconstruction of the northeast of Nigeria.

An elite in retreat The point today as I made it then is that from the period of the violent outbreak of the Boko Haram (BH) sect up to this moment, the elite of the North have failed woefully to put up a well-reasoned and concerted response to deal with the evil.  As the sect callously made an ocean of blood especially in the Northeast, the elite of the North, (religious, intellectual, political and business) even more callously favoured a tacit accommodation of the scourge for the first few years.

Where was the funding for BH coming from? Where was BH drawing its intellectual and logistical resources? Who purchased the arms, ammunition, rocket launchers and the dozens of armoured carriers the BH deployed to overrun many Nigerian towns at a time? For a region that boasts of about half a dozen former heads of state; current and former governors; respected traditional rulers; hundreds of well-trained retired military officers and a good number of men of means into the land, not one committee has been set up to date to as much as give a thought to the BH tragedy.

 An initial acquiescence grew into fear and cowering. Hardly anyone was known to have stood up to the gang in defiant condemnation. It was convenient for many leaders of the north to hide behind the north-south politics of the Goodluck Jonathan era. Some simply found comfort in their corners and said to themselves: “since he chose to ‘usurp’ power, let him stew in the juice of insurgency”. It did not matter that hundreds of their compatriots were daily wasted in the heedless blood fest.

BH as brainchild of the northern elite The point must also be made clearly that BH is the creation of some leaders of the north. While it may be argued that it may be the unforeseen outcome of poor quality leadership and ineptitude in high offices, it is elite failure albeit. Of course the feudal system of the north continues to take its vicious toll and fuelled by an uncontrolled and exponential population growth. Further, while it was the trado-religious lords who held sway in the days of yore, today, the political class has taken over with even more deadly intuition. As we know, in feudalism, there are only kings and serfs; or the ruling class and the hoi-polloi; hardly any middle ground.

In the mid-80 while one was on National Youth Service in Sokoto, it was a culture shock then to witness a horde of scruffy, unclad children invade the camp refuse dump each day foraging for food. That scene has lingered most graphically in one’s psyche more than 30 years after. We must admit that it is an unconscionable and indeed wicked elite that would look on as children roam the streets with begging bowls; feed straight from dunghills or even lead cattle from Maiduguri to Majidun! Between medieval and modern states The elite of the north must be told to make those hard choices between living in ancient times as subsists largely in the north now or building a modern country as we have in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, UAE and the rest of the Muslim world.

This is where El Rufai’s feud with the beggars of Kaduna comes of note. He, in concert with his colleagues of the 19 states of the north must immediately abolish the pernicious almajiri culture (if indeed it can be regarded as culture). It must be the highest act of irresponsibility for a man and woman to sire children and set them loose into the world with begging bowls in hand. If you brought a child into the world, you must take some responsibility to rear him. This must be the essence of our humanity and the crux of a legislation being proposed here.

El Rufai and his colleagues must enact – and if possible – a pan northern Nigeria law to abolish the almajiri culture immediately. This singular legislation will greatly stem the social dysfunction in the north. Why can’t we begin to deliberately uphold family values, child rearing and early education? Why has the local government system which ought to lift our rural population become near extinct in Nigeria?

In the same manner, we must begin a phased abolition of nomadic life. It is ignorance that has pushed the Myetti Allah Cattle Breeders to seek to metamorphose into an alternate ‘army’ instead of a regional economic construct. Where in the 2015 world, dear reader, do people still lead cattle over thousands of kilometers just to make basic living? Not in many sensible places any more. The result is that they may have slaughtered more compatriots than cattle in the last five years mainly in the bid to fend off rustlers as they take livestock through long trails.

Again, El Rufai and his brother governors of the north must begin a concerted and expedited rethink of the milk, beef and hide economic value chains. Think for a moment that Nigeria imports almost 80 percent of milk consume by her 170 population. Animal protein production in Nigeria is still an ad-hoc business while animal wool and processed leather are massively imported.

State governments can catalyze the livestock value chain and unleash the inherently huge economic potentials of milk, beef, leather and wool production. Countries like Argentina, Brazil and Australia would make good benchmarks. Let us develop ranches in the vast swathes of Borno, Bauchi, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba, Kaduna and even Niger. We could start with pilot schemes. Pastures are nurtured these days and many species of grass mature in weeks. Why are we still trapped in pre-medieval nomadism?

Again, a savage elite The north, let it be said plainly, has some of the richest people in the world. One could count at least two dozen individuals richer than their states: TY Danjuma, the Dangotes, the Dantatas, the Mai Deribes, the Babangidas, the Yar’Aduas, the Indimis, Sani Bello, Rilwan Lukman, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Atiku Abubakar, Ado Bayero and Abdulsamad Rabiu, to name a few. This is not discounting the numerous new-rich politicos; all the former governors for instance.

The World Bank has granted a loan of $2.1 billion to revamp the northeast. This class of northern elite in concert, probably has more net-worth than the World Bank, they can raise $21.1 billion for the same purpose. They must consciously resolve to help lift the north from its present morass of despair and sub-humanity. They can start a sustained change campaign on family values for instance. They can build early learning centres and primary schools in areas too remote for government to reach. There are a thousand and one ways they can give back to this earth that has proved very clement to them.

When the nose cry, the eye cries too The people of the south of Nigeria may choose to be aloof and comfortable about the backwardness of the north but that would be basking in blissful ignorance. The federal government has spent trillions of naira in the last five years battling BH. That is cool cash that would have been spread round the country on development projects. The World Bank loan mentioned above for the reconstruction of the northeast will be paid by you and I, for instance.

 But we need more than loans; we need elite change of attitude and resolve.

The unwary in the land may have been led to believe that Abia State is the worst run in the last four years. They may even begin to think that its immediate past governor, Chief Theodore Ahamefule Orji (TA), is the only governor in the land. This is the result of sustained and unrelentless campaign of calumny against him by his predecessor, Chief Orji Uzo Kalu (OUK).

Using the instrumentality of two national newspapers and some of the best columnists in the land, OUK literally tied TA to stakes throughout his tenure. Consider the image of a man hounded and stabbed viciously for four years. To think that it is all born out of mischief and outright knavery. In fact there must be something utterly sinister about the proverbial pot going on a road show to prove that the kettle is black.

In all the ceaseless attacks by his predecessor, he never uttered a word. Even though he is disposed to have all the facts about Abia State Government in the last 16 years, and could put his traducer away by just one fool-proof deposition, he refused to be drawn to the mud fight.

The latest antics of serialising a supposed petition against TA for days in a national newspaper must be the limit of self-mockery. The petition was supposedly for the period, 2011 to 2015 while cleverly overlooking 1999 to 2011 when OUK held sway in Abia and ran it like a family provision store. Leadership is surely a more elegant enterprise.

Is the presidency suffering inertia; that state of inability to take action? Has it been overwhelmed by the heavy weight of the office? Or even by the sheer depth of the rot it has uncovered in the polity? Is the country on auto-pilot now? Is President Muhammadu Buhari already weary even before he has started? These are the fears plaguing many Nigerians right now. Have we made a grievous mistake? Some have ventured to ask.

Nigerians are right to be apprehensive. It is more than three months since Buhari won election as the president of this country riding on a momentum of change; and it is more than 30 days after he was sworn in. True, the nation is at the nadir of its existence, but the populace voted with near-unanimity on March 28, 2015, expecting instant change or at least, a well-defined roadmap for change. But more than 90 days on, the euphoria, the wave of positive energy that swept the president to power is fast receding into the sea from whence it came, it seems.

Right now, nearly everything about the polity is flat and cold like overnight porridge. In 90 days after the election, many Nigerians have gone 360 degrees from high hopes of a new beginning to hopelessness and uncertainty. There are several good reasons for such regression. For a man who has been everything and has held literally all positions of authority in Nigeria (both military and civilian), it is difficult to understand for instance,  why the president cannot pick a Chief of Staff (CoS) in 90 days. He has also not been able to appoint other core backroom staff like Principal Secretary (PS) and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).

Not having these staff betokens that there is a vacuum and the state may well be on auto-pilot. Who has been taking notes of the activities of government so far? Would such notes, not taken by a statutorily recognised agent of government be valid under the law? The roles of these personal staff in helping even the president settle in quickly and dive effectively into his main tasks are trite. One quick example will suffice: the recent turf ‘war’ between the president’s Chief Security Officer (CSO) and his Aide-De-Camp (ADC) could be attributed to the fact that there is no CoS in the Villa who could have mediated and quietly resolved the matter before it became the public embarrassment that it turned out to be.

Apparently the president saw a need to change the security architecture of the Aso Rock Presidential Villa and perhaps, the entire presidential security order. This transition would have been effected quietly between the offices of the CoS, the SGF and heads of the various security arms. In the same vein, there is no doubt that both the security and military systems are in urgent need of cleansing.

For instance the recent removal of the Mr. Ita Ekpenyong as director-general of the Department of State Security (DSS) could have been done immediately upon inauguration five weeks ago to pave the way for the total overhaul of the Service. It would have also served as a well-structured signal both to the DSS and Nigerians in general that the disgraceful conduct of the Service during the era of the former president did not go unnoticed and would never be condoned. Now, removing Ekpenyong under a situation of petty squabbles has beclouded and even diminished the cogency of the lessons to be learnt.

This is just one example. We have seen the faux pas and double takes that have attended the appointments of new helmsmen at the DSS and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). These are matters the SGF’s office would have handled as a matter of routine and of course in consultation with his boss.

In other words, PMB has absolutely no excuses not to have the offices of the PS, CoS and SGF filled by now. Who is working the engine room of governance? People who ought to be the president’s foundation staff would now have to be learning the ropes when they eventually come on board?

No matter how long we wait to recruit these personnel, we are never ever going to source them from Mars. They will have to be humans and Nigerians. No human, how much less Nigerian is perfect but the president has the glorious power to hire today and fire the next day if necessary, without recourse to any other authority. This is all the more reason why we should have got down to work without much delay.

The other day, we were told something about handover note deficiency and lack of cooperation by the out-gone government as reasons for the slow march. Later, the National Assembly imbroglio was touted. Nigerians are truly worried now. When the matter is raised these days in some circles, many would choose to be mum; many would look pleadingly wishing the topic was never raised or praying that it would be dropped immediately. Nigeria’s situation is too precarious to allow for a moment’s vacuum.

Certain things cannot wait. Even if we cannot have ministers, matters like the fuel subsidy issue could have been situated; a forensic probe of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) ought to have been instituted almost immediately (and not this half-hearted panel of governors); the national intelligence corps ought to have been rebooted from May 29th to unleash preemptive measures on the Boko Haram insurgents. Boko Haram thrives still because of poor intelligence.

Wild economic and market indices that had made a respectable genuflection upon the election of PMB have all straightened up defiantly once again. The naira exchange rate is one pointer. The president must set off the government without further delay lest disillusionment sets in completely among the populace. Nigeria cannot afford the luxury of such long time that the president demands. Consider the checklist of problems: electricity, fuel subsidy, fuel supply, leakages, budgeting system, inflation, compromised institutions, moribund LGAs, endangered economy, etc. These are urgent matters begging to be addressed.

Finally, whatever grand vision the president may have, he still has to sell to his cabinet. For instance, the ongoing meetings with MDAs ought to have been with his new cabinet. In other word, he needs to be planning with his team from the outset.

Therefore, I am happy to inform you that the government under my watch has formally abolished joint account in Kaduna State, there will be no more holding of local government funds under the pretence of joint account.

“Added to this, I also wish to inform you that the government will do its best to be remitting 10  per cent of the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to the local government areas of our dear state. Like I said, we must deliver; we cannot let our people down.”

This is Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, speaking to the Interim Management Committees of the 23 local government councils in the state. This column stands accused for being passionate (and blindly so if you like) over this issue and has been an ardent canvasser for this model. One was therefore buoyed beyond measure reading El-Rufai’s beautiful words. It is indeed the sweetest music one has heard in a long time.

Should the governor abide by his words even by half, (that is, should he allow the LGAs even 50% of their fund) he would have achieved a huge paradigm shift and he would return after four years, as one of the greatest men who ever ruled a state in Nigeria.

All Governor El-Rufai needs do is: one, he must find people of quality; two, make them draw up easily deliverable budgets to be agreed upon; three, institute some checks and make them accountable; and four, institute some form of competition among them (something like Annual Governor’s Award for the best LGA).

The result would be an unleashing of massive integrated economic and social development in Kaduna State. With coordinated activities going simultaneously in all parts of the state, jobs will be created, youths will be engaged and crimes will reduce.

El-Rufai will be surprised at the great quality of people we have in this country and he would indeed find that some of the LGA chairmen, if given the opportunity, can run the state far better than him. Nigeria is in such turmoil because LGAs have been allowed to atrophy these past 16 years. It is our fervent prayer that El-Rufai will by this move, spark up a revolution that will spread across the land.

TO bite the bullet:There is no other way to do this than to administer a harsh, if not brutish therapy to the malaise afflicting the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). The group is obviously suffering the scourge of an unexpected good fortune or shall we call it a sudden deluge of over-abundance. As noted on this page (“APC: The pains of success,” Friday, June 12, 2015), the ruling party obviously lacks a strategic core. For a party made up of a motley crowd of membership, it needs a core of multi-ethnic thinkers, brainstorming day and night, reviewing the past, dissecting the present and projecting into the future. Yes, 10, 20, 40 years into the future or as long as the party seeks to exist. A corps that can look the party leadership in the face and speak truth to it is lacking and that leaves APC, looking like a fractured market women association with so much noise and hysteria renting the air and beclouding clear thought.

One recommends here, Mr. Audu Ogbeh’s recent interview (Sunday Punch June 28, 2015). There is hardly a more reticent, a wiser voice in Nigeria’s politics today. He attributed the rumpus in the APC to an absence of a Board of Trustees and lack of proper consultation. Yes a BoT with eminent and honourable members is okay but a think-tank is necessary in addition. Routine party palavers that would have been sorted out through basic intermediation has festered into a free for all ego feud and personalised acrimonies.

Just as was the case before the PDP debacle and eventual crash; at the height of its calamity, a thousand members would proffer a thousand reasons why the party was inexorably headed for a great fall. Hardly anyone dared to tell President Goodluck Jonathan the harsh truth which was: that the cause of PDP’s problem was simply and squarely, Jonathan’s second term bid. Nobody in his circle dared tell him that his abject lack of honour would be the ruin of PDP. And those who told him (as this column did, and stridently too) were considered enemies of the state. But the grandest delusion of all is that till this moment, a PDP committee headed by Sen. Ike Ekwerenmadu is still hard at work seeking the reason PDP failed! Well the answer, again and again, is primarily, a lack of honour on the part of ex-president  Jonathan. And here is a poser: would PDP have failed if it fielded for instance, a Sule Lamido or Ibrahim Shema as presidential candidate?

Same scenario may be playing out in the APC today; no group can look the party’s chief visioner in the face and make him realise that his seeming overbearing personality may be harming the party now.

At the root of the trouble rocking the National Assembly (NASS) and threatening to bring the party to perdition is the perception that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu seeks to wield an absolute control over the polity. The unspoken angst is that he ‘delivered’ the president, he nominated the vice president and he sought to install the Senate president and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Whether right or wrong, this is the perception out there. The import of this and of course, the fear of members would be that if allowed, Asiwaju would exert an overly supreme control over the polity.

With this in mind, it was easy for Senator Bukola Saraki, another turk of Nigeria’s power game simply rallied ‘aggrieved’ elements both within and without the party to resist this supposed Asiwaju dominance. This is simply at the heart of the brouhaha currently raging in the APC and any resolution not based on this premise would be an exercise in shadow boxing.

Which way forward: who leads APC?It must be noted that for the first time, Asiwaju is encountering stiff challenge and resistance to his leadership since his ascendancy to the apogee of his political power. All through the AC and ACN years and up until April 28 this year, he had largely called the shots and had his way. Now, it’s a different ball game; it’s national politics now with all the intrigues and intricacies and especially so for a party that is still at best, an SUV. He must therefore, learn to share power, he must learn to wield power more graciously and most quietly. He must learn the art of quiet strengths. His power and influence now lie in their mutedness.

Having helped immensely in killing the PDP dragon and ‘installing’ a  president of Nigeria’s desire, he has earned his place in history; he must be care full now not to unearn it. His best strategy now is to to backtrack, lead from the rear and allow the president to be in front. By virtue of the power and authority imbued his office, power locus has shifted; it is therefore trite to note that the de facto leader of any ruling party is the president and not the ‘party leader’. In fact, he is now president and party leader.

The party must never be seen to be contradicting its president; not publicly, not even when he is wrong. That would diminish both the party and president. But this is what APC did when it would not toe President Buhari’s line of not interfering in the NASS election ab initio.

The fallacy of party supremacy is exactly what it is.A ruling party can only be as supreme as its president allows it. Or can a party be openly supreme to a president. It is trite again to note that, there is party, there is the constitution, there are national institutions and there is national interest. We must situate this party supremacy in the context of all these centrifugal forces. Party power or supremacy, we must admonish, can only be effective in the context of quiet suasion, dialogue and negotiation. It hardly has any force to work by fiat, letters and ultimatums.

Since the NASS debacle, a section of the party has lapsed into vilification and disparagement of APC members who would not submit to ‘party supremacy’. This is unfair and it’s recipe for breeding bad blood and catastrophe for the party.  Atiku Abubakar, for instance, is suddenly despicable evil and Bukola Saraki has grown horns overnight? Even our elder John Oyegun faces unkind blackmail. But when when these people were courted and enlisted in the battle to kill the PDP ‘monster’, they were ‘angels’; when they threw in enormous resources and delivered there various states and zones, it was cool. And now they insist on having a say in the sharing the ‘booty’, they are monsters?

Buhari: how to groom a dictator There has also been a sustained badgering of President Buhari to wield his powers and ‘rein in’ the ‘errant’ NASS members. We must be careful what we ask for. We are asking the president to exercise direct control over NASS (in spite of his better judgment) by interfering in who becomes principal officers in the legislative tier of government. Is this not against the grain of democratic principles?

Have we forgotten the mess former President Olusegun Obasanjo made of the PDP and the NASS during his days? Is this what we want in 2015? It is not political inadequacy or weakness for Buhari to have removed himself from the NASS imbroglio so far. On the contrary, it is a masterstroke that will earn him more respect from the NASS members and this is the kind of change Nigerians voted for.

Many have criticised Saraki very harshly for working with PDP members and throwing up Ike Ekweremadu as deputy senate president. Galling as this may be to APC members, this may well be the greatest move APC has made even though by default. With north as president, southwest as vice president and middle belt (Yoruba) as Senate president; allowing the southeast deputy senate presidency in a multi-party arrangement could have turned out the most strategic move of the APC if they had played it well and appropriated the mistake.

If only for the reasons that we need to unite the country, we need to spread the party further afield, we need to start preparing for the next election and we need to expand APC further into Igbo land. Besides, what manner of party would APC portray itself to be if at the end of the day there is no Igbo principal officer in the NASS? What would it look like if Yoruba had vice president and speaker while southeast and south-south has no position of note? Apart from the purposes of ceremony and protocol, deputy senate president is merely a symbolic gesture that is worth nothing in the scheme of things.

Unknown to many, by the current arrangement in the NASS, APC is a stronger party, it has suddenly grown bigger in clout and more national in spread and outlook. Besides, another election will soon be here; APC must think long term. APC must convince Nigerians that the much-vaunted change is inclusive, expansive and not even about spoils and offices but about delivering value to the people. Just by the way: 30 days in office and it’s a harvest of bickering from the APC government!