The Nation Newspaper

Category: Emeka Omeihe

  • Lukarawa terror alert

    Lukarawa terror alert

    The alert by Defence Headquarters (DHQ) of a new terror group, the Lukarawa in Sokoto and Kebbi states would seem a fresh dimension to the metastasising insecurity in the country.

    The news must have unsettled Nigerians, especially the northwest that has been battling the festering challenge of banditry. In the last couple of years, banditry manifesting in kidnapping for ransom, despoliation of villages and senseless killings has left that region a ghost of its former self. This has in turn, taken a huge toll on agricultural production as farmers refuse to go to farms for fear for their lives.

    So, the emergence of another terror group in that region carries with it all the trappings of a canary in the coal mine. But is the terror group really ‘new’ in the security trajectory of the northwest region? That is perhaps, one issue this column seeks to explore.

    DHQ spokesman, Edward Buba who announced the emergence of the ‘new’ terror group, said Lukarawa is linked to Islamic State (ISIS) and its members crossed into Nigeria from Niger Republic. He said when the terror group first settled in Sokoto and Kebbi states, the locals accommodated them and did not report to security agencies until they started to cause havoc.

    According to him, this is the first time the Sahelian jihadists are making incursions into our country taking advantage of gaps in cooperation between Nigeria and Niger, the difficult terrain and under-governed areas to spread their ideology. The ideology they are propagating was not disclosed but the military said the group emerged last year after the coup in Niger that led to the breakdown of cooperation between that country and Nigeria.

    The key issues raised by the military are that Lukarawa is a new terror group that emerged after last year’s coup in Niger Republic; they are just making their first incursion into Nigeria and the communities accommodated them without informing the security agencies. Its corollary is that the security agencies had no prior information on their presence before the last coup in Niger Republic.

    All these seek to place culpability for the emergency and current threat posed by the Lukarawa terror group on the shoulders of the local communities in Sokoto and Kebbi states. That may well be.

    While a peep into  accounts of people from those areas show some similarities with the military narrative on how the terror group settled in the villages, there exist remarkable differences in terms of their time of settlement, the knowledge of their presence the security agencies had and why the locals allowed them in the first place.

    A study conducted in 2021 indicated that the Lukarawa group was initially invited from Mali by local leaders in Gudu and Tangaza local governments of Sokoto State in 2017 to address the growing banditry incursions from Zamfara State. 

    Another 2022 study by Murtala Rufa’i,  James Barnett and  Abdulaziz  Abdulaziz showed that Lukarawa rejected the title of Boko Haram, rather preferring to be called Mujahdeen or Ansaru, the franchiseof Al-Qaeda. It started by protecting the locals in its strongholds, attacking military formations and civilians considered to be informants to the military.

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    The study also revealed that when local leaders in Gudu and Tangaza LGAs of Sokoto State invited the Lukarawa group in 2017 to address banditry incursions from Zamfara, they solicited for cash, cows, logistics and weapons to help the group protect them and even recruited youths to join them. The report said they are Malians who speak Arabic and Fulfulde.

    A resident of Tangaza LGA, Mallam Bello Tangaza corroborated the invitation of the group by locals for protection about six years ago after being assailed by banditry manifesting in kidnapping and cattle rustling as security agencies could not offer much help.

    According to him, those initially invited were 10 well-armed men because of their track record as a vigilante group. He said after the police failed to rescue some of their kidnapped community leaders, the group moved in and rescued them together with rustled cows and sheep.

    But things went awry when the group went beyond their mandate to enforce, collect levies and indulge in other illegal activities. They preached some weird ideology, checked people’s phones and broke memory cards they found to contain music. They also flogged people who played or downloaded music from their phones. The community leaders who initially invited them got tired of their excesses and sought their quick exit. When community and religious leaders got tired of their excesses, they provided valuable information to the authorities.

    But the threat was downplayed. This enabled the group to re-group and re-emerge in 2021, aligning with bandits and Fulani communities. That was perhaps, when their escapades assumed monstrous and lethal proportions.

    It is not clear at what point the community leaders sought the assistance of security agencies to quit the group from their area. But one thing not in doubt is that the security agencies had knowledge of the presence of the group, even if they misread their motive or underestimated their capacities.

    A local government information officer in Tangaza, Bala Ibrahim Gidan-Madi had then also confirmed that a former commissioner of police in the state, Murtala Mani had visited the communities as part of efforts to beef up security.

    When the matter was first reported by the media, then spokesperson of Sokoto State police command, Cordelia Nwawe had said they were not bandits but herders from Mali with their wives and children, cattle, cows and donkey.

    “They came to same area annually from Mali in search of water for their cattle…they went back since Tuesday, November 27, 2018 and no attack on any person or damage to farm crop was recorded”, she had said. The police enjoined Sokoto and its environs not to panic but to go about their lawful duties without fear or apprehension.

    Just before last week’s alert by the DHQ, Sokoto State government raised alarm on the presence of the terror group in five LGAs of the state. Spokesman of the state police command, Ahmed Rufai gave further insight on how long the terror group had stayed in the area when he said, “they have been in those areas for some years now.  They are armed with weapons and part of their agenda is to impose their own kind of religious practice on the people”.

    There are clear issues in the attestations and copious evidence provided by the locals and the police authorities. The first is that the Lukarawa group was initially invited by local leaders to help them fight back the menace of banditry. But the group soon turned a verity of Frankenstein monster.  Second, the group came from Mali and may have crossed in from Niger because the later shares boarders with Nigeria. They are largely Malians.

    Again, they are not ‘new’ in the northwest as their presence dates as far back as 2018. They had in the past, reportedly mounted attacks against military formations even if in isolated and feeble circumstances. The state government and the police had clear evidence of their presence but may have been handicapped in confronting them just as was the case with banditry.

    So, it was not entirely correct for the military to lay the blame for the incursions of the Lukarawa group solely on the locals who took resort to self-help due to the inability of security agencies to protect them. Assuming without conceding the locals failed to report their presence to security agencies, it smacks of intelligence failure for the terror group to operate for that long without notice.

    The coup in Niger, leading to breakdown in cooperation may have a hand in the spread of the terror group. But it was not the major factor. There has been evidence of Lukarawa presence in Sokoto and Kebbi states for some years before that coup.

    At any rate, with the diplomatic faceoff between Nigeria and Niger and threat of military action by ECOWAS against the latter, one had expected strict manning of the borders to prevent infiltration of the enemy. But that did not appear to have happened given the excuses by the military on Lukarawa exploiting the difficult terrain and under-governed areas after the coup to spread terror.

    What seems to have emerged from all this, is that security agencies were either handicapped in confronting the Lukarawa terror group or they underestimated their capacities for evil.  Ironically, we seem to be repeating the same mistakes that led to the escalation of Boko Haram insurgency.

    It has been argued with varying degrees of persuasion that had the early activities of Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf been promptly checked, this country would have been saved the enormous toll in human and material capital expended on that unending war. But, was there any prospect of security agencies meaningfully engaging the Lukarawa group invited to protect the locals against the menace of bandits then? That is the dialectical poser.

  • A government counsel and freed minors

    A government counsel and freed minors

    It emerged as a disgusting spectacle in the social media space. The first video clip depicted a scene of malnourished and worn-out children in their numbers, arraigned in an Abuja federal high court for alleged treason and related offences.

    Some of them collapsed on the dock, crying and gasping for breath while their equally haggard-looking colleagues held on to them. Some lawyers, apparently standing in their defence were also seen in the dock jittery and furious at the unfolding but seriously embarrassing development.

    They were heard calling on the prosecutor to, “take them to the clinic, take them to the clinic. Where is the prosecutor. Imagine, how can you arraign children”, amidst the wailing of some minors desperately in need of medical help. It was a chaotic and touching scene to behold as other minors watched on.

    The scene undoubtedly, ruffled public sensibilities attracting immediate condemnation notwithstanding the offences for which the minors were charged. The fact that the small boys had stayed three months in detention since the #EndBadGovernance protests in August, was enough to assail the conscience of even the most callous.

    Surprisingly, a second video clip also made a quick appearance. This time, it was a counsel to the federal government, Rimazonte Ezekeil addressing the press, apparently to correct the negative impression created by the court scene. But he spoke in a manner that left many bewildered and more angry.

    Hear him, “These boys we brought to the court today, all of them are adults. Most of them are married men. None of them is a minor. Some of them are university graduates. The small, small kids you are seeing here, they came with some of their parents to great their loved ones. They are not even the real suspects standing trial in this case”.

    He dismissed the claims of the defence counsel that they are school children and minors and alleged they were meant to tarnish the image of the police.

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     Ironically, the children he said were university graduates and married adults had been paraded and seen by the public. Their ages as recorded in the charge sheet ranged from 14-17 years.

     If it was a desperate attempt to pull wool over the eyes of the public, it turned out a colossal disaster. His statements created more problems for the government than the embarrassment mere arraignment of sick and malnourished children in court had engendered.

    But the government counsel was not alone in this disappointing voyage in self-deceit. The Nigerian Police Force also spoke of the incident in very disappointing manner. In a statement, its Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi claimed the court incident was stage managed; scripted.

    “Today (Friday), an unexpected incident in court saw six of the suspects suddenly rush out and faint, drawing media attention in a deliberate and scripted manner to draw negative attention.  Medical aid was promptly provided to those individuals” he said. But he was quick to add that under the Nigerian law, individuals who have reached the age of criminal responsibility are answerable for their actions, regardless of their age.

    The dismissive and offhanded manner the Nigerian police and the government prosecutor viewed the fate of the minors, was in sharp contrast with the outrage it generated both within and outside the shores of this country. Without prejudice to whatever offences the minors were alleged to have committed, it was deemed callous and insensitive for the police to have detained the minors for three months only to arraign them in the very decrepit and dehumanising manner they were seen in court that fateful day.

    The weight of empathy and sentiments evoked by that court outing were such that no responsible government, especially one that derived its mandate from the people could afford to ignore. Sadly, those who brought the minors to court in the manner they appeared, completely lost sight of the possible backlash.

    Something went awry with their reading of the situation. The difficult bail conditions set by the presiding judge further narrowed the chances of the minors for temporary reprieve. It aggravated the outrage.

     It came as a bold relief when President Bola Tinubu ordered immediate release of all the minors and the setting up of an administrative committee to examine all the issues surrounding the arrest, detention, treatment and release of the minors.

    That was not all. The president further directed that all law enforcement agents involved in the arrest and the legal processes be investigated, and if any infractions are found to have been committed, disciplinary action should be taken against the person.

     The court process has since been discontinued and the charges struck out by the trial judge. This paved the way for the immediate release of about 119 minors to the governors of Kano and Kaduna states. Vice President Kashim Shettima who presided over the release, said it was an act of magnanimity by President Tinubu despite “incontrovertible digital video and photographic evidence of the perpetrators and actions, some of which were uploaded by the actors themselves”.

    The reprieve for the minors has since drawn applause from so many quarters.  The president must have been touched by the spectacle of malnourished children who ordinarily should be in school, arraigned in court for offences many of them may never have heard of in their lives. He saw through the facade of  excuses presented by the prosecuting counsel and the police.

    Even if that scene was stage managed and scripted to attract media attention and portray the government in bad light, the scene succeeded in achieving that. But the fault is that of the police and the prosecuting officials. They should have known ahead of time, the predictable outcome of bringing those children to court in the conditions they were seen. If they faked fainting, their malnourished and sickly mien gave out the treatment they got in detention.

    That is where the probe directed by the president cues in very appropriately. It has been argued with varying degrees of plausibility that one of the major challenges leaders face is that of bad advisers. The case in point may be a vivid example. It is obvious from the response of the president that he may not have been properly briefed on the detention and circumstances of the minors. His quick directive for their release and investigation of all those that played a role in it suggests that.

    The police have serious questions to answer on the handling of the minors in detention. They claimed the fainting was stage managed, yet they took the sick and fainted minors to get medical attention. They were also derelict for not anticipating that arraigning those children in the manner they were seen in court, was bound to assail public sensibilities. So it is not just a matter of their action being scripted and in any case by who?

    There is no attempt to justify acts of lawlessness either by adults or minors. But these minors are victims of the system, often manipulated by the elite to achieve ends of self-serving or political colouration. Many of them were arrested allegedly waving Russian flags. They may not even know the difference between Russian flags and any other.

     Some of them were also rounded up indiscriminately during the protest, going by their accounts after their release.

    It is a mark of intelligence failure that within the three months the minors were detained, the police was unable through discrete interrogation, to unmask their sponsors and source of the flags some of the minors waved.  Maybe that is part of the puzzles the investigating committee will resolve. But, some lessons have definitely been served. 

  • Card metre upgrade or phase out?

    Card metre upgrade or phase out?

    It is not for nothing that the decision by some Electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOs) to phase out the prepayment card meter technology has been embroiled in serious controversy. The Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC) and the Eko DICSO (EKEDC) recently announced deadlines for the phase out of the Unistar card meter technology

    Both Discos have issued deadlines to customers on their networks in Lagos and parts of Ogun State to replace their existing Unistar prepayment meters after which they will become dysfunctional.  They claim the measure is due to incompatibility of the Unistar card meter technology with the Standard Transfer Specification (STS) system currently in use by distribution networks.

    The two companies have asked their customers using the Unistar meters to apply for new ones through their websites. But application through that process involves the payment of new meters fees of about N130,000 which has in turn generated another round of protests.

    By contrast, their counterpart, the Enugu DISCO (EEDC) approached the matter from a different angle. It asked its customers in the southeast to upgrade their meters before November 24. EEDC attributed the measure to “Token Identifier (TID) rollover, an exercise that affects all STS compliant pre-paid meters all over the world”.

    That was not all. The company unfolded three sets of 20-digit tokens a customer is expected to punch into their prepayment meters in a particular sequence after which the meter will upgrade automatically.  “This exercise is free and at no cost to customers” the EEDC said.

    The position of the EEDC contradicts that of the IKEDC and EKEDC. Both Discos spoke of complete phase out of the card meters on the guise that they are incompatible with the STS system. But the EEDC said the meters are upgradable and has indeed, identified the steps for the upgrade. That is the first burden on the shoulders of the two DISCos routing for outright phase out.

    The IKEDC and EKEDC share the burden of explaining to consumers why EEDC is able to upgrade the meters at no cost and they cannot. Even then, the position of the EEDC tallies with that of Unistar Hi-Tech Meters limited.

    The company has vehemently refuted claims of incompatibility levied against its meters, stating unambiguously that its prepayment electricity meters utilising the card meter technology are fully upgradable and compatible with the STS meter technology.

    When you juxtapose the position of Unitar Hi-Tech Meters Limited with that of the EEDC, one is left with the inevitable conclusion that the Unistar meters are definitely upgradable. There is evidence to support this conclusion.

    If one should entertain any doubt on the position of Unistar Hi-Tech Meters Limited on the suspicion that they may be protecting their commercial interests, the position of EEDC clears all that. EEDC has demonstrated in very clear terms, the steps to be taken to have the card meters upgraded at no cost. And this is provable; empirical!

    Unless the Unistar meters in use in Lagos and Ogun states are substantially different from those in the areas covered by EEDC, it is puzzling why the two DISCOs insist on outright phase out instead of upgrade. The DISCOs routing for complete phase out of the meters have to reassure the public that there is no hidden motive in the indecent haste with which they are pursuing that agenda.

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    They have asked customers to apply for new meters through their websites. But that process is tortuous and confusing. Those who have tried to fill the forms through the websites in the past have sad tales of slowness of the process and inability of the system to complete the process after the requisite information had been provided.

    That is not all. The meters are not even available. Some fraudulent staff have been capitalising on this to demand bribe from customers desperate to flee from callous estimated billings. The threat of estimated billing of N185,000 per month to customers on the so-called Band ‘A’ classification has left many vulnerable to the antics of rogue marketing staff of these organisations.

    Even then, some of these DISCos do not have record of the number of consumers currently on the Unistar prepayment card reader system. Without such vital information in the face of scarcity of new meters, it is a matter of educated guess how well they have planned for eventual meter replacements.

    The situation promises chaotic, leading to unmitigated suffering among consumers should the DISCOs go ahead with the deadline to phase out the meters. Many customers will be denied electricity supply. Those on Band “A’ connected directly will be compelled to pay a fee of N185,000 per month pending the availability of meters.

    It will be licence for unconscionable exploitation of consumers through estimated billings. This will in turn, trigger confusion and compound the suffering in the land with outcomes nobody can predict. Many customers will be thrown into darkness as they cannot afford the cutthroat fees charged Band ‘A’ areas.

     A three phase Unitar card meter cost about N70,000 13 years ago while the single phase went for N50,000. There were other costs also incurred by customers to acquire these meters. These were the assets and liabilities the DISCos took over when they acquired the defunct National Electric Power Authority NEPA. Even after the acquisition, they still sold these meters to customers.

    Admittedly, the DISCos are within their rights to phase out the old meters if they so desire. But the cost of doing so must be borne by them and not the customers who are made to pay highly for the epileptic services they provide. Even then, the fact that the card meter system can be upgraded as evidently demonstrated above lends the motives of the DISCOs routing for outright phase out suspect.

    The federal government cannot afford to sit by while the social atmosphere is ruffled by the callous desire of the DISCOs to reap consumers dry through questionable guise. The chairman of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission NERC, Musliu Oseni said there is no directive for the phasing out of Unistar meters, even as he admitted such powers lie with the DISCOs.

    But his assurance that the cost will not be borne by consumers, pales in the face of what IKEDC and EKEDC have set out to do. Nothing has come from the two companies on the mechanism for the replacement of the meters either through vendor financing, DISCO financing or funding by a Meter Asset Provider with the understanding that customers would be refunded.

    There is practically no information on that. Yet, the DISCOs seem poised to make good the deadline. Neither is there evidence of any improvement in the availability of meters nor the readiness of the DISCOs to avail customers of them at the expiration of the deadline. All these have led to the cloud of doubt, uncertainty and helplessness hovering over the landscape.

    The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) toed similar path with the NERC when it stood on the side of consumers not paying for the replacement of the meters. It has indicated its intention to work with relevant stakeholders to ensure that consumers are neither made to pay for meter replacement nor unduly exploited. Good assurances.

    But they must go beyond these pious statements to seriously engage the DISCOs especially those committed to phasing out the Unistar meters instead of an upgrade. In this engagement, they should seek to establish why the Enugu DISCO can UPGRADE its Unistar meters while others cannot.

    Their findings will give a clue to the motive behind the indecent haste with which some of the DISCOs are currently pursuing the phasing out agenda. In that engagement, they should also challenge the DISCOs to furnish them with data on customers currently on the Unistar meter system and the available meters to meet their demands.

    They may discover to their astonishment that the electricity distribution companies are not even prepared for the voyage they are rushing to undertake. We are faced with a serious existential challenge that should not be allowed to throw consumers into unmitigated suffering.

    Nigerians are passing through very difficult times due to the biting effects of the reform policies of the federal government. It will be outright callousness to allow the DISCOs to proceed with the phasing out agenda without concrete assurances to pay for the meters and acceptable formula for their replacement.

    It is not just enough for the NERC and the FCCPC to say DISCOs will bear the cost of meter replacement. They must take practical measures to save electricity consumers from the impending mindless exploitation by the DISCOs. Any attempt to force customers pay for the meters without clearly established modalities for quick refund will further aggravate tension in the country. Its outcome could be dire.

  • Akpabio saw the future

    Akpabio saw the future

    An online newspaper took up the assignment to establish the authenticity or otherwise, of a widely circulated video clip recently attributed to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.

    In the eight-second video clip, a voice that sounded like that of Akpabio had said: “Times are difficult and wherever you see free food, please endeavour to avail yourself”. The statement attracted adverse public reactions coming from such a personage and especially against the background of the existential economic challenges faced by the citizenry.

    It was deemed callous and insensitive given the quarters it emanated from. The umbrage it drew, must have so agitated the online medium that it had to embark on a self-assigned voyage of interrogating the video clip.

    In setting out on the inquisition, the medium sought to establish whether Akpabio actually made that statement and if yes, when and under what circumstance. The objective was to determine whether some of the criticisms and motives imputed into the statement were after all, well guided. Good initiative one may say!

    Since the video suggested that the statement was made during senate plenary, the medium reviewed senate plenary from June 13, 2023 to January 2024. It discovered that the senate chamber shown in the video is the temporary chamber which the senate stopped using since May, 2024 when they moved to the permanent one.

    It found out that the voice in the video “is truly Akpabio’s” but he made the comment on June 14, 2023, a day after the inauguration of the 10th Assembly. The medium further revealed that the Senate President was addressing his colleagues at a dinner organised in his honour and the Deputy Senate President and the comment was not to Nigerians as the video showed senators laughing at the occasion.

    Its final verdict was that the video is misleading. In arriving at this conclusion, the medium was apparently guided by the fact that the statement is not a recent one and the audience was that of Akpabio’s colleagues in the senate. Circulating the video now was bound to mislead as it conveyed the impression of a recent event where the Senate President was addressing Nigerians direly contending with the pervading hunger in the land, the medium would seem to argue. That seeks to exonerate Akpabio from the smear attacks that trailed the video clip.

    But the conclusion is not as simplistic as presented. Timing and audience as justification for that statement cannot be stretched too far without running into some contradiction. As at the time Akpabio spoke, fuel subsidy had gone as announced by President Bola Tinubu in his speech after being sworn-in. That was quickly followed up by the floating of the Naira at the foreign exchange market.

    These reform policies immediately catapulted the price of petrol and devalued the national currency leading to a general increase in the prices of goods and services. Their adverse effects on the living conditions of the people had begun to be felt. Before then, Nigeria had been rated the poverty capital of the world, alternating in that unenviable position with India in the world poverty chart. So, the hard times he referenced upon to ask those who are lucky to find free food to help themselves were already there.

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    The fact that he was addressing his colleagues does not in any way diminish the weight and import of the statement. It rather, reinforces the gravity of the pervading hunger. If privileged senators can be reminded to help themselves anywhere they see free food because the times are hard, that should say a lot about the abject living circumstances of ordinary Nigerians.

    It also made no difference whether he spoke to an audience of senators or Nigerians; after all, senators are elected representatives of their constituents. It is inconsequential whether the senators laughed at the statement or not. At any rate, they were not expected to cry.

    The online newspaper did a good job to have devoted time to probe Akpabio’s viral video statement. But, it is not entirely correct to have concluded that the video is misleading. Akpabio had a proper reading of the times he spoke about and he also saw the future.

    The situation he painted is fully with us even as it provides no solution to the debilitating social malady. His statement resonates with the realities of Nigeria’s contemporary environment as citizens are already helping themselves anywhere they find food whether invited or uninvited.

    Those who have had cause to organise parties in recent times have tales of bitter experiences to share. It is not just a matter of people availing themselves of the food they see at occasions, Nigerians have even gone further to perfect the act. The practice now is for people to arrive at any and every ceremony with small coolers and take-away plates not only to eat, but to collect the food they will eat with their children on getting home.

    Some even go as far as invading social events with their children to enable them savour of the available food served. It is real. Ironically, these are habits our society hitherto frowned at. But they are quickly becoming the norm as general living conditions deteriorate.

    Mama Job (not real names) had a thanksgiving party in Lagos for her son who recently graduated from a military academy in the country. During the thanksgiving outing ceremony at the church, she noticed a long queue of relations, friends and well-wishers, many unknown to her family. She took it as the usual show of solidarity associated with such church outings.

    After the church service, they retired to their family house for entertainment. By the time she came down after spending some time in their apartment upstairs, she discovered to her surprise that available seats had been taken over by faces largely unknown to her, being served food and drinks.

    Meanwhile, much of the dignitaries she was expecting had not arrived. But for her quick intervention, everything could have been consumed before the arrival of the main guests. Of course, they ran out of drinks and had to rush to a nearby outlet to buy more for those they were really expecting.

    Somewhere in the southeast very familiar to this writer, a family that lives near the market recently had a social event. The occasion proceeded well without any incident. But when it got to the point of serving food, some people in the nearby market were seen filing in to help themselves.

    A friend of mine who was overseeing the sharing of the food, fled the scene in style when he noticed confusion was about to set in given the limited provision by the organisers. These are just few examples of the extent hungry Nigerians go to help themselves with free food anywhere they find one. Just organise a party in your village or elsewhere and feel the pulse!

    Hunger is real with the prices of foodstuffs gone beyond the purchasing powers of the citizens. The federal government recognises this reality and has sought to mitigate its effects through social intervention measures. But these measures have yet to make any difference.

    That accounts for rising agitations for the reform policies to be given a human face; some pushing for outright reversal to allow the citizens breathe. But the Breton Woods institutions advise to the contrary.

     The World Bank said, “Nigeria must stay the course for another 10-15 years of focussed reforms… the difficult decision taken today will not yield immediate results, but they will set the foundation for a more prosperous and stable Nigeria”. It also spoke against back-tracking the reforms as it would have disastrous consequences for Nigeria’s economic future.

    Reversing the reforms may not be the option. But the challenge is: How the citizens will fare if the reforms are sustained for that length of time in the face of the debilitating existential challenges they brought in their wake? This puzzle resonates given the inability of the gains from fuel subsidy removal and floating of the Naira to translate to the overall benefit of the citizens as touted. Rather, they have made living conditions worse.

    But we are at the crossroads because the fundamentals for the reform policies to endure were not in place before they were introduced in the manner they came. Had there been incremental and sustained efforts overtime by the leadership of the country to put in place the necessary infrastructural and social support facilities, the biting effects of the policies would have been mitigated. But they would not have that. Rather, policies meant to build sound and prosperous future for the country were brazenly opposed on the guise of political expediency. This country is yet to recover from elite dissonance even in matters where the national interest was at stake. The inability of the political elite to form broad consensus on irreducible decimals for sustained national growth and development has been the real challenge.

    It is not for nothing that the World Bank called for elite support for ‘unpopular policies’ that hold the ace for a sound and prosperous future for the citizens. Will this ever happen?

  • Rivers’ LG election crisis

    Rivers’ LG election crisis

    The political disagreement between Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike is nothing new. It had initial manifestation in the burning down of a section of the state’s House of Assembly, polarisation of legislators along the same loyalty lines, sack/resignation and recall of key officials of the government including commissioners.

    There was also an attempt to impeach the governor before the situation was brought under control through the intervention of President Bola Tinubu. The terms of the eight-point agreement signed by Fubara, Wike and other stakeholders were envisaged to restore peace in the state even as reservations on its workability were not hidden.

    Fubara came under intense attack for consenting to some of the terms of that agreement. But he was to explain in a broadcast that the “peace pact is not as bad as it is being portrayed by those genuinely opposed to it. It is certainly not a death sentence. It offers some way towards a lasting peace and stability in our state”.

    But it was a matter of time for the bubble to burst especially given fears that some of the terms of the agreement undermined the constitutional powers of Fubara as governor. True to prediction, the political skirmish did not abate. It could not have abated since the control of power was at stake.

    Power struggle is an integral part of politics. Ordinarily, there should be nothing wrong with such power dynamics provided it is channelled through conventional institutions, structures and processes. Ironically, strong institutions and processes are yet to take firm root on this clime, giving room to all manner of subterfuge that violate the rules of democratic engagement.

    That appears the situation brought to the fore by events of the last local government elections in Rivers State. The lawlessness, arson and deaths witnessed especially before and after that election mirror vividly the weaknesses of our institutions, structures and processes. Here, the political parties, judiciary and security agencies especially the police feature very prominently. The executive should also share in the blame.

    The thesis of this presentation is that the near breakdown of law and order that hallmarked the local government election in Rivers State was fuelled largely by weak institutions, structures and processes. There was an obvious lack of commitment on the part of operators to allow the regulatory mechanisms of democratic engagement full activation.

     Even as power struggles between Fubara and Wike were behind it all, the current pass could have been stymied had our institutions, structures and processes lived up to the roles expected of them. Of course, behind them all is the human factor.

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    It is not in doubt that the actions or inaction of operators of these institutions injected complications into the smooth conduct of the election. No matter how attractive a given development construct is, its success will largely depend on the orientations, prejudices and attitudes of its operators.

    We are contending with a mismatch between the political system we operate and extant political culture of the people.  Samuel P. Huntington described how chaos and disorder can arise from social modernization increasing more rapidly than political and institutional modernization.

    Francis Fukuyama gave further vent to this when he argued that while democracies can theoretically reform through electoral politics, they are also potentially subject to decay when institutions do not adapt.  That is the danger brought to the fore by events of the Rivers State LG polls. We face the risk of political decay when our institutions fail to adapt to democratic norms and practices.

    This is evident in the inability by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to uphold internal democracy in the conduct of its congresses before that election. Had there been internal democracy within the state chapter of the party leading to democratic elections of ward, local government and state officials, the party would have perhaps, gone to the election a united entity and deepened democracy.

    But the leadership of the PDP would not have that. They opted to hand over the structures of the party to Wike when the sitting governor is supposed to be the leader of the party in the state. Even then, the idea of handing over party structures to an individual is everything but undemocratic. That is the level our brand of democracy continues to find itself. The growth and deepening of the democratic culture suffers immeasurably when chaos and social disorder are engendered through constant abridgement of the process.

    Fubara may not have had cause to ask his loyalists to empty into the All Peoples Party (APP) had the PDP done the right thing. So the PDP has a huge share of the blame in the chain of events that nearly brought Rivers to the edge. Those who protested the holding of the election did so not necessarily for the love of the rule of law but because they knew the rug had been pulled off their feet. At any rate, they could have waited for the outcome of the election to challenge it in court instead of the resort to lawlessness.

    Perhaps, the judiciary more than any other arm of the government, had direct contribution to the chain of events that posed serious threat to law and order and nearly marred the election. The conflicting and contradictory judgments by Justices Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Abuja and I. Igwe of the Rivers State High Court contributed in no small measure, to the confusion that trailed the election.

    Justice Lifu had ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to release the voters’ register to the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) until it was updated; the police and DSS not to provide security for the election. Justice Igwe issued orders to the contrary. Coming from two courts of coordinate jurisdiction, the consequence of the conflicting orders was reflected in the near anarchy that enveloped the state thereafter.

    Even then, questions have been raised regarding the appropriateness of a court ruling that ousts the security agencies their constitutional powers. That ruling injected so much confusion that the police authorities had to seek advice from its legal arm which curiously, advised them to obey the order from the Federal High Court, Abuja.

    But the incongruity of that action soon manifested around the headquarters of the RSIEC when the state police command withdrew its men from the Government House securing the premises and deployed another set on the eve of the election. Fubara raised the alarm that the police were there to hijack sensitive materials meant for the election and accused the police leadership of partisanship.

    The state police command had to explain that its withdrawal of the policemen from the Government House was in keeping with the Abuja Court order. They however, claimed they had to deploy another set of policemen to the RSIEC office in response to credible intelligence on planned arson attack. Even if one admits the reasons adduced by the Rivers State police command, they still expose the contradictions in obeying the Abuja High Court order barring the police and the DSS from providing security for the election.

    By deploying their men to secure the RSIEC office, they fully provided security for the election. That would also amount to disobedience of the Abuja High Court order. So, the police could have as well, challenged the legality of a court order that sought to oust them from their statutory duties.

    There are also issues regarding the indecent haste with which the police vacated the headquarters of the 23 LGs they had secured in the past three months. Though the reason given for the action was to allow the newly elected leaders resume, events that followed shortly after, showed very clearly it was not the best thing to do in the circumstance.

    The burning of three local government headquarters and deaths that ensued could have been averted had the security agencies maintained reasonable presence given the tension surrounding the election. Law and order were so much threatened that President Tinubu had to order the police leadership to secure and restore normalcy in the state. That says much regarding the handling of the Rivers LG election crisis by the police authorities.

    So, our democracy will continue to falter as long as our institutions, structures and processes remain weak through the actions or inactions of their operators. How can democracy grow in a situation one individual wants to control the structures of factions of two leading political parties in a state while still retaining his ministerial post? What brand of democracy is that?

    We face the risk of political decay in the face of the inability of our institutions, structures and processes to adapt to the rules of democratic engagement. The choice is ours!

  • Imo: Cost of misinformation

    Imo: Cost of misinformation

    A gale of suspicion has enveloped the burning by arsonists, of sections of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and country home of a former senator, Frank Ibezim both in Nsu, Ehime Mbano Local Government Area of Imo State.

    The unfortunate incident followed a recent visit to the NOUN, Nsu centre by a team led by the Federal Commissioner for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons IDPs, Tijani Ahmed to inspect training facilities there. Soon after the visit, the video clip of a national television news report which conveyed the impression of plans by the federal government to train refugees, migrants and IDPs at the facility went viral.  

    The television report lent itself to varying interpretations creating in the process doubts in the minds of the people as to the real purpose of the visit by Ahmed and his team. The accompanying caption by the authors of the video clip had expressed shock at the information, asking … what is this… who sold out…please say NO to this”, among others.

    Apparently relying on the said video clip, a social critic in Imo State recorded another video which appeared in the media space, questioning the propriety of training the category of persons portrayed by the television clip in the centre. The issues raised by the development were such that both the state government and Ibezim were quick to issue statements clarifying the purpose of the visit and the objective the centre is meant to serve.

    But before the clarifications could make the desired impact, parts of the NOUN centre and the country home of Ibezim had been set on fire by arsonists. The speed with which all these took place, no doubt, created serious puzzles in the minds of the discerning public. There are questions regarding the uncanny connection of the two video clips with the arson that was visited at the NOUN centre and Ibezim’s house. Blames are being traded and accusing fingers pointed in some directions.

     This is not entirely unexpected especially given efforts by the Imo State government and Ibezim to clarify the objective the centre is meant to serve. Even then, a voice note trending in sections of the social media has equally raised issues with the propriety of the visit by the team led by Ahmed.

    The state police command has condemned the arson in very strong terms with a promise to take measures in synergy with other security agencies to bring the perpetrators to book.

    But as the security agencies conduct their investigations, the issues that brought about this odious pass must be properly situated especially given attempts to politicize the matter. We are contending with misinformation, its possible link to the arson.

    It is important that all the issues to the controversy are fit into their appropriate positions. The original source of the misinformation (whether intended or not or an error of judgement) needs to be identified to ensure that justice prevails in this matter.

    The news report by the said national television, the independent video clip from the social critic, statements from Ibezim and the commissioner for information Imo State, Declan Emelumba will be useful in this inquisition.

    The television news headline read “…Imo State, where the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons IDPs has concluded plans for the training of refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons on skills acquisition. Federal commissioner, Tijani Ahmed stated this during an inspection of the facilities for the training at Nsu in Ehime council area.”

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    Its senior reporter went ahead to provide the details. A pictorial was displayed with the caption –Refugees and Displaced Persons; and a rider: FG inspects facilities in Imo to train vulnerable people. But those shown in the pictorial as refugees and displaced persons were adorning attires remarkably different from the dominant dressing mode of the Imo people.

    Ahmed said at the occasion that his agency has what they call “arrangements for the preparation of our concerned people in order to provide for their training in different trades”. He rated the facilities okay for what they intend to do, while noting that it has a lot of laboratories not only for the use of peoples of concern but students in the area.

    In the video clip by the social critic, he raised concerns about the story in the media space on the proposed training of refugees, migrants and IDPs in Imo State wondering what business Imo has with such training. He questioned the rationale in bringing these categories of people for training in a state that is bereft of those scourge.

    The social critic then played the national television news broadcast video clip to buttress his point, warning of dire consequences in allowing refugees, migrants and IDPs to be brought to the state for the purported training. He also called for protests and petitions from the people of the area to forestall such idea given the precarious security implications it entails.

    When this is paired with the contents of the television news broadcast on the visit, the source of the misinformation stars everyone on the face. It is not in doubt that his was a reaction to the unambiguous information in the television news broadcast which claimed the said federal agency had concluded plans to train such categories of persons at the NOUN Nsu, centre. That conclusion is the logical interpretation of the television headline news. It speaks for itself.

    It is a different kettle of fish if it was an honest error of judgment on the part of the reporter and his news managers. But it cannot be denied that those who packaged that news item did not show sufficient consciousness to extant sensibilities and temperament in the zone.  

    This point was driven further home by Ibezim in his statement on the development. The former senator who said he was compelled by some ‘misinformation’ arising from the television news coverage of his visit to NOUN, Nsu centre, clarified that “the video of refugees attached to the television broadcast which has caused understandable anxiety was not filmed in Imo State”.

    He said the facilities at the centre are already in use with over 200 students enrolled since 2023 and the visit was for the agency to assess them to determine if they could be used for specialised skills. First, Ibezim admitted that the television coverage of the visit contained some misinformation.  Second, disowning the video of refugees as not having been filmed in Imo State is a tacit admission of the complications the linkage created for the people of the state.

    So the source of the misinformation is clearly not in doubt. Those who reacted questioned the propriety in bringing refugees, migrants and IDPs for training in Imo State. They said the state has no business with such categories of people since it is not known to have generated any. They are on point. They are also within their rights to insist that such trainings facilities should be located within the zones from which such people were dislocated. This makes sense especially given the security implications they entail.

    It was therefore somewhat untidy for the Imo State government through its information commissioner to single out the social critic for the misinformation that arose on the issue. The critic may have exaggerated his fears but they are not entirely unfounded. They are also not substantially different from the reservations in caption attached to original television video clip from which he made his own video. The state government did not fare any better when they accused him of notoriety in inciting the Igbo against northerners.

     There is no justification for the lawlessness that was unleashed on the NOUN centre and the residence of Ibezim. The security agencies have swung into action and some arrests have been made. There should be thorough and discrete investigations to unmask those responsible for the arson. No lead should be foreclosed in matters of this nature in view of the blame trading and its politicization by the opposition parties and agents of the state government. The role of fifth columnists in the chain of the unsavoury events should not be ruled out.

    It is also instructive that Ibezim whose official role in the visit has remained a moot issue clarified that the NOUN, Nsu centre has been operating for some time. This contradicts claims by the state government that the training facility is being attracted to Imo as part of the share of the Southeast. If one may ask, what is really being attracted to the state-the NOUN, Nsu centre that has been in operation or the training facilities warehoused therein?

     In sum, Imo State is contending with the cost of misinformation that may not have been deliberate. It is all part of the challenges news managers face on a regular basis. So, the scope of the investigations must go beyond the source of the misinformation, those who relied on it to offer dissenting views and expose opportunists who may have capitalised on the mix-up to wreak havoc. At any rate, we are yet to be told how the ‘people of concern’ differ from refugees, migrants and IDPs.

  • The matter of elections

    The matter of elections

    Penultimate Saturday witnessed one governorship as well as local government elections in two states. Edo State had its governorship off-cycle election in which the candidate of the All Progressives Congress APC, Monday Okpebholo emerged victorious. He scored 291, 667 votes to beat the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Asue Ighodalo who scored 247, 274 votes according to the figures released by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC. The candidate of Labour Party LP, Olumide Akpata came a distant third with 22, 763 votes.

    Enugu and Imo states also held elections into the various local government councils on the same day. Perhaps, the latter round of elections did not enjoy national prominence because it was an affair solely with the purview of their respective State Independent Electoral Commissions, SIECs.

    That does not in any way diminish the significance of those rounds of elections closest to the people at the grassroots. Of late, state governments appear in a hurry to have elected local systems in place. The ruling of the Supreme Court nullifying the contraption known as caretaker committees and ordering the withholding of federal funds from non-democratically elected local government councils account for this rush.

    It would however, seem that the enthusiasm to get the councils run by democratically elected people is informed more by political expediency than the love for democratic governance at that level. It is more of an act of desperation to ensure that federal allocations to the councils get to them. So the state governors have to contrive their own brand of elections to satisfy all righteousness, irrespective of their deviation from the rules of free, fair and all-inclusive democratic engagement.

    That is the foreboding signal emerging from the local government elections in Enugu and Imo states. The outcome of those elections as announced by their SIECs saw the ruling parties in both states sweeping all the chairmanship and councillorship polls.

    In Enugu, the PDP cleared all the 17 local government chairmanship positions. Chairman of the SIEC, Prof. Christian Ngwu said the commission did an excellent job of conducting free, fair and credible polls. Though he said he was yet to get the full compilation of all the 260 ward councillorship positions, all indications pointed to the same pattern of victory.

    Imo followed the same pattern with the APC sweeping all the chairmanship and councillorship positions in the 27 local governments of the state. The state ISIEC and party bigwigs have been beating their chests for the feat which they attributed as evidence of the return of peace and tranquillity in the state. For Imo State House of Assembly, it was the defeat of banditry and insecurity that made the successful conduct of the polls in the 27 local government areas possible.

    The two states are entitled to their views regarding the credibility and integrity of the local government elections they held. They are also at liberty to lay absolute claims to their popularity and connection with the various interests and segments of their states that made the feat possible.

    But, there is everything wrong with an election where all the victorious candidates are members of the ruling party. Not that this pattern is entirely new in elections conducted by the SIECS. NO! It has been part of the electoral dysfunctions that question the relevance and propriety of the continued retention of the SIECs.

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    Before now, there have been calls for the scrapping the SIECs on account of their inability to provide a level playing ground for other political parties to participate in the local government polls in a free, fair and credible manner. That call peaked with the Supreme Court ruling against any form of government at the local governments that does not derive its mandate from the people.

    The danger in allowing the SIECs continue with the LG elections’ conduct has been laid bare by events of the two elections. The desire of state governors not to allow opposition parties win any LG seat is part of the larger agenda to continue to corner funds at that level. If the Supreme Court bars us from constituting caretaker committees, we will make sure those who emerge in LG polls are people who will do our bidding, the reasoning goes. 

     That is why everything has to be contrived including make-shift primaries, selection and shunting out opposition parties to get anointed candidate mount the saddle. The situation has become so bad that the public has virtually lost confidence in the transparency of LG polls. Yet, we are being mocked and our consciences assailed by the touted transparency of a process that was primed to produce predictable outcomes.

     But that shows our strong aversion to western democracy. Our brand of politics has continued to show clear signals that political actors abhor opposition. The evidence is there in the rancorous and do-or-die politics. It is manifest in intolerance to opposition and winner takes all syndrome. It can be discerned from the increasing slide to one state.

    Yet, our leaders grandstand on democracy, eulogising it as if it is an end unto itself rather than a means to public good. It is commonplace seeing our leaders talk of democracy in glowing terms, taking credit for their sacrifices to wrest that governance construct from the military. But when it comes to upholding pristine values on which the model revolves, the same people become the greatest obstacles to its proper functioning. We really have a choice to make.

    Of more national significance was the Edo governorship election. It has come and gone with winners and losers known. But its value does not as much lie with winners or losers as the processes that produced those outcomes. Though the election progressed well in terms of accreditation, voting, counting and recording of results at the polling units, the collation process ran into troubled waters due to alleged compromises in some centres. Incidences of vote-buying, intimidation of INEC officials, observers and party agents were rife despite the huge security deployment.

    One of the civil society groups that monitored the election, Yiaga Africa rated the outcome as having failed integrity test. “While key processes such as accreditation, voting, counting and recording of results at the polling units substantially complied with the procedure, the results’ collation process was compromised by the actions of some biased INEC officials in connivance with other actors” the group said.

    The group said it recorded incidents of results’ manipulation and disruption during ward and local government collation in Ikpoba/Okha, Etsako West, Egor and Oredo local governments including intimidation of officials, observers and agents.

    Reservations on the outcome of that election also came from other quarters especially the PDP which described its outcome in very disparaging terms with a vow to contest the outcome in the court. But the APC sees their victory as evidence of the acceptance of the leadership at the centre.

    There is the temptation to view reservations on the conduct of the Edo governorship election as part of the culture of disputes that characterise elections on this clime. The hallmark inability or refusal by contestants to accept defeat even where there were clear outcomes could be cited to support this viewpoint.

    But there is grave risk of reductionism in stretching this line of argument further especially in the face of the obvious infractions. It was one off-cycle election INEC needed to demonstrate its capacity to run a credible, undisputed election, one that satisfies all parameters of free, fair transparent process.

     The credibility deficits INEC suffered during the last general elections is one reason it should have gotten its acts right. But that failed to happen. Reports of collated results deviating substantially from those posted in INEC result viewing portal (IRVP) cast serious slur on the whole essence of deploying technology to enhance the transparency of the exercise. It questions the competence of INECs leadership; the relevance of the agency and its impartiality.

     We have passed through this odious route before. It is sad the nation is again being confronted by the same lapses that nearly marred the last general election. Then, IRVP was said to have witnessed glitches such that results could not be compiled directly from it. Why INEC was unable to compute the results directly from the portal in a single off-cycle election is the greatest puzzle of the Edo poll.

    It is getting clearer that we are not prepared for democracy despite proclamations and pretences. But for how long shall we continue to falter each time the sovereignty of the electorate in democratic engagement is put to test?

    The choice is either to make democracy function through transparent periodic elections, allow it atrophy or opt for contraptions that suit our whims and caprices.

  • Unbundling Unity Colleges

    Unbundling Unity Colleges

    If everything goes on well, the federal government will soon unbundle the 115 Unity Colleges across the country into basic and secondary schools. Consultations to that effect are already on-going between the relevant ministries and agencies of the government.

    Minister of State for Education, Yusuf Sununu, while disclosing these at a meeting of principals of Unity Colleges with the theme, “Entrepreneurial Education: A Panacea for Self-reliance and National development” said the new measure is an integral part of the National Policy on Education. He further justified the unbundling exercise on the ground that it will allow more funds to go into the basic education level which is the basic foundation for learning.

    “As at today, money accruing to the Universal Basic Education Commission UBEC is not being enjoyed by the Federal Unity Colleges. But the unbundling will allow them (Unity Colleges) to have the basic education component which will be funded through UBEC”, the minister argued. By the new arrangement, more money will go into the basic and secondary education against what obtained in the past.

    Apart from additional funds that will be attracted by the schools, it was further canvassed that the unbundling will draw further benefit from the huge opportunities it offers for self-employment and self-reliance on the part of its products. Its effects in ameliorating the escalating unemployment level in the country is also put forward as further reason why the unbundling is a thing whose time has come.

    Given the reasons adduced by the minister, the proposed unbundling of Unity Colleges would seem to draw considerable allure. This is especially so given the high unemployment level among products of our secondary schools. The socio-economic and developmental challenges that currently assail the country, further lend any policy capable of equipping graduates of such schools with the necessary skills to make use of their heads and hands to create employment a desideratum.

    But there are grey areas in the minister’s presentation that require further clarification. There was no explanation on whether the basic and secondary schools would operate from the colleges as presently constituted or entail earmarking some of the Unity colleges as distinct basic schools running subjects up to the senior secondary school level while others are designated secondary schools with subjects running up to the same level.

     This clarification is germane for clear distinction between the current proposal and the 6-3-3-4 policy on education around which the nation’s secondary school education revolves. This is more so as the proposed new initiative shares the same objectives with the 6-3-3-4 policy on education which came into place since 1983. When the 6-3-3-4 system was introduced, all the nation’s secondary schools including the Unity Colleges had to cue into it.

    Ironically, the same reasons that had all along been adduced to justify the 6-3-3-4 policy on education are the very ones the minister is putting forward to justify the unbundling of the Unity Colleges. It was then argued that on completion of the six-year secondary school system split into junior and senior secondary schools, their products would have had vocational training inculcated into them such that will make them self-employed and self-reliant if they are not able to proceed to the university.

    By this, the government would indirectly reduce the scourge of unemployment that has been growing in geometric progression with its associated social vices. The minister spoke along these lines when urged principals of Unity Colleges to cultivate the entrepreneurial mind-set on their students by integrating it into the school curriculum to empower them to become job creators than job seekers.

     “Entrepreneurship education offers a solution to this challenge as it prepares students to think creatively, innovatively and develop the confidence to take calculated risks”, Sununu further eulogised the proposed initiative. This argument is nothing new.  It was the lynchpin around which the 6-3-3-4 education system revolved.  

    After more than two decades of its implementation, facts on the ground indicate very appallingly that the policy has been unhelpful in producing school leavers capable of self-reliance or creating employment for themselves. The touted self-reliance and self-employment from its products have largely remained a grand illusion. This should not come as a surprise.

    A combination of factors added up to rob the policy of its advertised potentials. Lack of adequate skilled manpower to see the students through vocational training, the absence of home grown technology, institutional corruption and dearth of supportive infrastructural facilities have remained the key obstacles to the high-minded goals of the 6-3-3-4 education system.

    So when Sununu presented the unbundling of the Unity Colleges in the same fashion the 6-3-3-4 system was dressed but failed to deliver on promise, public cynicism was bound to greet it. There are reservations as to whether the unbundling will not suffer the fate of other policies before it. There has been no substantial change or improvement in the conduct of public affairs to give confidence that the unbundling will not suffer from the same systemic challenges that worked against the realisation of the goals of the 6-3-3-4 system.

     It is not just enough to justify the unbundling of the unity colleges on the premise that it will allow more funds from UBEC to be injected into them. Neither is it enough to expect that once the schools are split and additional funds injected into them, all the necessary and sufficient conditions they require to deliver on promise would have been guaranteed. Far from that. How these funds are utilised in a system notorious for official corruption is at issue.

    Moreover, it is yet uncertain how the government intends to address such systemic deficits as requisite skilled local manpower, the attendant technological base and such infrastructural facilities as the epileptic power supply that are sine qua non for the kind of revolutionary change in skills acquisition.

    But then, the term unbundling throws up feelings that leave sour taste in the mouths of the citizenry. Nigerians encountered that term when the oil sector was broken down. They also saw it in action in the case of the National Electric Power Authority NEPA. Unbundling was dressed as the elixir to the challenges in those sectors.

    But the efficiencies and economy of scale that were to be derived from those unbundling exercise have been hard to realise. Rather, they have brought with them the same inefficiencies that marred their predecessors and high costs which the citizenry have had to pay for their services.

    So when the minister spoke of unbundling the Unity Colleges, the images the citizens got was that it would entail increases in school fees. But the explanation that the envisaged additional funds would come from the UBEC with the introduction of the basic education component seemed to have put that possibility at bay.

    Before then, there had arisen speculations that school fees in the unity schools had been increased to N386,000. The Federal Ministry of Education was quick to deny it. It had in a statement; described a document to that effect, which it said was circulating among parents as fraudulent. It said the highest fee paid by students in the unity schools was N100, 000 only for new students.

    It is good the speculated increase arose before the unbundling exercise was announced by the minister. We now know that additional funding for the new initiative will come from UBEC. That should be heart-refreshing. But the federal government must do proper homework this time around. It is not just enough to tout the advantages the unbundling of the Unity Colleges will bring forth.

    This country has not been lacking in churning out policies designed to set the nation on proper developmental direction. But there exists a whole world of difference between policy formulation and its implementation to achieve the desired goals. Secondary education that equips their products to make use of their heads and hands to create jobs is the way to go.

    But the fundamentals must be gotten right. The consultations presaging the unbundling must ensure all the supportive infrastructure and technological manpower to inculcate the envisaged entrepreneurial skills on the students are adequately in place. That will make the difference between the deficits encountered by the 6-3-3-4 system and the current one.

  • Ban on Togo, Benin universities

    Ban on Togo, Benin universities

    All is definitely not well with federal government’s blanket ban on degree certificates issued by universities in Togo and Benin Republic. Events since the Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman announced the retroactive de-recognition of degree certificates awarded by universities in the two countries indicate vividly that the government may not have taken into account, all the facts to the matter in arriving at the sweeping and painful decision.

    The government had following revelation by a national daily on how a reporter secured degree certificate from a Benin university within six weeks and got enrolled for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme, set up an inter-ministerial committee to investigate degree certificate racketeering and find solutions to the malfeasance.

    It also suspended the evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from Togo and Benin. But few weeks ago, the minister suddenly directed all higher institutions in the country to regularly submit their admission lists immediately after matriculation ceremonies through JAMB dedicated channels. The directive was said to be one of the recommendations of the inter-ministerial committee on fake degree racketeering in the two countries and locally.

    Nothing was said of other recommendations of the committee or government’s position on them. But the minister was to throw further insights into the decisions of the government days after, when he was reported to have said, “In the case of Togo we have three universities that are officially approved and licensed to offer degrees, and in Benin there are about five of them. Anyone who didn’t attend these universities is parading fake certificate”.

    This must have jolted many especially thousands of graduates of private universities duly approved by the governments of those countries. The weight of the pronouncement was further reinforced by available data from the NYSC which revealed that 21,684 students from Benin Republic and 1,105 from Togo had obtained fake certificates between 2019 and 2023. The government then promised to weed out fake degree holders from the system including those who had secured jobs with them.

    It is not certain the measures the NYSC adopted to generate this humongous and scandalous data. Neither is it of public knowledge whether this whopping number of fake degree holders scaled through the NYSC evaluation process in error or were flushed out from the scheme. It would have been interesting for our policy makers to know how the NYSC came about its findings. Such information would be useful in tackling the menace of fake degrees from those two countries.

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    Whatever the case, it is a sad commentary that this high figure of fake degree certificate holders sought illegal enrolment into the NYSC scheme within the timeframe. Who knows the number that succeeded undetected just like the reporter that got his degree certificate from Benin within six weeks? But it is puzzling that the NYSC kept this recurring scandal under wraps until the investigations by the inter-ministerial committee.

    Had this trend been exposed, perhaps, our education managers would have taken the necessary steps to avoid the present situation they are compelled by the enormity of the challenge to resort to precipitate measures. It is still good a thing we are coming to terms with the danger of fake degree certificates’ influx not only from those countries but from within our own local universities.

    But the blanket and retroactive ban is not only too drastic and harsh but guilty of hasty generalisation. The measure conveys the unmistakable impression of the government punishing all graduates of those two countries for offences committed by the unscrupulous ones. There is everything untidy about such a measure.

    It is inconceivable that every graduate from those universities parades a fake certificate as Mamman would want us to believe. Rather, what seems to have emerged is a palpable inability by the education ministry to do a thorough job on the very sensitive matter.  There is no evidence from the way the government went about the ban that they were meticulous and painstaking to sift the wheat from the chaff considering the very nature, weight and sensitivity of the issue.

    Or how else do we rationalise the de-accreditation of all the universities in those two countries except the three and five mentioned in Togo and Benin respectively?  How is that fraudulent activity substantially different from the revelations emerging from some of our local universities? The inability of the government to apply the same hash and sweeping measure to local universities in similar mess speak of the contradiction and unfairness of the blanket ban.

    The committee should have been more painstaking in investigating the particular universities complicit in the issuance of such fake certificates, the number of those that benefited from that fraudulent activity with recommendations on how to stem the tide. There is no evidence of that. Neither was clean bill of health issued to any of the private universities duly accredited by their home governments.

    It is bad enough that fake degrees are being churned out to Nigerians from those countries. But it is also a big statement that patrons of those universities are Nigerian youths. That is a big statement that should have instructed extreme care in separating the genuine certificate holders from the fakes. If the government has other issues with the quality of education and duration of certain courses, these can be taken up with their home governments for remedial measures to address observed shortcomings.

    Facts available from the two countries further interrogate the criteria adopted by the federal government in issuing the ban. Stakeholders in education in the Republic of Benin have faulted the claims by the minister.

    Contrary to the Mamman’s claims, the stakeholders said there are eight public universities in Benin Republic and 95 private ones. These universities are duly accredited and licensed by the country’s Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. How the minister arrived at his figure even when the list of accredited and licensed public and private universities were said to have been handed over to the inter-ministerial committee when they visited, is at the centre of the controversy that trailed the ban.

    Graduates of the blacklisted universities in Togo and Benin have also protested the sweeping ban. In a press conference under the aegis of West African Francophone Universities Alumni held in conjunction with the National Association of Nigerian Students in Diaspora, they called for a reversal of the order. The groups lamented that the order is not only retroactive and unjust but has exposed their members to ridicule before employers and the larger public.

    They further contended that it was wrong for a government that had over the years accredited and approved courses run by some of these universities to turn around only to declare their degree certificates fake. Many of them have secured jobs both in public and private establishments and have not been found wanting. They are at a loss on what to make of the ban now.

    This is the contradiction the Nigerian government must resolve. The government said all those that obtained degrees from these countries between 2017 and 2023 should consider them fake. How? It should have offered reasons for the decision. By extrapolation, degrees obtained from those universities before this deadline are considered genuine. So at what point did we get it wrong?

     If some of these universities were awarding recognised degrees from 2016 downwards, at what point did our education authorities come derelict of their supervisory functions? Why did it take this long before that realisation? These dialectical questions expose the flaws in the blanket ban. We expect better and considerate measures in issues that are at the very heart of the lives of our younger generation.

    The federal government has definitely not finished with this matter. It has to re-engage the governments of the two countries, scrutinise the programmes run by their accredited  universities against universal academic standards to arrive at better informed decision.

    Through this method, it will fish out the fakes, allowing those that are deficient in some aspects of their programmes, enough time to make up. It flies in the face of reason that all the private universities in the two countries churn out substandard and fake degree.

  • Bello Turgi’s MRAP ‘capture’

    Bello Turgi’s MRAP ‘capture’

    The viral video by a band of insurgents celebrating the purported capture of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles of the Nigerian Army in Zamfara State forests has again elevated to the fore, the complex nature of insecurity in the northwest.

    In that video, the terrorists sang songs of victory depicting themselves to have captured the war vehicles in combat with the Nigerian Armed Forces. The well-organised and well-armed insurgents made remarks and proclamations depicting them as a group spurred by some weird doctrinaire.

    They did not stop at their bogus celebrations but went ahead to burn down the two MRAP’s. That outing no doubt, created serious consternation, raising fears of possible upsurge in terrorism in Zamfara State notorious, for what is ordinarily called banditry in official circles. Banditry?  We shall return to this!

    Defence Headquarters (DHQ) was so touched by the video display that they issued a statement debunking some of the impressions created by the insurgents. Their account was that troops had embarked on a fighting patrol to dislodge a terror gathering at Kwashabawa village, Zurmi LGA of Zamfara State. In the process, two of their MRAP’s got bogged down due to the swampy terrain caused by the rains during the fight.

    While trying to extricate the MRAP’s, the DHQ said terrorists massed up. “Subsequently troops dismounted and demobilised the MRAP’s when efforts to backload them proved futile”. The measure they said was to prevent the terrorists from using the war vehicles even as they admitted that “these situations are not uncommon in war”.

    That appears a veiled admission that Nigeria is currently at war with terrorists in that part of the country. The disclosure is significant given attempts by officials of the government to obfuscate the real nature and dynamics of the insurgency in the northwest. Before now, the impression was that the festering insecurity in that part of the country is all about banditry.

    This mix-up was evident in the statement issued by the office of the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle in reaction to the video claims by the insurgents. Matawalle had while directing the military to relocate its command structure to the northwest, urged them to address the worsening security situation.

    He expressed deep concerns over the activities of terrorists and bandits terrorising Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina and Kebbi states. While in the region, the minister would be leading the military to ensure that Bello Turji and his gang of bandits are eliminated.

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    As can be gleaned from Matawalle’s statement, terrorism and banditry were used interchangeably to characterise the insecurity in the northwest. But they denote different criminal engagements. And the inability of our leaders to come clear on the nature and wider dynamics of insecurity in that region is largely responsible for the difficulty encountered by our security agencies in taming the monster.

    Though the minister’s account of the circumstances leading to the ‘capture’ of the MRAP’s by the terrorists tallied essentially with that of the DHQ, there are still untidy issues in the encounter. It remains cloudy whether there was some form of intelligence to ascertain the terrain before the military embarked on the fighting patrol to dislodge the terror gathering at Kwashabawa.

    But then, in the account of the DHQ on why they had to demobilize the MRAPs, nothing was said of air support in such dire circumstances except perhaps, that the weather was inclement. This sounds like excuses. It may equally be genuine excuses but it definitely makes a statement on the combat capacities and readiness of our armed forces.

    In circumstances of this nature where the ground forces faced serious risk of mortal attacks, air support would have been the game changer. Even if a helicopter was made to fly over that terrain during those perilous hours, that would have been sufficient to deter the terrorists and save the MRAPs.

    Nothing of such happened. So where were the celebrated Tucano fighter jets acquired from the USA not long ago to fight terrorism? Or was the inability to deploy the fighter jets bogged down by the terms of agreement for the use of the jets restricting them only to the fight against terrorism? If that was the case, then the federal government was caught by the contradiction of its inability to proclaim the festering insecurity in the northwest as terrorism.

    It was not good enough we lost these two key war vehicles to the terrorists in the circumstances we have been told. Equally of note, were references by the DHQ to war. “These situations are not uncommon in war. The ever changing environment of war creates some of these experiences”, the DHQ stated in justification to their decision to demobilise and abandon the MRAPs.

    That may well be. Perhaps, this is the first time the nation is made to know that we are really at war in the northwest. Before now, the story we are fed with has been that of the so-called bandits raiding villages and markets in search of food, kidnapping at will for ransom and committing sundry atrocities.

    It is not clear how and at what point the term banditry crept into our insecurity lexicon or what differentiated it from the well known Boko Haram insurgents whose ideological promptings were identifiable. Somehow, we came to accept the brand of insecurity in the northwest as banditry even as its characterisation remained opaque.

    Fiery Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi seemingly came to our aid in profiling the bandits after he interfaced with them in the forests. In an interview after the meeting, the bandits’ leaders gave their grievances as cattle rustling, attacks on them by the Nigerian military and the beating of the Fulani on the roads by some indigenous people. These grievances blurred the lines dividing the so-called bandits from herders. It was on this score Gumi called for amnesty for them.

    But that is not the profile of the insurgent group we saw around the MRAPs. It was a well-armed, sophisticated fighting force propelled by some form of ideology against the Nigerian state. My Hausa interpreter said they made references to religious war ‘Jihad’ and protection from the Nigerian state even as they beckoned their colleagues to raze down the MRAPs.

    These are by no means the type of bandits Gumi interfaced with. These are no herders and cannot possibly complain of cattle rustling. They are brave and committed fighters. They are bold enough to show their faces and damn the consequences. So, the DHQ was right to categorise their outing in that part of the country as a situation of war. The sooner we come to terms with this reality, the better for the country.

    Even when some of them surrounded the MRAPs with sophisticated weaponry adorning military camouflage, others kept a good distance in anticipation of possible attack. Who knows the strength and number of others hiding in possible ambush?

    Their conduct had the imprimatur of war. If you found banditry in their activities, it is in furtherance of the war agenda. And if they kidnap for ransom, it is all for the prosecution of the war. Our leaders should stop confusing issues by describing the insurgency in the northwest as banditry. It is terrorism propelled by the same weird ideological prompting that spurred the Boko Haram insurgents into action.

    It is inappropriate to continue profiling Bello Turji as leader of a bandits’ gang. How Turji transmuted into his current powerful status is an interesting one. But it is worthy of note that while Matawalle was the governor of Zamfara State, Turji was a significant face in the so-called banditry enterprise.

    He had before now, been very critical of the previous policy of the Zamfara State government under Matawalle. He had alleged in a video that the policy of the former governor was the reason insecurity escalated in Zamfara and north-western states.

    As governor, Matawalle initiated an amnesty scheme that provided financial rewards and protection for bandits who surrendered their arms and abandoned criminality. But in the widely circulated video, Turji alleged the scheme succeeded in empowering some of his colleagues residing in the cities from where they commanded bandits operating in the forests.

    A Zamfara group – Concerned Citizens for Peace, Security and Development toed similar lines in faulting the amnesty scheme of the previous government. They claimed to have uncovered a strong collaboration between state officials including traditional rulers and security agencies with the bandits. They categorised the peace accord as nothing but a high wired deception to divert attention from the real issues behind the root causes of banditry, its sponsors and enablers.

    These issues have resonated with the linking of Turji and his band of so-called bandits to the ‘capture’ and burning down of the MRAPs. Where do these lead us to?