The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

A listening Farouk

Last week, this essayist warned the boss of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) to do his job and stop thieving marketers. Farouk Ahmed heeded, and the marketers obeyed with fuel.

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Some of them were caught hoarding and smuggling fuel. It is a happier day for the motorist. As I noted, it was a peculiar case of an embarrassment of riches. That has been the story of Nigeria. Ahmed had stood by and let the blame go to the wrong quarters, the NNPCL, which has now been vindicated.

May 13, 2024
Heir today, gone tomorrow

A senior minister of the God’s Kingdom Society, the late J.T. Okome, painted a technicolor portrait at a church service many years ago that may jolt observers and players in the Rivers State crisis. Not a portrait with brush but with the facility of humour.

The G.K.S cleric was explaining how couples lie to themselves when they fight.

He illustrated the comic combat with a scenario. A bottle is at a spot on a dining table, he narrated, and a spouse lashed out that a few moments ago it was at the edge and not in the middle.

So, who was the idiot that moved it to the middle when it should be at the edge?

The other spouse fumed and countered that it was clear to anyone with eyes to see that it was always in the middle and only a fool would have moved it.

A storm in a bottle. A message in a bottle. The simple solution is for one of them to push it to the edge where both agree it should be. But both of them were on edge. Both knew the problem was not the bottle or where it was located.

Read Also: Rivers crisis: Lawmaker drags lawyer to NBA for unsolicited appearance

The bottle was not a splinter with sharp edges. So, it could not cut a hand. No hot liquid in it to burn a finger. So, one spouse could douse the grouse with one touch.

They turned the innocent bottle into a crime. If the bottle was not broken, the couple were. It was a crime of the imagination borne out of malice. So, when two parties are in conflict, look beyond their actions. If an edifice like the state house of assembly complex is burned down, look beyond the torchbearers. It is not about the complex.

Though it is. It is more complex than that, and therefore it is about something else. If a governor says, he can sanctify a budget on four lawmakers’ votes even though the law says otherwise, you know it is not because the governor does not know.

He wears impunity like a crown just to advertise something he does not say. So, we know it is about something else when he says he will not govern on bended knees – a nifty quote. It is not about knees, though. We know of a father and a former governor who played father to the former governor when he preened as the chief executive. He sat pretty on front-row seats, with his ornate Rivers hat and benign smiles. His wife of judicial titles supremely sat beside him.

They were the political royals of Rivers State. Indeed, no one garnered more respect, more dignity than the power couple in their near octogenarian halo. The former governor named big schools and buildings after them. Suddenly this same man decided to switch fatherhood when the former governor played father to a son, who is now governor. This governor and former governor crossed swords. As father of fathers, he accompanied both father and son to sign an accord so that both parties may abide in peace. He signed. He acted like a father of the godfather then. Now, this same man is now happy with his chomps in the new dispensation. So, he has decided to be a populist on behalf of his new son, who is the son of his son. That makes him father of fathers or grandfather.

No one grants him the status of grandfather, though. So, he remains father. He has jettisoned his former son. He is a prostitute father whose hat now invokes hate in a part of the family. He is father today and a reject the next day. He swaps sons just as he changes fatherhood. Father today, gone tomorrow. His former son had a tiff not long ago with an elder in his party and daubed him a “prodigal father.” He has been quite quiet on this paternal about-face. So, this man who was supposed to be a father of governors, he being a former one, can be called the governor of governors in the state. Or governor emeritus. He is now former governor without merit. He has lost the quality of a statesman. He is supposed to be the arbiter, the peacemaker in the maelstrom. He is an elder without a white hair if white signifies the wisdom of age. This is the same man who is playing a royal against charges of corruption and has been able to secure a regal immunity against the law after allegedly dipping his hand in the meaty pie. Even the EFCC has been unable to revive the charge. He is perpetually innocent. Now this man with a shadow of corruption over his head is strutting the Rivers State high society and its plebian floor as though he is the moral exemplar of all time. So, we see that it is not about the law. He himself knows that working the law is futile. He is an instance. He knows that you can defy the law and live. Why can he not turn an extra-legal instrument for peace. If he can turn the law to honour himself by paralysing a corruption charge in the court, why not “abandon” legality for a positive thing?

He can do that by making peace outside of the law as the elder. People describe it as settling out of court. He would rather hold court as an elder of confusion. He can talk to both parties and broker peace. The president did it for him. He was there and he signed it. As the elder in the pact, he was the guarantor of its integrity. If it collapsed, it is because he failed. Whatever it took, he should have fought by stealth or in the open to make peace. Rather, at a public function, with glib lips unbecoming of a 75-year-old, he announced that the governor is the political leader of the state. He did not have to say it, even if he felt it. That was not in the spirit of the accord or even in the spirit of cutting off the umbilical cord between parent and child.

Over 25 members of the state house of assembly said they had defected. But that seems only by lips. There is no document, no signatures, no formal declarations in the house. The law says if they defect, they lose their seat if there is no crisis in the party on a national scale. That may yet be determined. But the law says it is not enough to announce defection and lose a seat, the speaker must declare the seats vacant. The speaker has done no such thing. So, we know, too, it is not about defection. It is not about whether there is a national crisis or a local crisis. We all know that. The so-called elder knows it. The godfather knows. So does the son whether on his feet or bended knees. It is not time for anger and rage. If we follow that, we become victim of a Hobbesian state of nature. Some of the rage in either camp is like the line from Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, “Sir, I am vexed, bear with my weakness.” But weakness, as we see in the play, can lead a person to a storm of no return. It’s impotent rage. So, the real thing is between two men, and the only way is to set aside the law and face humans who are at loggerheads. Stoking the streets will not help. Whipping up ethnic bile will only complicate matters. As Thoreau said, “the law has not made anyone a whit more just.” When the pharisees quibbled over doing a miracle on a sabbath day, Jesus replied that the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath. To clarify the spirit rather than the letter of the law on physical circumcision, Apostle Paul asked adherents to “circumcise the foreskins of your hearts.” The other part is mass hypocrisy. When the man was a candidate, the mass backed him as a son. He was a good boy until he became a bad boy. He broke a pact and everyone pretends they did not understand each other. As Shakespeare noted in Julius Caesar, “what other oath than honesty to honesty engaged.” It was a pact without honour. Rather than sit between themselves and decide who followed their deal, they are trying to bring third parties into it. Eventually a breakdown may occur, and everyone is trying to stick to the law as they like, like a man who issues an order for the legislature to meet in government house. He has become a mass hireling. Heir today, hireling tomorrow. They may be flirting with hammer in the form of a state of emergency. They should realise that impunity has a sunset. Darkness will fall on it. Both sides must realise that. It is more the onus of the chief executive to bring the crisis to a bended knee. Or else…

May 13, 2024
Cybersecurity levy

Are ordinary Nigerians excluded from the 0.5 per cent cybersecurity levy on all electronic transactions which the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN directed financial institutions to commence immediate collection? That is the big question the House of Representatives is spurring to entangle.

In a circular last week, the CBN directed commercial, merchant, non-interest and payment service banks, other financial institutions, mobile money operators and payment service providers to deduct a levy of 0.5 per cent (0.005) equivalent to a half per cent from all electronic transactions. The apex bank cited the enactment of the cybercrime (prohibition, prevention, etc) (amendment) Act 2024 and the provisions of section 44(a) of the Act to back up the order.

By the terms of the circular, the deducted sum is to be remitted to the National Cybersecurity Fund (NCF) and to be administered by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). Offenders are liable on conviction, to a fine of not less than two per cent of the annual turnover of the defaulting business.

But the House of Representatives has cried foul and ordered the CBN to suspend implementation of the cybersecurity levy. It said the circular by the apex bank negates the spirits and letters of section 44(2a) of the Cybercrime Act. The section listed those to pay the levy as GSM and telecom companies, internet providers, banks and other financial institutions, insurance companies and stock exchange.

The House directed the CBN to withdraw the circular; issue another in its place as the impression created is that the levy is to be paid by the ordinary citizens. This misconception, the House reasoned, was responsible for the furore trailing the directive. That was the new twist the circular took at the weekend.

The observations of the House of Representatives illustrate the glaring ambiguities and misunderstanding that trailed the CBN directive since it became public knowledge. Reactions to the circular have been quite adverse.

Public perception of the CBN directive was that the burden of the 0.5 per cent deductions from all electronic money transactions is to be borne by Nigerians at the point of transaction. This reading accounted for the avalanche of criticisms, ultimatums and threats that became the sad fate of the directive. Much of the reservations on the cybersecurity levy had centred on the propriety of burdening the hapless and suffering poor citizens with the added responsibility of paying for cybercrime fighting. It also raised the question of the role and responsibility of the government in maintaining law and order.

No doubt, cybercrimes of all hue have wrought incalculable harm on the national economy. Not only does it lead to huge losses of depositors’ funds diminishing confidence in the banking system, it is one criminal activity that has continued to paint the country black especially in the eyes of the international community.

The rate at which our youths (both the educated and not well-educated) take quick resort to such criminalities is bound to give serious concern to all and sundry.

Effective measures including equipping the various government crime-fighting agencies with sufficient tools and funds to decisively confront this manner of criminality cannot but attract the support of all fair-minded Nigerians. So why the hullabaloo about the cyber security levy? Why is everybody seemingly up in arms against the levy? This poser is the basis for the intervention of the House of Representatives directing that the levy be halted henceforth.

So, the issue is not as much with the propriety of adequately funding cybercrime fighting as with the confusion created by the CBN circular regarding those that should pay the levy. As far as the House members are concerned, the wordings of the CBN circular conveyed the erroneous impression that individual Nigerians are to pay the levy.

But there is nowhere in the letters of the relevant schedule of the Act that it was explicitly so stated. Rather, the Act was unambiguous in listing the financial institutions that are to be charged the cyber security levy.

How the CBN arrived at the idea of individuals paying the levy at the point of transaction is the raison d’être for the House directing that the memo be withdrawn. And in its place, a new one that reflects the letters and spirits of the Act be issued.

The observations of the House are very fundamental. Coincidentally, they hinge on all the reservations that have been expressed about the levy. Much of the criticisms have centred around the rationale for shifting the burden of cybercrime fighting to the ordinary citizenry especially at this period of general hardship occasioned by hyperinflationary trend arising from government policies?

Issues have also been canvassed regarding the prospects of the new levy suffocating the citizens already overburdened by such multiplicity of taxes as services charges, Value Added Tax, Stamp Duty and sundry deduction made while withdrawing cash at the Point of Sales POS centres.

That is not all. The cyber security levy is also loaded with the frightening prospects of making a mess all the gains from the cashless policy of the government-a policy that Nigerians cannot forget in a hurry for the injuries it inflicted on their collective psyche when it was being introduced.

The new levy will further drive people into more patronage of cash transactions and use of the cheques as safeguard against the harsh economic realities that have significantly eroded their real income and purchasing power. Inflation will further rise even as the ability of the CBN to effectively control the money in circulation will face additional hurdles.

A decisive war against cybercrimes is a compelling imperative. But the thinking that the burden must be borne by the ordinary people is highly misplaced. It is misplaced against the background of the existential challenges it is bound to impose on peoples’ lives as they contend with the excruciating consequences of the policies of the government on subsidy removal among others. It is also misplaced for placing higher premium on funding as if it is a guarantee for waging a successful war against cybercrime.

The Nigerian Communications Commission in a recent report claimed that Nigeria is “losing $500 million annually to all forms of cybercrimes including hacking, identity theft, cyber terrorism, harassment and internet fraud”.

Read Also: Tinubu suspends cybersecurity levy policy implementation

That may be a rough estimate of the losses as the figures may be even higher. But it underscores the enormity of the challenge posed by cybercrimes to the country’s financial system. That would seem enough justification for the new cybersecurity levy.

But it goes with the underlying assumption that the money to be generated would be ploughed judiciously into cybercrime fighting. The profligacy and glaring mismanagement of funds in public offices do not give much confidence in this regard. That is however, beside the point.

Issues have also been raised on the rationale in domiciling the remittance of the levy into the National Cybersecurity Fund (NCF) ostensibly to be administered by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). The Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) in a report, said electronic payments on its platform in 2023 stood at N600 trillion. 0.5 per cent of this amounts to N3 trillion. This, by all standards is really huge.

The proper thing is for such funds to be paid into the Consolidated Fund for the National Assembly to make the necessary appropriations. This would make for probity and accountability in the use of public funds.

The House has taken the rightful lead in raising issues with the impression conveyed by the CBN circular on those listed by the Act to pay the levy. That such ambiguities in the interpretation of the cybercrime Act should arise is really sad and unfortunate.

The House order for the halting of the levy implementation before it overburdens the citizenry in error is the proper thing to do. It should also instruct a cybersecurity funding strategy involving the government, the regulatory bodies and stakeholders.

But the burden must be lifted from the shoulders of the ordinary people. It would amount to one levy, too many!

May 13, 2024
A tainted victory

From the look of things, the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila, must be feeling victorious after FirstNews, an online medium, on May 8, retracted a negative story it had published on January 28, headlined ‘How Gbajabiamila attempted to corner $30bn, 66 houses traced to Sabiu.’ A report said the story had portrayed him as “re-looting funds and landed properties allegedly recovered from Tunde Sabiu, an aide and relative to former President Muhammadu Buhari.”

He had demanded a retraction of the story through his lawyer, Kemi Pinheiro (SAN), who described the publication as “false and defamatory,” adding that it portrayed Gbajabiamila as “a fraudulent, corrupt, dishonest, shady, unreliable and disloyal person who is unfit to hold the exalted office of Chief of Staff to the President.”

Pinheiro’s law firm had demanded, “within seven days of receipt” of its letter, dated May 3, an “unequivocal public retraction and apology,” and the FirstNews management, in a statement on May 8, complied, saying it had discovered that the said story contained “falsehoods and fabricated stories handed out to us as facts by a misleading source which was highly negligent on our part and for which we deeply tender an unreserved apology to the Chief of Staff to the President.” The management also said they had “no malicious intent” towards Gbajabiamila.

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The media company’s response provoked the dramatic resignation of its General Editor, Segun Olatunji, who had written the controversial story. “It has become imperative for me to resign my appointment for the safety of my person and my family,” he said in his resignation letter, attributing his resignation to “the latest development regarding the Gbajabiamila story.” His thought-provoking parting shot: “I want to state that in no distant time, the truth will come out and then it’ll be my word against theirs.”

Was Olatunji’s unlawful detention and torture for two weeks by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) connected with the so-called Gbajabiamila story? Was the politician involved in the operation that dealt with the journalist extrajudicially?

In an oppressive operation, agents of the Nigerian military invaded his Abule-Egba home in Lagos State, on March 15, and took him away. They denied knowledge of his whereabouts, and detained him for two weeks under harsh conditions before eventually releasing him following public and professional outcry. It was unbelievable that such lawlessness happened under the President Tinubu administration.

After his release on March 28, Olatunji told the story of his hellish experience. At an event organised by the International Press Institute (IPI), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), and the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), in Abuja, he provided disturbing details of how he was brutalised by his captors.

His gripping narrative: “On March 15, I was at my house in Lagos, watching ‘Journalists’ Hangout’ with my seven-year-old son, when suddenly, soldiers burst into the sitting room.

“I saw my wife and one-year-old son amongst them, crying. I asked what happened, and she said they arrested her from her shop and asked her to take them to where I was…

“I asked an officer, whom I identified as Colonel Lawal if I could know why they were looking for me, and he said no, that they were from the military and they were there to arrest me.

“Immediately, he seized my phones as he had earlier seized my wife’s phones. I said okay, let me go in and dress up since I was only in my boxer shorts; some of them (soldiers) even followed me to my room as I took my shirt and trousers…

“They handcuffed me and put me into the vehicle. At first, I thought they were taking me to the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) in Apapa (Lagos), but then we made a detour to the Air Force Base and straight to the office of the National Air Defence Corps (NADC) where we waited for about three hours. I didn’t know we were waiting for a military aircraft to come pick me up.”

He continued: “After a while, when the aircraft came, someone came to me and asked me to hand over my glasses and then put a blindfold on me.” He didn’t know that they were taking him to Abuja.

“They moved me into the aircraft, and we took off; when we landed, they took all my clothes. I was left with my boxer shorts. They also put leg cuffs on me in addition to the handcuffs and put me in a cell.

“At one point, one of the officers came and tightened the cuffs on my right hand and leg. I was there groaning in pain, and it was that way for three days.”

What did he do to deserve such torture? “They were asking me about certain stories that FirstNews had carried,” he said. “One of them told me that I was one of those abusing the Chief of Defence Intelligence. I said: How? He said we did a story, and I replied that it was a general story. They didn’t say much about that.

“He also asked me about a story we carried about the Chief of Staff to the President. I think that was the major thing.” Olatunji said “people in the corridors of power who are not happy with what FirstNews is doing” were to blame for his ordeal.

After he was released, and physically free, he remained in the cage of fear. “Given the series of events, I want to say that my life is not safe because they have everything about me; they know my house,” he lamented.

Nigerian democracy must not encourage a climate of fear in the media, which is supposed to hold power accountable under a democracy. Olatunji’s maltreatment by state actors in connection with his role as a journalist was condemnable. It was ultimately an attack against press freedom. In a democracy, people in power who feel aggrieved by media actions, or alleged wrongs committed by media practitioners, are not expected to resort to self-help or lawlessness.

The NGE had expressed its intention to pursue justice for Olatunji. It remains to be seen if that will be taken to its logical conclusion. The retraction by FirstNews does not validate the unlawful treatment of Olatunji by state actors. State actors are not above the law and must not be allowed to get away with unlawful treatment of journalists.

May 13, 2024
The salesman

At a party with journalist colleagues in the early 2000s, in the United States, a young lady propounded a question.

“Sam,” she said with a distinct southern twang, “you must be amused by how our country emphasizes things. As a media person, what do you tell your students about how we Americans follow issues?”

“The pitch,” I replied without hesitation or remorse.

I had not used the word in any of my classes as a journalism professor. The idea resonated, though, in my class discussions. But the word “pitch” probably bounced into my head in the revelry of food and music. Among the chaos of activities, the media could pick a matter of no significance and twirl it into the galaxy. It waxes into a cause celebre. Everyone follows it. It is quintessentially American. It is quintessentially modern.

The media knows it and exploits it. Once a stray bomb hit a Chinese embassy in Europe, and the US media wrote glibly about a world war. I told fellow journalists why a thing everyone knew was a mistake was played up with the prose of an apocalypse.

“Sam, why are you taking the fun out of this? This is what makes the media tick,” said an editor.

I learned my lesson. The media was thriving on it. I reminded myself quietly that the media had fomented wars in the past, including the Spanish-American War.

All American CEOs, whether they sell pins or news, know that their first task is to retail, and to sell you need a great sales pitch. Without that, you fail. Without that, you are not American. America taught the world how to gospelize goods. The American president knows that to govern, you must market, not just your programmes but also yourself.

The American has sold sugar into diabetes, fat into malignancy, sex into a lax and sinful world. But it has elevated the world with cars, aircraft, medical miracles, computers. In fact, an American president, Calvin Coolidge, said, “the main business of the American people is business.”

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has spent a good part of his stewardship as a salesman. He is establishing himself as our first business president. In the past week, he continued in The Netherlands and Saudi Arabia what he has been doing home and abroad. It is interesting that he visited The Netherlands. Few know that The Netherlands introduced some of the ideas that make the modern world. It preceded England in the rule of law, in the flowering of laissez-faire and a world without serfs. In fact, William of Orange, a Dutchman, invaded England and allied with a royal in marriage to foment its Glorious Revolution that set the country apart as the most enduring democracy in the world. English democracy would grow by instalments from the seed of William of Orange. Like Tinubu did with Lagos foreshore, The Netherlands was water before it became land. There was a saying that God made the earth, but the Dutch made The Netherlands.

President Tinubu did not begin with The Netherlands. He has been at it from the first month. He attended an event in Europe, was in India where he met with the high and mighty of Indian business, travelled to United Nations General Assembly where he became a convener of meetings and uttered a cry on the world’s podium not only for his country but continent. He also attended the Dubai event of what is known as COP 28 where he penned a deal with Siemens. Critics were more interested in entourage than substance. Just like the Qatar visit when it became a sin for a father to travel with his sons even if the sons helped broker the opportunity. Yet, many of our elite would rather sneak in amours and spark night parties in many a trip.

It was cheering to see a Nigerian president speak off the cuff on the virtues of his country much maligned by some of its aggrieved citizens and some media vagrants. President Tinubu is selling his country while others would rather sell out. The president has a lot to evangelise. The subsidy removal against its malcontents, the battle to save a currency against vampires, the credit system, students loans, the single window system, the Paluka project in northern Nigeria, the infrastructure programme like the Lagos-Calabar Superhighway, the agriculture programme, the redrawing of the immigration plan, etc.

Read Also: Shettima departs for US to attend 2024 US-Africa Business Summit

He is the first president who is taking the idea of salesman as a passion. No one can retail your product like yourself. Sales thrives in special atmosphere in a country. One of them is a guarantee of private property. The law must protect what you earn. Two is the rule of law. Three is a stable currency. Four is availability of credit. The major challenge has been the currency, but the vampires and naysayers are not relenting. It is a task CBN chief Yemi Cardoso is tackling with a wrestler’s gear.

The job of salesman is not the president’s alone. Not Bayo Onanuga’s alone. It is for everyone in government but we are not seeing enough from his cabinet. We have seen FCT Minister Nyesom Wike has been A class. Not enough can be said of Works Minister David Umahi, who has held town meetings, media talks and expounded with method and eloquence the projects on his plate. Interior Minister Olubunmi Ojo is transforming immigration and showcasing it. So is Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo and Attorney General Lateef Fagbemi.

Selling a country is within the tradition of statesmen. Franklin Roosevelt distinguished himself during the Great Depression and popularized his radio chat like a weekly sermon. Greek Prime minister Alexis Tsipras made a fashion of his attack on his country’s recession by defrocking himself of his shirt ties. Churchill marketed his plea for American help in the Second World War ratcheting up motherly love. His mother was American. “I have a latchkey,” he buzzed, “to the American heart.”

There are poor salesmen today like Netanyahu and Putin. The best known today, though, is Volodymyr Zelensky, who sometimes gets under the Western skin to get arms. After all, a salesman is supposed not only retail a product but to banish want and advance standard of living, like in P.G. Wodehouse’s short story, The Birth of a Salesman.

May 6, 2024
Mister Fuel Scarcity

I want to know what Engineer Farouk Ahmed is doing about fuel scarcity. He is the fellow who heads the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA). As of April 28th, his agency reported stock profile of fuel at 1.547 billion litres. That is a lot of fuel.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) confirmed this. That means two things. One, we should not have fuel scarcity with such plenty. Two, Ahmed’s agency should not be in the news. Both are unfortunately in the news. What we have is a new definition of the embarrassment of riches. We have but can’t get or see. Motor spirit under Ahmed’s eyes and watch has become a spirit.

It is the job of the CEO of NMDPRA to ensure that fuel is supplied and that the motor spirit reaches the final mile: the motorist. If that is not happening it is because of the inefficiency of one man: Farouk Ahmed. He is supposed to deploy forces across the country, from petrol station to depot, to ensure there is no grease monkey doing monkey business with our oil.

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But Ahmed is missing in action. Hence, we have oil marketers taking advantage. They provide enough fuel in the stations to tease a hungry public. Then enters arbitrage. Arbitrage only prospers amidst sabotage. Oil marketers are making a shylock’s profit just by allowing the ordinary citizen to queue, crawl and cry for drops of fuel. NNPCL said there was a vessel problem and it has been addressed. NMDPRA was aware of this and the logistic snafu had been resolved.

So, major supplier NNPCL said we had enough for 30 days. In less than three days, the crisis persisted. It is therefore over to the regulator, not NNPCL, to ensure that all is well. He should do his task and right now; or else, he remains Mister Fuel Scarcity.

May 6, 2024
How now, Pitobi?

Pitobi must feel like a champion, just because he does not like the Lagos-Calabar Superhighway. But not so fast, says Works Minister David Umahi, who saw through his ethnic catcalls.

Umahi asked Pitobi to reconcile his past with his noise. As Anambra State governor, he said he would demolish structures without compensation. He is a hypocrite and a shameless one at that for saying that Umahi is costing people livelihoods when the people are mostly happy to submit their properties. Landmark is not even the biggest loser. The person came out last week with a cheerful face and cooperation in public.

Meanwhile, some TV hosts who attacked Umahi forgot to comment on Obi’s pharisaic hustling and quake for attention. He should learn from present Anambra State Governor, Charles Soludo, the boom of Anambra orchestra. Within nine months, he built 287 kilometres of roads, more than what Pitobi did in eight years. And there is no issue about lack of compensation with Soludo. Just last week, Reno Omokri exposed him that he spent $30 million to build a brewery so Anambrarians could get inebriated and lose bearing while he built not a single classroom in eight years. Soludo has already recruited over five thousand teachers. How many did you recruit, Pitobi?

Read Also: Shettima departs for US to attend 2024 US-Africa Business Summit

If he is afraid of Lagos-Calabar Superhighway like some of its critics, I can only say like the Americans, “be very afraid.” He can’t stop it. He loves peddling figures about jobs lost. Has he calculated how many jobs will be gained? He does not know what is called disruptive thinking. He is a trader and knows only profit and loss, like his Abuja supermarket started when he was governor. He loathes imaginative overhaul of affairs. People like him could never do roads that can change business fundamentally. He never did one in Anambra. He has an analog mindset in a digital era. He is saying we should only build the existing ones. He is not fair to Umahi. Did he not see Umahi berating the contractor on East-West Road? Does that look like neglect? Has he not enumerated roads absorbing his attention and plans? Is work not at the finishing stages on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway? Pitobi should clip his lips. He is claiming ethnic neutrality? Did he not play the ethnic and religious cards last year? Did it work? Of course, he rallied ethnic hegemons, but not enough. He invoked pastors, but no victory anointed. Now, he is wearing kaftan and breaking Muslim fasts. He is an irreconcilable difference in one person. He cannot reconcile himself with himself. He is Muslim today, and pastor tomorrow.

May 6, 2024
Shettima and grateful doctors

Interestingly, Vice President Kashim Shettima recently received a group of female medical doctors at his private residence in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital. It was a special visit by the doctors “to thank him for all he has done for us and to congratulate him on his well-deserved position as the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” explained one of them, Dr Aisha Kaumi. Shettima of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) became Vice President in May 2023.

During his first term as Borno State governor, he introduced a Female Medical Intervention Programme to sponsor the training of female doctors abroad. He was a two-term governor from 2011 to 2019. In 2014, his administration gave scholarships to beneficiaries of the female empowerment scheme from the state’s 27 local government areas.

At the time, he observed that the state “desperately needs” female medical doctors “in view of the fact that women have peculiar health challenges arising from maternity, menstrual and other issues that women would be in the best position to handle as a result of the African culture and religion.” The state government said $9500 would be spent on each of the beneficiaries per session, and their parents were not expected to make contributions to their training.

According to Kaumi, “We were 60 then, 30 of us from El-Razi Medical University, Khartoum in Sudan, and the other 30 who graduated from the National University of Sudan. Alhamdulillah, all of us graduated and currently, about 50 of us are working with the state government here in Borno State. The remaining ten are yet to pass their medical exams but, Insha Allah, we are hoping that they will catch up with us.” She added that the visit “went well,” and the Vice President “assured us that in case we want to specialise he was 100 percent ready to assist us.”

It is striking that she said the doctors were working in public hospitals in Borno State, apparently uninfluenced by the reported escalating exodus of medical professionals from Nigeria. It is unclear whether they are obliged to serve the state under the terms of the training programme. Or is serving the state their way of demonstrating gratitude for their training?

In the health sector, doctors, nurses and other health professionals are leaving the country as if escaping from a hopeless situation. The alarming flight has been blamed on poor leadership, corruption, poor remuneration and toxic work experience. More than 9,000 medical doctors were reported to have left the country to work in the UK, Canada and America, from 2016 to 2018. Also, more than 700 medical doctors trained in Nigeria were said to have relocated to the UK from December 2021 to May 2022, a period of six months. According to the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Nigeria-trained doctors are leaving in droves for Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

It is noteworthy that the country’s doctor-patient ratio is alarmingly poor, and nowhere near the standard prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which is one doctor per 600 people. The situation is worsening as doctors continue to leave the country for pastures new. With only about four doctors available per 10,000 people in Nigeria, it is unsurprising that there are issues regarding availability of, and access to, quality primary healthcare services in the country. There is no doubt that the problem is compounded by the flight of nurses and medical laboratory scientists.

Importantly, in April 2001, heads of state of African Union countries met in Abuja and pledged to set a target of allocating at least 15 percent of their annual budget to improve the health sector. It is disappointing that Nigeria has consistently failed to meet the standard of the Abuja Declaration. For instance, only 4.7 percent of the national budget was allocated to the health sector in 2022; and only 5.75 percent of the total budget was allocated to the health sector in 2023. The 2024 national budget continues the trend of underfunding in the health sector.

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Kaumi notably remarked that the Borno State government, under Shettima’s successor, Babagana Zulum, “is really doing well in trying to equip the hospitals.” In February, the WHO State Coordinator in Borno State, Ibrahim Salisu, commended the Borno State government “for giving the health sector the utmost priority, as demonstrated by the allocation of about 15 percent of the total state budget for 2024 to the health sector.”

There are significant lessons from the doctors’ visit to Shettima, including his vision for healthcare in Borno State and his creative female empowerment ideas, which are relevant nationally. The visit also highlighted the present Borno State government’s laudable prioritisation of health sector funding.

Shettima’s state-sponsored female medical training programme remains attractive, and is worth emulating by state governments across the country, possibly localised to reduce the cost. It is a powerful empowerment tool and a potent intervention in a country where girl-child education still faces formidable challenges, including cultural and economic factors.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Nigeria Country Representative, Cristian Munduate, at an event to mark the International Day of the Girl (IDG) 2023, “7.6 million girls in Nigeria, many from the northern regions,” lacked access to quality education. “We need to emphasise the transformative power of education,” she said. The IDG is observed annually on October 11. It is a global platform to advocate the full spectrum of girls’ rights.

Kaumi’s life was transformed, and the lives of the others who benefited from the medical training programme. “It was indeed a dream come true because I never ever thought I would become a medical doctor,” she said. “So, Alhamdulillah, I’m very grateful to the Vice President. Without him, I don’t think I would have become a medical doctor today. It was not easy; it was a kind of roller coaster of hardship and the courage to study well so that we can come here and help our people in Borno State. So, we are very grateful to him.” He certainly deserves their gratitude, and the country’s appreciation.

May 6, 2024
Minimum/living wage

It did not come as a surprise that the federal government could not announce a new national minimum wage during this year’s May Day celebrations. Indications to that reality emerged few days earlier when the president of the Trade Union Congress, (TUC) Festus Osifo said negotiations were yet to be concluded by the parties.

“So certainly, May 1, will not work for the pronouncement of the new minimum wage”, except the government wants to pay the N615,000 recommended by organised labour, he had said.

That prediction has come to pass. But on the May Day, both the government and organised labour traded blames on the reasons for the inability to announce the much awaited new wage regime. The government blamed lack of consensus among the tripartite committee. But organised labour accused the government of refusal to reconvene the meeting that was adjourned for the issue to be finally resolved.

Some complications seemed to have been injected into the minimum wage negotiations when the federal government on the eve of the May Day, approved salary increases of between 25 to 35 per cent for public servants on the remaining six consolidated salary structures. It also approved pay rise for pensioners under the Defined Benefits Scheme DBS.

The measure raised mixed feelings within the labour force. The NLC did not take kindly to the announcement as the measure was seen to have seemingly thrown spanners into the wheels of the minimum wage negotiations. NLC president, Joe Ajaero betrayed that feeling when he lamented that the nation should have been in a new minimum wage regime as we celebrate the May Day since discussions were supposed to have been concluded before that day.

“I think the announcement now appears mischievous because there is no minimum wage increase the government is announcing. For them to announce it now, is an issue we are worried about at NLC and even at the TUC”, Ajaero said.

But the fears raised by the NLC appeared to have been dispelled by the explanation from the president of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), Tommy Okon. He had told reporters that the salary increase has nothing to do with the minimum wage but to close the salary gap that existed in some ministries, departments and agencies.

That may well be the case. But the timing of the salary increase for that category of civil/public servants on the eve of the May Day did create considerable suspicions.

Nonetheless, the dominance of the new minimum wage in all discussions during the May Day celebrations gave further credence to the position that the increases had nothing to do with it.

President Tinubu in his speech said the government was poised to give workers better living and working conditions buoyed by fair living wage. He noted that in spite of concerted efforts, the tripartite committee on national minimum wage was unable to reach consensus on the issue at their last meeting.

“This shall be resolved soon and I assure you that your days of worrying are over. Indeed, the government is open to the committee’s suggestion of not just a minimum wage but a living wage”, the president promised.

This should be something to cheer. The moot question however, is what should be a living wage for the Nigerian worker? Organised labour spoke along the lines of a living wage also. For them, a living wage is one that will at the least, keep the worker alive. It is not a wage that will make you poor and poorer. It is not a wage that will lead you to the hospital every day because of malnutrition. Neither is it a wage that will make you borrow money in order to go to work.

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By their calculations N615,000 is that living wage for a worker with six family members. They did their calculations based on the cost of accommodation, feeding, transportation, school fees and associated expenses.

Can the federal government and the private sector afford that pay? Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy has emphatic No as the answer. That is the point at which the government and organised labour may continue to disagree. And there are sufficient grounds for disagreement.

The government is yet to make an offer for organised labour to consider. But labour is pilling pressure on the government to ensure that the new minimum wage regime does not exceed the end of May 2024.

But whatever fears entertained by labour on possible delays in the commencement of the new national minimum wage was allayed by the Minister of State for Labour, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha in her May Day speech. She had said although the tripartite committee was yet to finish its work, workers will not lose anything as the new minimum wage will take effect from May 1, 2024.

In spite of this promise, the exact amount to be paid as the minimum/living wage will continue to be thorny in the discussions. The government has kept to its chest what it considers the minimum/living wage. It is perhaps, frightened by the huge proposals from labour. But sources close to the centre of power indicated that between N60,000 to N70,000 is being considered as the new wage. How this will sit with organised labour is anyone’s guess.

The N615,000 wage increase demanded by organised labour appears unrealistic given the wide gap between it and the N30, 000 minimum wage that expired last month. The Minimum Wage Act which was signed by former President Buhari in April 2019 is to be reviewed every five years.

By the provisions of that Act, the national minimum wage is due for review. It is also due for review on account of the far-reaching policies initiated by the Tinubu administration since it assumed office last May. Such difficult policy measures as the removal of subsidy on petrol, the floating of the Naira in the foreign exchange market and of late, subsidy removal on electricity have come with debilitating consequences on general standard of living.

Not only did they fuel spiralling inflation in manners never witnessed before in the country, their toll on the general standard of living has been quite telling. In the face of these existential challenges, the wage of worker has remained stagnant. That has been the raison d’être for agitations for a new national minimum wage.

Consensus exists between the government and organised labour on the imperative of a new minimum wage that will enable the worker afford his basic needs. Perhaps, that is what the references to a living wage is all about. But can the Nigerian economy in its current form sustain a living wage regime for the worker? Put differently, how far can the speculated N70,000 new minimum wage go in sustaining the least paid worker given the current economic realities of the country?

Even as the amount proposed by organised labour would appear outlandish, that being speculated as the possible offer by the government cannot by any dint of the imagination be taken for a living wage. It is patently incapable of enabling the worker cope with escalated prices of general goods and services. The average worker cannot live well with such a wage regime.

But the reality is that the government is seriously constrained. It is constrained by the resources to pay a living wage in the true sense of it. It is also constrained by the fear of further inflationary trend which unguarded wage increases will engender.

So even as organised labour’s demand for substantial salary increase for workers has serious justification, that figure is by no means sacrosanct. The TUC leadership spoke along this line when they said the recommendation is just a proposal that is subject to negotiations.

The government must show good faith to the negotiations and reconvene the tripartite committee without further delay. It should be forthcoming with its offer on the minimum/living wage. It is wrong to shroud its proposal in secrecy and expect progress to be made by the committee.

But, the government found itself in this quagmire because of the fundamental policy changes it initiated in many fronts-policies that led to high inflationary trend and the erosion of the real income of the people. Curiously, these policies did not sufficiently factor in the material conditions of the poor citizenry. The seeming high minimum wage demanded by labour is a response to the escalated rise in the prices of essential goods and services.

Had these policies been approached on incremental basis, the adjustments in wages would not pose the threat of jolting the system as a N615,000 minimum wage is bound to. The government should negotiate and find common ground that will make life worth living for the average worker. Things are really hard and time is of essence.

Beyond wages, social intervention measures to cushion the effects of the excruciating economic conditions must also come into serious calculation.

May 6, 2024
Who cares

What better time for the rich to stumble than when the economy tumbles. The reason is easy. Because the poor might tremble with rage. The divide between the rich and poor tends to crack wide open, and fissures of bile might spill onto the streets in the forms of riots and revolutionary turmoil.

The rich do not want it. The poor do not deserve it. Wise governments avoid it. Revolutions of that sort have never helped the fortunes of the downtrodden. Order, with all its imperfections, helps the poor more than a retreat to anarchy.

The British society knows this better than any advanced country. Hence, since its Glorious Revolution of 1688, there has never erupted any social upheaval, unlike the United States or Italy or Spain. The French sparked many tumults before and after the 1789 Revolution and it is still fragile today. It was because of its tendency to excitement and wars that Pierre de Coubertin, father of the modern Olympics, projected sports in the modern era to dissuade the street from kaboom of guns and coups to the hurrahs of games. Enter soccer, cricket, athletics, et al, as competitive and organized sports. Old-time gladiators were back, without the lions, bulls, clubs and blood spills.

Sports is a big tool. The other is food. Food must come first, and then games. According to Roman Poet Juvenal, “Give them (the people) bread and circus, and they will never revolt.” Juvenal knew about bread, and every wise leader, indeed a family head, who craves peace and order must pacify the dinner table. If you go to bed hungry, you will growl from your bed against the light of dawn

It is not however enough to give them food and sports. After all, Roman emperor Commodus provided both but died from a lover’s vial. You must do it with compassion and purpose. That is what today calls for, and no governor is doing it better than the Lagos State Governor, the BOS of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

Just last week, he launched Eko Cares, a string of programmes highlighted by a drive to feed 500,000 families. In the menu are rice, garri, elubo, etc. He is not handing out a cynical loaf as if to oafs. His is not the indifferent rich man and the longsuffering Lazarus. He is doing it with a clear-headed understanding of the different dimensions of need. One of such sterling moments was when he lined up what is now known as Ounje Eko – Lagos food. Some had thought it was a recipe for chaos. We saw the Customs example where a quest to kill hunger killed souls. Queues and greed replaced order and decency. It was a failure of organization plus the people’s contempt for civility. It recalls the scriptures when David wrote, “the destruction of the poor is their poverty.” Another translation renders it, “Poverty ruins the poor.” The poor were given a low-hanging fruit. They hanged instead.

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But Ounje Eko did not go the way of chaos. It has been so successful and so desired that Governor Sanwo-Olu has decided to continue with it. Nor did the Soup Bowl programme err in its quest to feed between one thousand and one thousand five hundred citizens.

The Sunday market may seem strange to many city dwellers. But it casts back to the history of markets in Nigerian villages. Markets were not everyday phenoms. Market days happened once a week or month. It was not a day just to buy and sell. It was a mini festival. It was a fare to display wares and wears, to eat exotic meals and discover them, for nubile teens and ingenues to flaunt their maiden beauty and musclebound boys to gawp and woo.

BOS’ Sunday market is a Lagos iteration of that tradition. It is to save the rich and middle class. it pares 25 percent of the prices. Testimonies abound.

But this is part of a wider intervention in these hard times. In Juvenal’s time, transportation was not an integral part of daily budgets. Peasants, like my late grandmother, reveled in the reach and dabs of their treks. Today, we have to pay to go to work. His emphasis on completing the trains, blue and red, show that when you feed, you also move. To move has been a feature of the modern persona. The Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk wrote in her novel Flight, that “Barbarians don’t travel.”

Now, workers pay less to the bus and to ferry by boat. The trains remind one of the British trains in its early days in the 19th century of commuting in England. Prime Minister William Gladstone made sure they paid a penny less a mile, in what the people called parliamentary trains. Today, it is one of the hallmarks of mobile Britain. I call it ‘penny train.’

Governor Sanwo-Olu extends the package to health with free child delivery and a squad making the rounds to administer free tests for today’s culprits: Diabetes, blood pressure and eye disease. For education, teachers enjoy subsidized transport, and workers can work for four days without compromising efficiency. The governor already has anticipated wage increase. He said with a mild boast that no one earns less than N70,000 in his government.

This is our early conversion to a welfare state. It is not codified in law or in system in the country. On a national scale, we are seeing snippets of it with the palliatives, reorganized school feeding, school loans project, consumer credit scheme, etc.

The British started it with its bill of rights. Other countries, including the Scandinavia, have perfected it. It takes a society with a settled minimum prosperity to guarantee it, but it requires, above all, a will and a leap of faith.

Capitalism is brutal, and it is a tyrant to the poor. Marx envisioned socialism, and thinkers and poets worried as well. Oliver Goldsmith lamented that, “Ill fares the land/To hastening ills a prey/ when wealth accumulates and men decay.” British best ever playwright after Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, expounded on the topic later in his famous essay, “How Wealth accumulates and men decay.”

Wise men saved capitalism by caring for the poor. There has never been a better system, in spite of the ululation of the Marxist who are now today’s screaming dinosaurs.

Other states may not have Governor Sanwo-Olu’s wherewithal, but they may do well to step up their games. Some have.

April 29, 2024