The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Dele Giwa: Justice overdue

    Dele Giwa: Justice overdue

    All eyes are on the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, and the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to see whether they will carry out the order of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on February 16, directing the Federal Government to “investigate, prosecute and punish perpetrators of all attacks against journalists and other media practitioners, and ensure that all victims of attacks against journalists have access to effective remedies.”

    Justice Inyang Ekwo also made an order directing the Federal Government to “take measures to prevent attacks on journalists and other media practitioners.”

    This judgement was the outcome of the suit instituted by Media Rights Agenda (MRA), a non-governmental organisation, in 2021, seeking to enforce the fundamental rights of journalists to safety as stipulated in the Nigerian Constitution and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

    The NGO had named journalists in the country who were killed extrajudicially. The list included Dele Giwa, the colourful, high-profile journalist and founding Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch magazine who died from injuries inflicted by a parcel bomb with Nigeria’s coat of arms on it, which he received while having breakfast in his home in Ikeja, Lagos, on October 19, 1986. He was 39.

    Others were Bolade Fasisi of the National Association of Women Journalists, killed in March 1998; Edward Olalekan of Daily Times, killed in June 1999; Omololu Falobi of The Punch, murdered in October 2006; Godwin Agbroko of Thisday, December 1999; Abayomi Ogundeji of Thisday, August 2008; and Edo Sule-Ugbagwu of The Nation, April 2010.

    The judge noted that the Federal Government “neither denied that these killings have taken place or that these persons were not journalists or media practitioners.”

    Unsurprisingly, reports of the court judgement highlighted Giwa’s murder, which was a unique case and perhaps the most devastating of the unresolved cases of journalists murdered in the country.

    In 2015, 29 years after Giwa was killed, a former Deputy Inspector-General of Police who investigated the murder, Chris Omeben, was reported saying his efforts to interrogate a “principal suspect” failed due to interference from “high places.” He was in charge of the Research Department of the Police CID when Giwa was murdered.

    The gruesome murder happened under the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida military regime, which was accused of the killing in some quarters. In 2001, Babangida rigidly refused to appear before the Human Rights Violations Commission, popularly known as the Oputa Panel, concerning the Giwa murder. He demonstrated desperation for silence by going to court. Babangida, Col. Haliru Akilu (retd) of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) in his regime, and Lt. Col. A.K Togun (retd), who was the Deputy Director of the State Security Service (SSS), obtained an order barring the commission from summoning them to appear before it.  It was puzzling that the three men rejected what was a golden opportunity to prove their claimed innocence.  

    An astounding travesty of justice followed as the commission’s chairman was reported saying while it had powers to issue arrest warrants for the trio, it decided against such a move “in the overall interest of national reconciliation.”

    A 360-page book titled Honour for Sale, described by the author, Major Debo Basorun (retd), as ‘An Insider Account of the Murder of Dele Giwa,’ caused a stir when it was launched in Lagos, in November 2013.  Basorun served in the Babangida regime as Press and Public Affairs Officer (Military Press Secretary) to the Military President of Nigeria between 1985 and 1988.

     He dropped a bombshell.  In the prologue to his autobiographical book, he said of the explosive volume:  “It is a laborious attempt at documenting over twenty-one years of a kaleidoscopic but exciting career – a gaudy reminder of the sweet days at the pinnacle of power and how a miscalculation on the part of the powers-that-be led me to uncover the truth that, in concert with his Intelligence Chief, Colonel Haliru Akilu, Babangida has not come clean with the Nigerian people – nay the world – concerning the duo’s roles in the mindless assassination of a foremost Nigerian journalist of his time, Dele Giwa.”

     Basorun added: “I am hopefully looking forward to the day when General Ibrahim Babangida, Colonel Haliru Akilu and myself would be brought before the people’s court to answer all we know pertaining to the cruel murder…”

    The campaign for justice for Giwa has been relentless. It’s been 38 years since he was killed. But the matter is alive, despite the years that have passed since the killing.

    The other listed media victims of extra-judicial killings deserve justice as well. According to a 2021 report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 278 journalists were killed in Nigeria in the 10 years prior to the report. It is unclear whether any of these cases was resolved.

    Read Also: Again, who killed Dele Giwa?

    The court order directing the authorities to reopen the unresolved murder cases involving journalists is a powerful legal and moral statement.

    It is said that there is no perfect murder. The failure of the authorities to bring the perpetrators of the stated extra-judicial killings to justice amounts to a failure of law enforcement and a contradiction of that assertion. The failure of past investigators, and previous investigations, should be investigated towards resolving the unresolved murders.

    It is also said that the law is no respecter of persons. Fagbemi and Egbetokun must carry out the court order by reopening the unresolved cases of extra-judicial killing involving journalists, particularly the ones listed by MRA, and pursue justice for the victims. The momentous judgement demands nothing less.

    A notable quotation attributed to Giwa in another context has an enduring relevance. He was quoted as saying, “No evil deed can go unpunished. Any evil done by man will be redressed, if not now, then certainly later; if not by man, then certainly by God, for victory of evil over good can only be temporary.”

    The court order demands justice by man now, not later. In Giwa’s case, justice is long overdue.  The same thing can be said of the other named media victims of extra-judicial killings in the country.   

  • Two Lagos boys, one homeboy

    Two Lagos boys, one homeboy

    In most states, battles for the state house do not call for a crystal ball. Voters are better than pundits. They become prophets in their own rights. They are seers, not from consulting a dibia  or heaven, but the shrine of the street. When the results flood in, the winner takes the glory, but there is hardly a roar of miracle, a muted hallelujah.

    Not in Kano where the masses known as the talakawa dance to a populist beat. Not in Oyo State where a candidate may win or lose depending on whether the incumbent has bored or offended them. In Rivers State, the ego of the big man replaces ideas, and partisanship is not about parties but parties within a party.

    Edo State is no less a quicksand. It is one of the few with a turnover of parties in the state house. They love their day at the poll. It is mini-festival of revenge, ideological harangues, introspection, atavistic coalitions and, in a peculiar sense, a search for justice that may be defined either as geographic balancing or a settling of scores. Edo emblematises the three Cs of election: Candidate, condition and culture. For candidate, they have thrown up a labour maven, a la Adams; a pastor, Ize Iyamu; a technocrat, Obaseki; a professor, Ihonvbere; etc. For condition, it is always about what have you done for me lately, or who is behind who. For culture, we have the wraith of zoning, the Bini, Esan and Etsako, as well as outside influence. At the bottom is a sense of pride that sometimes turns a sophisticated electorate into something of a rabble. But Edo is always fun to watch.

    We saw that in the past week. In APC, it was Dennis Idahosa before it became Monday Okpebholo. In PDP, Governor Godwin Obaseki, who always bears the brow of a perspiring factory worker in suit, picked Asue Ighodalo when his deputy, Shaibu was either sulking or clutching a questionable victory when not raising alarm over impeachment. Charging from behind is Labour Party that settled for mercurial Tayo Akpata after a party rumble over authenticity.

    Now we have the three, especially in Labour Party and PDP, even as Idahosa is still in uproar. He won before he learned he didn’t, and a new primary was done, and all who did not want him came together and handed Okpebholo the victory. With Adams not happy, the party will have to, as Okpebholo has promised, bind the wounds. Adams still feels cheated, but the party apparatchiks seemed to have moved on. Party chairman Abdullahi Ganduje swiveled from hailing Idahosa to embracing Okpebholo. There is a reason the Janus god still enjoys homage with the first calendar month long after the deity expired. The party committed an error and came to repentance. Okpebholo has forgiven.

    Now, we have three men, two Lagos boys, that is Ighodalo and Akpata. One homeboy in Okpebholo. Is Edo going to dump Lagos this time and hug a homeboy, having had for the past seven years a Lagos boy who fought Lagos in order to be an Edo boy but failed to deliver for Edo?

    Akpata, the Lagos boy and former NBA president, is hoisting the rump of Obi’s razzmatazz in the state in the last presidential poll. He is being taunted as a candidate without a structure. In the last poll, LP had no senator or rep. Obi’s influence was only for Obi. Akpata wants to give that a lie.

    Is Edo now set for a homeboy, if authenticity means a homegrown hero? Both Okpebholo and Ighodalo are from Edo central, with a harvest of about 18 percent of the votes, the smallest in the state. It is a risk the PDP and APC are taking for ethnic justice. Wil it work? Apart from Osunbor’s brief reign, no Esan or a fellow of Edo central has been governor. That was Adams argument with Idahosa, although Pastor Ize Iyamu, from Edo south, presented himself but stepped down for party harmony. Edo south is the big electoral pot with over 50 percent. That is Akpata’s hope. He wants to exploit Bini bigotry. He is expected to pick a running mate from Edo north, Adams’ forte, which inspires about 24 percent of the electoral votes. In terms of numbers, Akpata feels he has an advantage. But the Edo may be too subtle for such deadpan calculation.

    Read Also: Greedy politicians fuelling attacks on Tinubu over hardship -Arewa Think Tank

    The APC thinks they can exploit their candidate’s Edo authenticity. Ighodalo is beginning to be jeered for his lack of language skill. They say he cannot speak good Esan, and he employs translators to communicate with his own people. This is a throwback to Lagos guber candidate Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, whose lips were alien to good Yoruba when he wanted to run for Lagos top seat.

    There is also the view that Obaseki’s blood is with Akpata, if his party is with Ighodalo. Obaseki and Akpata are children of the Benin Kingdom. For Akpata, it is a paradox that a royal is pitching his tent with the so-called people’s party, a contradiction that I expect the people to interrogate in the coming months. If Obaseki’s blue blood nods for Akpata and his red blood for Ighodalo, is one blood not going to dilute the other?

    As they say, all politics is local. President Bola Tinubu has ensured that there is no outcry of external strings. In this poll, APC’s spring is in its Edo soul. Obaseki’s failure as governor does not recommend him as a godfather. Maybe hence speculations have it that he is hedging his underground bet with his fellow royal in Akpata.

    From that perspective, the odds may favour Okpebholo, but it depends on how APC wheel horses wield the advantage of homeboy, dissuade any wave of Bini entitlement and mollify Adams’ stronghold in the north. Lots of work ahead, though.

  • Artificial intelligence

    Artificial intelligence

    Artificial intelligence did not begin with the new technology. Humans were artificial before they made a technology for that name. But in Nigeria, we are having our own special version of that phrase, a false human artifice. Literally, it means intelligence to bring about an unnatural outcome. It was a warning from Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori, that turned this essayist to that new trend. He warned contractors in the state not to exploit rising inflation to delay contract execution. Deadline, he says, is deadline. He implied contractors tend to delay in order to scale up contract sums, what is called contract variation.

    This shows two things. One, the governor is not part of a trend in the country where governors encourage contractors to temporize on their work in order to escalate pay. Two, he is unwittingly alerting the nation to a new trend of sabotage in the land. Just a few days later, Minister David Umahi held a meeting with cement makers on price gouging. It was a polite meeting, but he meant the cement merchants were fattening on the poor. The books show that they can make profit without hitting the roof with prices.

    Artificial intelligence is, therefore, another word for sabotage. They are creating an artificial society. While the west is creating an artificial society by introducing new gizmos with bells and whistles to simplify life, ours heap burdens on ourselves. We are seeing this in the artificial scarcity some are imposing by taking food out of the sight of Nigerians. Vice president Kashim Shettima raised the alarm over 32 routes through which saboteurs are taking food out of the country. Scarcity raises prices. The food prices are up, but they are artificial. While the Kano emir was sending a message to the president that people are hungry, 10 warehouses were hoarding food under his royal nose.

    Shall we not know that even the dollar rise and suffering naira is also artificial? Are the bank chiefs not the conduits of unrighteousness? They round-trip and grow fat while the naira squeals in pain. Now, the CBN is trying to stop what is called spoofing, whereby unscrupulous persons speculate on crypto-currencies to create apocryphal demand and supply. The playwright Moliere in his play, The Imaginary Invalid, noted that “most men die of their own remedies, not of their own diseases.” We have food, but we choose starvation. It is not only sabotage but treason. It is not for lack of food supply. They give the impression that we have no food, and farmers are not getting yields. Shadowy goons want to bring down this country. It is a chess game of the absurd.

    Read Also: 65 CSOs pull out from planned Labour’s nationwide protest

    It is the same way N23 trillion was printed with nothing to show for it. They ambushed the airlines to claim imaginary debts that auditors have exposed. Out of over $7 billion  they ferreted out of the CBN, about three billion dollars had no companies or businesses or addresses. Corruption is another word for artificial intelligence. The technologists call it deepfake, but it is Nigerian deeptake. Deepfake reminds one of Franz Kafka’s line, “I was ashamed of myself when I realized life was a costume party; and I attended with my real face.” We need to see the real faces of these miscreants.

    Governor Oborevwori has put his contractors on notice. In that same way, we need collective vigilance against all the enemies of progress who do not wish the country well. They are turning Nigeria into an imaginary invalid like the doctor in Moliere’s play who keeps creating illnesses for himself. We are our own remedy. Let us not be our own curse.

  • Before Wigwe goes home

    Before Wigwe goes home

    The painful death of Access Bank chief Herbert Wigwe has let out a lot of steam. It is especially about how Intercontinental Bank under Erastus Akingbola was dissolved in a frenetic acquisition move. The tale was daubed a tilapia swallowing a whale, a miracle of fraud. Names were mentioned who are still alive. It is only the living in this tale that can do credit to the departed Wigwe and restore his superfine image. If they love Wigwe, the men who have been fingered in this fantastic heist should come out and tell us their role or lack of it in this drama of Gulliver traveling over industry Lilliputians. Aig-Imoukhuede ought to say something, and not him alone, but also his mother in-law madam Evelyn Oputu over a mobile elixir of N50 billion that moved in and out without a stain. What of Bukola Saraki, our Eleyinmi and former governor of Kwara State and fall guy of Otoge? He has kept mum over his role in allegedly  stage-managing a classic revenge after Akingbola did not oblige the saviour of his bank.

    Read Also: Greedy politicians fuelling attacks on Tinubu over hardship -Arewa Think Tank

    Is it true? What of former CBN governor Lamido Sanusi, the former Kano emir, who has greeted the buzz with uncharacteristic silence? We need Wigwe to go “gentle into that good night,” not with the stories of filth and official brigandage. Their silence is viewed by many as consent.

  • Naira abuse: Selective enforcement

    Naira abuse: Selective enforcement

    Two recent cases exposed a double standard in Nigeria’s fight against naira abuse. In one case, actress Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin was sentenced to six months in prison, with a fine option, for spraying and stepping on naira notes at a party in Lagos. Curiously, in the other case, which involved a traditional ruler, the Olu of Owode Egba, Ogun State, Oba Kolawole Sowemimo, the naira abuser has not been prosecuted.

    According to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the actress, “on the 28th day of January 2023, at Monarch Event Centre, Lekki, Lagos… whilst dancing during a social occasion tampered with the sum of N100,000 issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria by spraying same,” and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 21(1) of the Central Bank Act, 2007.

    She was arrested by officers of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on February 1, 2023, in Ikoyi, Lagos, following a viral video that showed her spraying and stepping on naira notes at a party, and handed over to the EFCC the next day for further investigation.

     In her statement, she had stated that she attended a friend’s wedding on January 28, 2023, and that she sprayed N200 and N100 notes on the occasion. She was first arraigned on February 13, 2023, and granted bail two days later.

    Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court, Lagos, on February 1, 2024, convicted her, and sentenced her to six months in prison with a N300,000 fine option.

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act 2007 (As amended) stipulates that “spraying of, dancing or marching on the naira or any note issued by the Bank during social occasions or otherwise howsoever shall constitute abuse, and defacing of the naira or such note shall be punishable under the law by fines or imprisonment or both.” Abuse of the currency attracts a penalty of not less than six months imprisonment or a fine of not less than N50,000 or both.

    The CBN is supposed to work with the EFCC, Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), among others, to curb the abuse of the naira. It is unclear whether they are operating with a sense of collective mission concerning the issue.

    Considering Omoseyin’s prosecution for naira abuse, and her punishment for violating the law, it is puzzling that Oba Sowemimo has not been arraigned for the same violation.

    In January, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) issued a statement, calling the traditional ruler’s attention to “an online video where a garland of the national currency was used by you to spray on one of the musicians who played at the event.” The agency said, “for us that was an abuse of one of the national symbols of our dear country,” noting that his action was punishable under the law.

    Its Director General, Lanre Issa-Onilu, who signed the statement, implored Oba Sowemimo “to join the NOA in finding a solution to the indiscriminate abuse of the currency by enlightening your community members on the legal consequences of the abuse of the Naira and promoting the integrity of all our national symbols.” It was strange that the agency appealed to an unreformed naira abuser to support the campaign against naira abuse. 

    A month later, the Egba Traditional Council suspended Oba Sowemimo for two months without salaries following the recommendation of its Ethics Committee, which had examined the viral video and reached the conclusion that his action was unethical.  The video showed the traditional ruler, during the celebration of his 13th coronation anniversary, adorning a popular Fuji musician, Wasiu Ayinde, with new N1,000 notes shaped like a garland. The committee observed that his action contravened the law, and encouraged derisive comments about Yoruba traditional rulership.

    “They said the suspension was due to the way I spent money on one musician,” Oba Sowemimo was reported saying. “And when I was asked if I had anything to say, I stood up and apologised for whatever I had done wrong and the suspension which was earlier announced to be for three months without salaries was reduced to two months.” He added that he “totally” accepted the decision of the council.

    According to the council, while under suspension, he must not parade himself as a traditional ruler, must not be invited to any government or public function as a traditional ruler, and must not attend any such event as a traditional ruler.

    Read Also: Lagos Police warn intending protesters against road blocks

    It is unclear if the actions of the NOA and the Egba Traditional Council were meant to make his prosecution unnecessary.  It is said that the law is no respecter of persons. But the different treatments of the naira abusers in these cases suggest that the actress faced trial because of her comparatively low status, and the traditional ruler has not been tried because of his high status.

    Omoseyin was sentenced to six months in prison, with a fine option. Oba Sowemimo was suspended for two months without salaries. It is unclear how much his salaries for two months amount to.  In the first case, there was enforcement of the law. In the second case, the law was not enforced. Enforcing the law through arrest and prosecution sends a serious signal that cannot be achieved through the methods of the NOA and the council of traditional rulers in the case of Oba Sowemimo.

    Selective enforcement of the law is not the way to fight naira abuse. Indeed, the authorities should target the high-ups who break the law by abusing the naira, and are regularly seen in viral videos doing so. Such naira abusers should be prosecuted and punished. That is a more effective way to fight naira abuse.

    Fighting naira abuse and naira abusers demands much more than the conviction of an obscure actress. Naira abusers are all over the place, in high places and low places. These two cases demonstrate that reality. Regular viral videos show the high scale of naira abuse in the country. The violators carry on because those who should stop them allow the violation to continue. More people should be arrested and prosecuted for naira abuse, irrespective of their status.

  • Not only state police

    Not only state police

    It would amount to a significant shift in policy, if the current federal administration settles for the establishment of state police. This is especially so, given the positions of previous regimes on this important but controversial initiative in policing.

    Heightened prospects for the setting up of state police emerged after a meeting last week between President Bola Tinubu and 36 state governors on the state of the economy and lingering insecurity.

     Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris told the media after the meeting: “There is also a discussion around the issue of state police. The federal government and the state governments are mulling the possibility of setting up of state police”.

    Though discussions are still at the infancy stages and will only take shape after more deliberations with stakeholders, it is perhaps the first time the federal government will be showing positive disposition to the setting up of state police. That makes the matter intriguing.

    The initiative is bound to come up with new challenges in view of its linkage with some contentious issues of our federal order. But then, meaningful progress may be hampered if steps are not taken to equally address some structural defects in the system of government we currently operate.

    That is the first challenge. The other has to do with anticipated opposition to the proposition due largely to vested interests and the policy directions of Tinubu’s predecessors on the matter. All these will impact on the level of progress the federal and state governments make on state police.

    But these should not discourage the new initiative because it is an integral component of the federal system of government we currently operate. So, there is nothing strange about the proposition except that our lopsided and badly skewed federal system of government that operates in its most aberrant form has been its greatest obstacle. The lethargy by our leaders in embracing some of the pristine components of federalism is a consequence of this convoluted order. With such disposition, it is little surprising that discussions on state police have overtime been mired in controversy.  The situation is unlikely to be different this time around.

     Before now, former president, Obasanjo had displayed clear preference for community policing. Thus, in 2004, he launched the pilot phase in Enugu. Its objective was to establish a clear departure from traditional policing that was reactive and incident-based; to a problem-solving oriented policing that is proactive, with the community as the cornerstone of policing objectives.

    Community policing also drew the appeal of ex-president, Buhari such that in 2017, the then Inspector General of Police IGP, Ibrahim Idris launched the Community Policing Re-engagement Strategic Guidelines. The guidelines would make for proactive approach to policing and active engagement of local communities to reduce crimes and anti-social behaviours. He also inaugurated a seven-man community management committee to oversee the initiative.

    This policy got further fillip in 2020 when the then IGP, Mohammed Adamu unveiled its structure to involve local communities in crime fighting.  He said at the occasion that community policing was designed to allow communities take responsibility for the project by setting up advisory committees made up of traditional rulers, faith-based organizations, traders, women and youths.

    But even as Buhari showed preference for community policing, he did not hide his strong aversion for the setting up of state police. He had in a television interview in 2022 completely ruled out such initiative. ”State police is not an option”, he said in the wake of calls from Nigerians and some governors for state police and rising insecurity across the country.

    He did not stop there but went on to draw parallels with events at the local governments to show the dire challenges bound to be exacerbated if and when   state police is instituted.

    Hear him: “find out the relationship between the local governments and the state governors. Is the third tier of government getting what it is supposed to get constitutionally? Let the people at the local government tell you the truth; the fight between local governments and the governors”.

    By this analogy, Buhari was apparently drawing attention to the challenge of funding that will ensue when state governors are made to shoulder the responsibility of funding state police. That is not all as it further raises the question of the capacity of the states to fund such initiative without certain adjustments in the revenue allocation formula. These are some of the fundamentals that will be part of the calculations in the final decision to set up state police.

    Community policing and state police are by no means mutually exclusive as both entail some form of decentralization in policing functions. But whereas the federal government retains its unitary control over the police institution through community policing, state police will entail the devolution of some of those powers to the sub-national units.

    That can only be brought about through constitutional amendment that delists the police from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrency of both the federal and state governments. That will also entail clearly spelt out relationship that should exist between the federal and state police, source of funding and safeguards in case of conflict of functions.

    The move will invoke a wide gamut of fundamental changes in the structure and organization of our federal contraption. Because it will entail far-reaching changes, it is not an exercise that can be completed in a hurry. Sufficient time must be given to the initiative so as not to rush into recommendations that may turnout counterproductive.

    There are genuine fears on prospects by state governors to deploy the new initiative to unwholesome means. Their current abuse of the state vigilante services to hound political opponents; greed for power and do-or-die politics do not leave anyone in comfort that state police will not become another monster in the hands of the governors. Some have even predicted anarchy as most of the party thugs in the ruling parties may form the nucleus of the initial intake into state police. Such a flawed recruitment process will ultimately manifest negatively in the harassment of political opponents and non-indigenes especially during elections.

    These fears are real. But they are not sufficient to countermand the imperative of the state police institution. It is true that our politics is rancorous; deadly. But that is because our processes and institutions are weak.

    Read Also: Lagos Police warn intending protesters against road blocks

    Yes, the federal system of government we currently operate is disproportionately strong. But its weaknesses lie in the overconcentration of powers virtually controlling life and death. It is federal in principle but actually unitary in practice. Many of the functions that are performed better by sub-national units in such arrangements were appropriated by the central authority leading to glaring inefficiencies.

    The issue in focus is a case in point. The evidence is clear in the escalating insecurity across the country and the agitation for state police. So it is not just enough to fault state police on account of possible abuses to which state governors are likely to subject that institution. The federal police has not also fared any better in this regard.

    Our concerns should be why our politics is that rancorous, intolerant of opposition; why the bitter competition to capture power by hook and crook? And why is it possible for politicians to subvert the rules of electoral engagement and get away with them? These are the real issues to contend with. The way they are tackled will resolve most of the obstacles that impede economic and political development in the country.

    My take is that our national politics is that deadly and rancorous because of the lure to corner the huge resources at the centre. Prebendalism in the face of the inability of the system to discourage corruption in public offices is the greatest challenge to real progress.  Diluting and whittling down the enormous powers at the centre will reduce the viciousness of our politics.

    Devolution of powers and fiscal federalism will take care of the fears about state police. It calls for restructuring through far-reaching constitutional changes, not just one that isolates state police. The tendency by state governors to appropriate state police for self-serving objectives can be obviated though constitutional safeguards.

  • NDDC and TSA

    NDDC and TSA

    Managing director Dr. Samuel Ogbuku highlighted the Niger Delta Development Commission’s retreat held last week with a number of nuggets. He brought, for the first time, NDDC’s past managing directors and chairmen under one roof under his mantra, “rewind to rebirth.” One nugget was that the NDDC exists in the rural reaches where the substance of government is missing. Maybe the noise about its ineffectualness is a symptom of an out-of-touch elite who know little of the over seven thousand projects done over the years from boreholes to schools to flyovers. His main nugget was a plea to take the NDDC out of Treasury Single Account just like the FCT. His reason is forceful. Money comes in parts. Two, TSA stops it from partnering with banks to scoop loans ahead of allocations from the federation account, the IOCs and ecological funds. A tenured MD has only 20 months in four years to do substantial work. So, he tells me in a TVC interview that Pre-TSA NDDC worked far better than the present system. They can’t source funds from international donors sympathetic to their commission’s dreams. This topic will be tackled in detail. But Dr. Ogbuku has shown why the Commission has many abandoned projects. The senate should invite him and other stakeholders to debate the merit. The region suffers indeed, and imagination should be placed at the mercy of its progress. Like Ogbuku’s imagination.

  • Adesina versus Abati

    Adesina versus Abati

    In his new book Working with Buhari, Femi Adesina revealed something few knew when Buhari was in office. In a meeting with Igbo elders, the former president said his government had the wherewithal and opportunities to eliminate Nnamdi Kanu in his different domiciles around the world where he howled and swore. According to the book, his government chose to spare him. At a book event last week, organized by CORA BookTrek at the RovingHeights Bookshop in Lagos, Adesina said he decided not to reveal the content because of its sensitivity. I thought he should have because it reflected a thoughtful and restrained president against a rabblerouser. The other point in the book was his rejoinder to Reuben Abati’s tearful essay about disease and impotence in Aso Villa. Adesina denies all that. For Abati’s successor, it was the villa of sap and vitality. My take? Maybe the spirit was not that of Pentecost or that of Beelzebub, but the peculiar spirit that comes out of the bottle. I learned they consulted that spirit a lot in the Jonathan years. Adesina confessed he was not going to engage the policies of the Buhari years. I said he had written columns on a variety of serious policies, and he could not be shying away from them out of lack of personal rigour or opinion. He confessed he was keeping his views to himself. It must be that he did not agree with some of those actions of his boss and he decided to keep mum until, as he suggests, 20 years from now. Hmm!

    Read Also: Naira redesign, ‘Emilokan’ speech, excerpts from Femi Adesina’s ‘Working with Buhari’

    If Femi wanted to impress us with his boss’ ascetic carriage and personal integrity, I noted that, as a leader, his rectitude was of no use to all of us if it made him good and the society bad. He was not elected to advertise his sanctity. His spirited defence of Buhari only showed the knotty task of an image maker, especially if he is a Muhammadu Buhari.

  • The grenadiers

    The grenadiers

    The Emir of Kano was playing to a feudal gallery. Aminu Ado Bayero was not speaking to the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, when he asked her to tell her husband, the president, that hunger is in the land.

    The monarch was in a mood of vanity. He exhibited himself to the Kano street as their advocate. A few days later, the EFCC unveiled a crooked plot under his watch. About  10  warehouses advocating hunger in Kano became news. They were hoarding food. The paradox is inescapable. So, too, the hypocrisy. I would love to hear the emir say a thing or two about the saboteurs in his enclave, the vermin in Kano blood. Maybe he should telegraph a message to the first lady, and nuance his position by saying, yes, there is hunger in the land. But some people he watches over as spiritual leader are also responsible for the pains. That means, he, too, by default, is failing in his duties to his people.

    He forgot that the president, just as he has done to other states, has put his governor in custody of billions of Naira in the past eight months, more than any Kano governor has ever received. He should also address the question to his governor who just swept to victory in a flush of court victory. Last year when his neighbour was president, he did not convey similar message when no one could access a naira and food rotted in the market. The beloved monarch was speaking to the first lady without looking at his blindside.

    Emir Bayero is not alone in that orchestra. The emir reflects a distorted sense of the state of the country. There is a barrage of messages, a good deal of them deliberately staged online, to make the president a harbinger of poverty.

    This sort of storytelling imperils efforts to separate suffering from lies. But because many are unhappy in the land, those who know the whys and wherefores of the problem and the virtues of the president’s actions have joined the fray for one reason: to pull down the presidency. It is cynicism clothed in love of the masses.

    There have been a few writers, pundits on television and politicians who have found foul traction in harping a tale of woes. First, we must know that most of these folks did not like the president before day one. Hatred did not turn instant love for him. Some of them prophesied in their secular pulpits that he would not win the primaries. He did. That he could not win the elections, and he did. That he would not be sworn in, and he was. His victories intoxicated their fury.

    Two, we know that a majority of the voters, combining both Atiku and Obi in the ballot, beat Tinubu by about six million votes. But the election was about who had the most votes and it was one man. They don’t like that man. So, he ascended the throne with headwinds of malice. When those same people set free volleys of vitriol, it is not exactly because they love this country more and hate Tinubu less. Rather, they are gloating at the challenges of the hour by posing righteous angst. They are pretenders of love of the people. What they are will in due time be known. For now, they are, like the emir, playing to the gallery. They are not nuanced. They either do not understand economics or are unwilling to learn.

    Now they pretend they are against subsidy and the exchange rates as though their candidates did not append the policies. There have been spinoffs of the actions. One, the rot in the CBN. What have they written or commented on the efforts to detoxify the top bank.

    During the campaigns, many of them accepted the logic of subsidy removal and collapsing of  exchange rates? What of the revelations about the stage after stage of rapine of our collective cash vault? Have they tried to analyse the consequences for the nation?.  We heard of billions of dollars taken away by gangsters in suits and clever heads. It reminds one of Leo Tolstoy’s line that “all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity.” In our case, superfluity of  peacock moguls .

    There have been revelations about the commercial banks hugging bales of dollars. What have the epistles of voice and pen done to relate the malaise of the banking elite with the naira as a sick baby? Have they shown how it is easy to destroy, and that it takes time to repair? Do they know this? Yes, unless they lie to themselves.

    Have they come up with any alternative solutions to the efforts of the president? Those who are congenitally afraid of IMF and throw darts at the institution with all its imperfections are still hostage to the caskets of Marx and Lenin. But, for most, it is hypocrisy.

    Many of them were on the take during the elections from the other parties and are writing and gesticulating as saints scented and sent from heaven.

    If they want to say there is inflation, I will agree. It is serious? I will say yes. It is urgent? I will nod. But they should back their umbrage with new solutions. As Antonio Machado wrote, “new roads are made by walking.” They are standing still and pointing fingers at muddy stains in the walker’s coat. Some have parroted palliatives is not a solution. The government never said palliatives is a solution. It is to ease the burden until the fruits of policies come. I will agree that Betta Edu stalemated the humanitarian ministry. I suggest that the presidential committee streamlines the register speedily and set the palliatives back on course.  Yet, last December, a lawmaker announced that bags of rice were handed lawmakers to distribute to their constituents for the holiday. All the same noisemakers read it. Why did they not hold our lawmakers to account? No one contradicted the legislator, so I believe him. Why did anyone not ask their constituents to protest on the streets against them? We should not make an era out of malice or cause out of grudge. Agbaero and company can protest now but when their candidate supported naira design and the poverty that resulted, they did not howl on the streets.

    How many of them have asked the governors, like Kano, to account for all that the president has handed them since May last year? The tendency is to hold the president responsible. President Tinubu would not shy from it. But he has 36 governors in charge of the people. I know a few that are in sync, like Delta State Governor Sheriff Oborevwori with the distribution of grains to farmers. The BOS of Lagos, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has released money to traders. Ogun State’s Dapo Abiodun just announced N5 billion for that purpose. The President asked the governors to “spend the money,” not “spend the people.”

    The epistle mongers remind me of Moliere’s play, The Imaginary Invalid, about a man who keeps imagining he is sick and piling up a series of sicknesses he does not have.

    The afflictions of today are enough. Let those so-called wise men with grandiloquent pens and purple rhetoric not add new ones. As Fashola noted in his new book, Nigerian Public Discourse, “anger is not a strategy.” This is a time for succour, not sour grapes.

  • Owambe society

    Owambe society

    Nothing in the public profile of Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) suggests a comedian. Not his diction, not his deadpan voice. Tall with a soccer striker’s physique, his face is often sober. He smiles but his visage bears the dignified, often ominous scrutiny of a school teacher. He likes talking like a wonk in spite of his playful side that abounds often behind a mask.

    Yet, Fashola has written a funny book, a little war-house of a book of catacombs lined with grenades lurking in every dark corner. Beware along the pages! Yet, we should not be surprised. While governor of Lagos, he gave us a hint of his censorious eye, for highlighting our faults and foibles, the delusions of our everyday prattle. He published them as Takeaways in the newspapers. They had the power to bite, to startle us out of our philosophical complacencies.

    The book’s title is itself a grenade packaged like unsweetened biscuits. Nigerian Public Discourse does not prepare you for the lashings, the rebukes, the subtle invocations of historical and sociological faux pas.

    Every society and generation need a book like this. Peter Pan – Peter Enahoro – poked us with How To Be A Nigerian. Later, Chinua Achebe glowered with the Trouble with Nigeria. Now, Fashola has gifted us with Nigerian Public Discourse. The United States has a few, like Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind and Robert Hughes’ A Culture of Complaint. Peter Enahoro wrote with the mordant wit of a journalist, Achebe with the soul of a poet, now wailing, now sneering. Fashola’s has the impudence of the slapstick. Fashola’s style is like the humorist whose intention is not to amuse, but he cannot help himself. The laugh will come anyway, a serious and self-deprecating laugh, the laugh as self-guilt. You will find yourself saying to yourself, “Oh, I am guilty of that.”

    So, we have a variety of comedies. The comedy of superstition, the comedy of errors, the comedy of data, the comedy of manners, the comedy of the Owambe variety, the comedy of document, the comedy of rhetoric, the comedy of power, the comedy of history and constitution, the comedy of structure. For me, the funniest is the comedy of anger. The book soars from the sublime to the ridiculous and back to the sublime.

    Did you once believe as a child that the great Thunder Balogun’s shot once passed through the stomach of a goal keeper into the net? That Indians were banned by FIFA forever because for charming goals? I was told that when an Indian took part in a javelin contest at the Olympics, the javelin kept flying as long as the thrower’s hand was in the air. Fashola did not add that the goal keeper Rigogo caught shots with one finger. A comedy of superstition.

    Fashola recalls a fellow asking him why governors went to Abuja every month to distribute money with no banking system. The illusion, unfortunately, still persists, even though governors do not attend such meetings, and such allocations go through the channels of bank transfer. He also alludes to census figures without scientific sources. On Lagos 2006 census, for instance, the Census Tribunal invalidated the figures in 11 local government areas. Yet NPC records retain the old apocrypha.

    Or how did we get the figure about 17 million housing deficit? It is a tyranny of figures. It makes us wonder how we govern on fantasy or fantasy governs us.

    They say Nigerians live on a dollar a day as though we live in an American market. For instance, a bottle of coke that sells for $1.89 in the US retails for 32 cents here In naira. Yet, when the holy statisticians measure our economy, they gauge it by their own value. We measure income about multi-dimensional poverty, forgetting the multi-dimensional sources of income. A secretary earns N40K adds to gifts from uncle, boss, sibling, other relatives. They fail to take cognizance of our communalism, what the political scientist Richard Joseph – one of them – calls the economy of affection. Western illiteracy relies on their own formulas to describe us.

    The comedy of power is in different areas. One, we assess electric power for economic data on the basis of the grid alone, whereas many use diesel, petrol-run generators, coal, gas, solar, et al.

    The other is the power of the minister of power. The minister is stripped of the control of “personnel and authority” he once possessed.   In 2016, the staff strength was under one thousand from a prior 50 thousand. The National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) have the full authority to license, sanction and regulate operators in the sector. The DISCOs and GENCOs are under BPE. It’s a minister without power. Shall we abolish that ministry?

    As minister of works, he learned that the legal department reports to the attorney general and minister of justice, the finance and accounts department reports to accountant general and minister of finance, the procurement department is hostage to BPE while those in administration nod to the head of service. This, he says, is true of all ministries. The minister presides over a shell.

    No wonder works minister David Umahi had to kowtow to late-arriving staff of his ministry. Who gave us this structure? It echoes Kafka’s novel, the Castle, in which you at once belong and don’t belong to the building.

    Read Also: Fashola urges landlords to collect monthly rents

    Then the comedy of the power of president. Fashola gets very excited here, alluding to constitutional rigidity. Is the president that powerful when he relies on parliament, signs no cheques, controls no land, or most of the roads or and schools, et al. He gets, for me, too technical here. He should take cognizance of what the Harvard Professor Joseph Nye calls soft power. The influence of the governor or president can be enormous, especially given our deference to elders and authority, or what the Americans call the bully pulpit. For instance, how do governors and presidents pick their successors? I appreciate, though, his views that the power is with the citizen, a collective force. He is coming from a Tolstoian perspective. Leo Tolstoy made a persuasive case against the power of one man but for the coalition of forces. This is against Ralph Waldo Emerson’s contention that “there is properly no history, only biography” of great men. In his War and Peace, Tolstoy contends that Napoleon takes too much credit for the exploits of his army. Fashola seems to be drawing on that tradition.

    I laughed at the word minimum wage since we should call it minimum salary. It is colonial mentality. How many earn hourly wages? Anyway, I resolved it by thinking it is Nigerian English. So, we are forgiven. It is the comedy of language.

    The author rips apart those who say we don’t have a federal constitution but a unitary one, and takes pains to itemize the federal features. He brings this satiric onslaught into misconceptions about the 1999 constitution, which is a mere reworking of the previous one. Both are the products of the army, anyway. We complain of federalism.

    We see the farce that literary scholars call burlesque on his chapter on restructuring. He not only shows that systems do not make a better society but people do. Comic how he mocks BREXITEERS, and how, in a poll, Nigerians’ views on restructuring are a whirlpool of misunderstanding.

    It depicts Fashola, sometimes as a nihilist, sometimes an existentialist, but a clear lampoonist tearing apart the vanity of structures and political aspirations in the modern world.

    On anger, he berates.: “Rational and sensible people don’t make choices by anger or in anger. Anger is not a strategy…” “Will you build a house on anger?” Reverberations of Endsars and PVCs frenzy in the last elections.

    The comedy of owambe? He complains why we sing the national anthem on every occasion. Not only that, we spend lots of money on electronic equipment, speakers, amplifiers, full bands of police, navy, air force, rental expenses, transportation, honoraria. And all the dignitaries will have to be mentioned. At an event an hour and seven minutes was spent on acknowledging guests and, at the end of it, they would say, “all protocols observed.” Also, when a president or such guests arrive an airport, a retinue of top government officials abandon their tasks for the airport, sometimes to a dance party, singers, etc.

    The chapter invokes Soyinka’s Opera Wonyosi and the cynical flamboyance of Chief M.A. Nanga MP in Achebe’s A Man of the People.

    This is not a good book. It is a great book, a scalpel into a generation, a cornucopia of our experience. It should be read by all, especially as a recommended text for first-year university students’ general studies course called GNS.