The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Tinubu Administration at mid-term (2): The security question

    Tinubu Administration at mid-term (2): The security question

    Given the bitter fallout that trailed the 2023 general elections, dispassionate assessments of what’s been achieved in the first two years of President Bola Tinubu’s administration are rare. Admirers, predictably, go into overdrive in gushing praise, while critics swear Nigeria is back in the stone ages. The truth lies somewhere in between.

    What is clear is that significant progress has been made at the macroeconomic level, with much expectation that these improvements would quickly manifest at microeconomic level. The masses of the people often grade success by things they can relate to – prices of staples, cost of transportation, cost of utilities etc.

    The messaging has been that after initial challenges, the economy is on the mend. The same cannot be said about insecurity – an area in which the administration has been locked in mortal combat. It’s been a mixed bag of good news one day, very bad reports the next. It’s the reason why President Tinubu who was originally scheduled to be in Kaduna State today, has made a detour to Benue on a condolence visit of sorts.

    While hitherto volatile areas like Southern Kaduna have witnessed a recession in killings, and swaggering bandits in the Northwest look like they are in retreat, bloodletting in the North-Central resurfaced with a vengeance to blight the modest feel-good factor around the second anniversary.

    Early in April, an attack by anonymous gunmen on six villages in the Bokkos area of Plateau State left 52 people dead and over 2,000 displaced. This incident recalls one in this same district in December 2023 that produced 100 fatalities.  

    Barely, two weeks after the May 29 festivities and a couple of days following the June 12 democracy celebrations, another bloody excursion by a band of killers claimed over 150 lives in Yelwata community, Guma Local Government Area of Benue State. Both incidents are believed to have been perpetrated by herders in their unending battles with farmers in the zone.

    It is easy to blame the incumbent administration for not stamping out the carnage with a flick of its fingers, yet the reality is there’s something deeper going on that would take more than a presidential order to address. It’s a problem that was there before the onset of the Fourth Republic and has resisted the largely ad-hoc solutions thrown at it over time.

    It is estimated that over the last three decades, more than 4,500 lives have been lost in Plateau State in unrelenting violence between ethnic groups. I don’t have the death toll for Benue State over the same period, but suspect they mirror those of its next door neighbour.

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    Along with the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast, the farmer-herder conflict in the Middle Belt helped to cement the image of incompetence that enveloped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration headed by Goodluck Jonathan.

    It was a headache that the first All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, made one of three pillars of the 2014/2015 campaign platform. By the time he was leaving office, insecurity was back as a cornerstone of the 2022/2023 campaigns.

    In the final year of Buhari’s tenure, there were headline-grabbing incidents that showed his administration had only taken one step forward and two backwards. For instance, on 28 March, 2022, terrorists ambushed a passenger train traveling between Abuja and Kaduna. They killed some passengers and abducted scores of people.

    What followed was six months of negotiations, and suspected payment of ransom. The hostages would be released in batches – with the last batch of 23 persons being freed in October.

    On June 5, 2022, a terror attack at a Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, shook the nation to its roots. Unidentified gunmen casually walked into the church and mowed down more than 30 people.

    Things were so bad that even Buhari’s home state of Katsina was not left out. Up till the 2023 polls, it was battling kidnappings, mass abductions and cattle rustling. The then president had all of eight years to address the issue; it was a measure of how much success he achieved that the problem returned to his successor’s in-box as a welcome gift.

    In the last two years some progress has been made with the government reporting thousands of terrorists and bandits killed. A couple of weeks back, Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal, was crowing about the return of peace to a community that had been ripped apart by the activities of bandits in illegal mining sites, as well as the long running feud between the Hausa and Fulani.

    Contrariwise, the likes of Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, were suddenly raising the alarm about a resurgence of attacks by Boko Haram and ISWAP elements. Similar activities have been reported in some of the Islamists old stomping grounds like Adamawa and Yobe States. And, now, the old patterns of killings have resurfaced in Benue and Plateau.

    The same helplessness noticed under Buhari and his predecessors seems to have reared its head. Each cycle of slaughter sows seeds of retribution which the butchers are ever willing to water with blood – patiently overseeing its sprouting into another round of bloodshed.

    High profile visits by the leadership of security agencies haven’t stopped anything. The Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Olufemi Oluyede, made a public show of relocating to the troubled region. This is a hackneyed manoeuvre supposed to create an impression of action, but doesn’t change much. Under Buhari, security chiefs were often ordered to relocate to theatres of conflict to little effect.

    Today, we have the egg-in-the-face situation where the Army Chief, with all the might of his office, is on the scene and right under his nose shadowy killers have pulled of one the worst incidents of slaughter in the nation’s history.

    Nigeria faces a very grave situation in the North-Central zone; one that’s been decades in the making. It shouldn’t be manipulated for advantage because members of the political elite in all parties had their chance to resolve the problem whilst in government over the last half century, but failed to do so.  

    It’s no mystery that any solution to the problem would have to deal with issues surrounding land use between farmers and herders. While the former are aggrieved that cattle casually destroy crops in which much has been invested, the latter argue that killing their animals or even the pastoralists to make up for the damage is unjust. They insist that places where these disputes have played out were grazing routes demarcated by the authorities eons ago.

    In reaction, we’ve seen government make the case for ranching as a way of weaning herders from the out-dated practice of roaming cattle across the country. It has even gone further to create a Livestock Development Ministry. While these measures could have an impact over time, there are other things that can be done in the short term – with telling effect – where there’s political will.

    One such thing is breaking the cycle of retribution. Every round of killings only leaves the victims crying for vengeance. But this unending bloodletting is not just mindless; it’s futile as it never restores what’s been lost. Local communities and leaders at all levels have to resolve to break the cycle at some point and begin the process of healing and forgiveness. Now is a good time to do so.

    Aside the herders and farmers, it’s no secret that politicians have been enablers of notorious gang leaders across the zone. The late, unlamented Gana reportedly had close ties with well-known politicians in Benue and his successors-in-crime are said to be patronised by some of the individuals now shedding crocodile tears. They can help the process of change by distancing themselves from known criminals.

    Lastly, while everyone claims to know who is responsible for some of the killings, very few have been apprehended and made to face the music. Given the gravity of crimes being committed in the North-Central zone, people need to be held to account and pay a commensurate price. Until the killers and their sponsors are brought to justice, there would be no let-up in this recurring national shame. 

  • Improving higher education in Nigeria

    Improving higher education in Nigeria

    As an accountant with corporate experiences at home and abroad, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu understands the intricacies of the economy. To use a popular Nigerian lingo, we have seen his hand in that sector as the economy has begun to make a steady recovery. In particular, his most controversial policies on fuel subsidy removal and the harmonization of foreign exchange have been successful, despite initial hardships. Fuel price has been coming down, and the exchange rate has stabilized.

    Similarly, as a university graduate, who values education and understands the needs of higher education institutions, he has been making significant impact on higher education across the country. He started by removing higher institutions from the Integrated Personnel and Payment Information System (IPPIS) so that institutions could manage their own staff salaries internally. He launched the student loan scheme and approved the establishment of more universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education. The two programmes are intended to widen access to higher education in the country as part of the President’s inclusivity agenda.

    However, higher education institutions have been facing serious problems that may compromise the project on inclusivity. In addition to paucity of funds and decaying infrastructure, the institutions are dying under the weight of excessive oversight, which has been hampering the duties of the management of the institutions.

    There are four institutions with statutory oversight powers over higher education institutions in the country: the National Universities Commission; the National Commission for Colleges of Education; the National Board of Technical Education; and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to oversee admissions into these institutions. The various institutions have been tolerating the excesses of these bodies and their oversight functions.

    However, in addition to these statutory bodies, there are over a dozen committees claiming to do oversight over federal universities, colleges of education, and polytechnics. All the committees are resident in Abuja. They include various committees of the National Assembly, many of which are duplicated between the Senate and the House of Representatives; the Federal Ministry of Education; the Office of the Auditor-General; the Office of the Accountant General; the Procurement Office; TETFund; NELFund, and many others.

    The result is that hardly a week passes before each institution gets a notice to prepare for an oversight visit. At such times, a group of 4, 6, 8, or more could show up, demanding hotel accommodation and other perquisites for the duration of their stay. At other times, the VC, Provost, or Rector could be invited to Abuja to answer questions from oversight committees. Sometimes, the entire management of the institution is invited to Abuja to answer various questions about different aspects of their duties. As a result, there are times when the head of an institution is away for two weeks, attending to oversight managers!

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    It would have been helpful if the oversight functions lead to improvement in service delivery in the institutions. The problem is that most oversight visitations lead to depletion of the institution’s meagre resources. For example, many oversight committees demand as many as 40 copies of the documents they wish to inspect. For example, the House of Representatives Committee on Public Procurement recently asked for 40 copies and one soft copy of over 30 separate documents covering the 2023 financial year. Never mind that other committees may still perform oversight on the same documents, which will have to be reproduced afresh.

    What is worse, many oversight visitations are accompanied by demands for brown envelopes. Sometimes, if the institution complies, the envelope may be all that is needed, and the oversight is taken as done. The bottomline is that cooperation is needed to have a good report.

    Getting an institution credited with government approved funds is another major problem. You may have a letter of approval in your hands but getting the money out of the Accountant-General’s Office is another matter. The bureaucratic process, involving a web of officials, may take months, if not forever. Worse still, there are significant discontinuities between approved budget and released funds. As a result, many institutions are behind in the payment of staff salaries and contractors, not to speak of limited or no funds for overhead expenses.

    There is no doubt that more institutions will further complicate the financial problems and increase the misery of superfluous oversights. This is where the establishment of more higher education institutions for purposes of inclusivity may be hampered by other problems.

    In order for higher education to serve its purpose in Nigeria, serious steps should be taken to tackle several urgent problems. One is to increase funding for the institutions and make the funds available as and when due. Admittedly, at no time since independence has higher education been adequately funded. The funding problems increased with the establishment of more and more higher institutions. In the last few years, only a meagre 5 to 7 percent of the total budget was allocated to education, a far cry from UNESCO’s recommendation of 15-20 percent. Either the government increases the allocation substantially or allows federal higher institutions to charge more money for tuition and other fees.

    The other is to streamline the oversight functions by reducing outside interference in the affairs of higher institutions. Whatever autonomy these institutions had before has been wiped out by undue interference and superfluous oversight functions. What makes the duplicated oversight duties ridiculous is that they are performed either by the Federal Ministry of Education or its Commissions or by committees of the National Assembly.

    Finally, unless the government is satisfied with the reproduction of mediocrity in our higher institutions, a deliberate programme is needed to raise some of the institutions to world class status. That will be the subject of a future essay.

  • Villains of democracy

    Villains of democracy

    President Tinubu last Thursday bestowed national honours on heroes and heroines of June 12, 1993 struggle. Leading the pack was MKO Abiola, the winner of what has come to be regarded as the freest and the most credible election in the nation’s history and who had to pay the supreme sacrifice for winning a pan-Nigerian mandate. Others honoured by the president include activists, journalists, scholars and Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni nine who were executed by Abacha’s junta in 1995 following their protest against Shell’s activities in the region.

    But as a nation that often shields its youths from knowing the painful past and treacherous role of its political elite, I think beyond honouring our martyrs of democracy for their heroic struggle, this is also an opportunity to identify some of the villains responsible for undermining our democratization process.

    Ibrahim Babangida on whose desk the buck stops as self-appointed president who took Nigerians through eight years of ‘transition without end’ only to annul the result of the fairest and most credible election in the nation’s history, won by his friend, MKO Abiola has been fingered as the one responsible for Nigeria’s nightmare despite his attempt to blame others including, his generals, northern establishment and the judiciary.

    Yet with characteristic conceit of Shaka the Zulu, his hero, Babangida started his game of deceit by first setting up a political bureau, decreeing two political parties, NRC and SDP for a nation that had since 1923 managed political parties, and setting up Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS) where his State House professors swore they could teach democracy and democratic ethos. And against wise counsel, he went ahead to fritter away N3billion on building political party headquarters, later taken over by reptiles as well as allocating another N531b for the take off their two decreed parties.

    To protect his decreed political parties reserved only for military groomed new-breed politicians, he had on October 7, 1989 ordered the dissolution of  the then existing  13 political associations,  disqualified 12 aspirants on the eve of gubernatorial election for their role in October 19,1991 primaries and banned 12 national assembly members as well as  all the powerful 23 presidential candidates.

    If however you ask me for the villain of June 12, 1993 debacle, despite Babangida’s “eight years of transition without end”, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo is the one who in my view fits the bill. Without Obasanjo playing god in 1979, we would not have had Buhari in 1984, Babangida in 1985 and of course, Abacha in 1993.

     Obasanjo, it was who in 1979 declared the best candidate in that year’s election didn’t need to win. He was to later confess he aided Shehu Shagari, who was only interested in going to the senate to win the 1979 election.

    Olu Falae, who joined the Babangida regime a few weeks after adopting the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) while appearing on Channels TV programme last week, reminded us that it was Shehu Shagari who, through indiscriminate and uncontrolled issuance of import licences, ruined Nigerian economy in four years of importation of foreign manufactured goods including NPN chairman Akinloye’s branded wine.

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     We owed international creditors and without paying our debt, Olu falae insisted that there was no way to trade with the international community. This according to him was what drove Babangida to embrace SAP, which reduced our country to an importer of the labour of other societies while with the collapse of our budding industries, with our unemployed youths moving to foreign lands in search of greener pasture.

    And if there those who want to hold brief for Obasanjo for undermining our democratization process in 1979 and in the process used his hands to destroy the legacy he left behind in 1979, all that is needed is to interrogate his treacherous role in the annulment of MKO Abiola’s June 12, 1993 victory and imposition of Interim National Government, declared illegal few months later by the court.

    Obasanjo, who was widely acclaimed as a pillar of democracy in Africa for voluntarily handing over power to a civilian government in 1979 in addition to his virulent criticism of Nigeria military whose leadership he claimed was “deficit in so many fundamental attributes”, Nigerians and the international community had expected Obasanjo to call Babangida, his protégé to order.

    But Obasanjo, who often suffers from messianic complex, was to tell Nigerians that MKO Abiola who had just secured a pan Nigerian mandate was not the messiah Nigerians were waiting for. And to supplant Abiola’s victory, a spineless Ernest Shonekan, Abiola’s fellow Egba man was installed head of illegal interim national government.

    And if there are those still in doubt as to who constituted the greatest threat to Nigeria’s democratization process in the fourth republic, events that followed the sudden death of General Abacha, the maximum ruler finally laid that to rest.

    Obasanjo was the military and northern establishment PDP candidate for the 1999 presidential election to assuage the raw feelings of aggrieved Yoruba that had, along with other Nigeria’s pro-democracy groups, fought five years strategic battle with the military. Many including Olu Falae, his opponent, believed the election was rigged in his favour. By 2003, Obasanjo and PDP had rigged the six southwest governors except Lagos out of office. In the 2007 election denounced even by Umaru Yar’Adua, the winner, Obasanjo and PDP with the help of Tony Anenih, “Mr. Fix it”, took control of 28 of the nation’s 36 states.

    Obasanjo for eight years danced on the grave of MKO Abiola without acknowledging his supreme sacrifice.  Instead, in an effort to consign June 12 to history, Obasanjo went on to cynically adopt May 29, the day the military was humiliated out of power as democracy day.

     Ironically, it took Buhari, a man with a large heart, whose removal from office in 1985 through Babangida’s palace coup was widely believed to have been sponsored by Abiola, to right an historic wrong. Buhari conferred on Abiola the nation’s highest national honour and declared June 12 1993 as Nigeria Democracy Day.

    Now that we have established that Obasanjo emboldened Babangida and Abacha to hold Nigeria hostage while a fertile ground for hungry politicians to exploit the ethnic and religion vaults in our nation for personal gains between 1985 and 1999 brewed, we can again interrogate those often regarded as villains of democracy stating with Arthur Nzeribe, the arrow head of those opposed to inauguration of Abiola as president.

    This was a man who once admitted beating up his Irish principal in secondary school, an international business man described by BBC as the “largest arms dealer in Africa, who wanted extension of IBB tenure by three years “to eradicate poverty, corruption and rights the wrong of political inequality”. Despite placing a full page advertorial in newspapers claiming the Igbo opposed Abiola’s presidency, there was no evidence Nzeribe spoke for the Igbo nation. Nzeribe was no doubt working for his stomach.

    Uche Chukwumerije,  the secretary of Information whose brief period witnessed the proscription of no less than five different newspapers and newsmagazines, who “ succeeded in reducing Abiola’s pan Nigeria mandate to a Yoruba mandate, government critics to Lagos sectional press, many believed was out to demonstrate he was a propaganda genius.  Chidi Amuta, who authored Babangida’s biography, Prince of the Niger, Eric Agume Opia, Walter Ofonagoro,  Bassey Ikpeme, Dr Atkin, Abimbola Davis, Ebenezer Babatope, Minister of Transport and Aviation who later became chieftain of PDP, Lateef Jakande, General Haliru Akilu – Director General of National Intelligence Agency, Chief Clement Apamgbo – Attorney General, Babagana Kingibe who abandoned his mandate to become Abacha’s internal affairs minister, Justice Bassey Ikpeme who gave a midnight judgment to scuttle the election, Justice Dahiru Saleh, who passed the judgment stopping further announcement of result, were driven more by self-preservation than by desire to derail the democratization process.

    I am not sure others labelled as villains of democracy including the likes of Arisekola Alao, the Aare Musulumi of Yoruba, a military contractor and Lamidi Adedibu, the strong man of Ibadan politics, notorious for his variant of politics of stomach infrastructure, Jerry Gana, a man who doesn’t believe in anything and has freely deployed his awesome talent into the services of every government in power since 1979, Akanni Aluko of The Third Eye, really cared about democracy.

    I similarly don’t think that other zealot Babangida worshippers like Duro Onabule who staked his honour to defend his boss even after his principal’s admission that “the government interfered to save the judiciary from ridicule or Augustus Aikhomu’s assertion that they “are trying to save the neck of Abiola” was driven by a desire to truncate the democratization process. 

    The tragedy today is that the very villains of democracy are the same people putting themselves forward as solution to our crisis of democracy.

  • Bursting custodial centres

    Bursting custodial centres

    Most Nigerian custodial centres are bursting at the seams, thanks to our ailing criminal justice system. According to a newspaper report, the number of awaiting trial inmates across custodial facilities in the country has increased from 48,900 in January, to 53,178 detainees in June 2025. The report indicated that out of the over 80,879 inmates in our custodial centres, only 27,701 inmates have been convicted. By another account, the number of inmates stands at 81,011 as at end of May, 2025.

    The Nigerian Correctional Services puts the current capacity of the custodial centres at 58,278. So, clearly from these accounts, Nigeria’s custodial centres are overpopulated by about 37 percent. Of course, the more popular centres like the Kirikiri Maximum and Medium Custodial Centres in Lagos, have higher percentage of the overpopulation than the far flung centres in other parts of the country. Sadly, the number of awaiting trial inmates continues to rise, despite several advocacy programs of non-governmental groups.

    This anomaly of what in some cases amounts to indefinite detention of persons awaiting trial, clearly contravenes the 1999 constitution (as amended), which made an elaborate provisions on the right to personal liberty of citizens and persons in Nigeria. Section 35(1) provides: “Every person shall be entitled to his personal liberty and no person shall be deprived of such liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure permitted by law – (a) in execution of the sentence or order of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty”.

    Sub-section (c) provides: “For the purpose of bringing him before the court in execution of the order of a court or upon reasonable suspicion of his having committee a criminal offence, or to such extent as may be reasonably necessary to prevent his committing a criminal offence.” A significant proviso to section 35(1), says: “Provided that a person who is charged with an offence and who has been detained in lawful custody awaiting trial shall not continue to be kept in such detention for a period longer than the maximum period of imprisonment prescribed for the offence.”

    Section 35(4) provides: “Any person who is arrested or detained in accordance with subsection 1(c) of this section shall be brought before a court of law within a reasonable time, and if he is not tried within a period of – (a) two months from the date of his arrest or detention in the case of a persons who is in custody or is not entitled to bail,; or (b) three months from the date of his arrest or detention in the case of a person who has been released on bail, he shall (without prejudice to any further proceedings that may be brought against him) be released either unconditionally or upon such conditions as are reasonably necessary to ensure that he appears for trial at a later date.”

    This writer is of the opinion that a combined reading of the sections quoted above should lead to one conclusion by our courts, if so moved. That any deprivation of liberty, save under the circumstances clearly provided for in our constitution is unlawful, illegal and voidable. The provision of section 35(1) is mandatory. It provides that every person SHALL be entitled to personal liberty, and no person SHALL be deprived of personal liberty save as permitted by law (emphasis mine). 

    In Obafunso vs I.N.E.C. (2019) All FWLR Pp 597-598 paras H-B, the Court of Appeal held thus: “The word “shall” when used in a statutory provision imports anything must be done. It is a form of command or mandate. It is not permissive, it is mandatory. The word SHALL in its ordinary meaning is a word of command which is normally given a compulsory meaning as it is intended to denote obligation.” That court further went on to hold that words used in a statute are to be given their ordinary and unambiguous meaning.

    Even on issues of bail, pending trial, it is strange that our courts in flagrant disobedience to the provisions of our constitution and other subsidiary statutes have condoned the illegal detention of offenders, sometimes in practice, indefinitely. Section 162 of the Administration of the Criminal Justice Act, 2015, which many states have domesticated provides: “A defendant charged with an offence punishable with imprisonment for a term exceeding three years SHALL, on application to the court, be released on bail except in any of the following circumstances: (a) where there is reasonable ground to believe that the defendant will, when released on bail, commit another offence; (b) attempt to evade his trial; (c) attempt to influence, interfere with, intimidate witnesses, and or interfere in the investigation of the case; (d) attempt to conceal or destroy evidence; (e) prejudice the proper investigation of the offence; or (f) undermine, jeopardize the objectives or the purpose of the functioning of the criminal justice administration, including the bail system.”

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    Section 165(1) provides: “The conditions for bail in any case shall be at the discretion of the court with due regard to the circumstances of the case and SHALL NOT BE EXCESSIVE.” In Uduesegbe vs FRN (2014) LPELR 23191, Ekanem J.C.A, Pp 11-12, paras F-B, excoriated the lower court thus: “The lower court ought to have realized that the conditions of the bail granted by it were stringent. A proper exercise of discretion would have been shown by a grant of the application to vary the conditions. This is especially so since the appellant had earlier been granted bail before the charge before Bello J. was withdrawn and struck out and he did not jump bail.”

    This writer is usually saddened each time he visits the prison through one of the advocacy groups that have made custodial centres decongestion their business. Just like going to the hospital and morgues have a sobering effect, it is advocated that public officials especially those charged with the enforcement of Nigeria’s criminal justice system, make annual visits to the custodial centres their business. It is hoped that with increased advocacy, custodial centre decongestion would become a campaign point for legislators and members of the executive. A gubernatorial or a legislative candidate should be coerced to include in his/her campaign manifesto, the decongestion of custodial centres.

    But all said and done, in my humble opinion, the authority with the most influential power to decongest our custodial centres is the judiciary, especially at the lower bench where the hoi polloi are charged for one infraction of the law or another. Most of those languishing in the jails were charged before the magistrate courts, and with utmost respect, the magistrates, more out of worry for attendance at trial, on behalf the state, set stringent bail conditions that the poor are unable to meet. The judiciary of forward-looking states should outline reasonable standard bail conditions, which magistrates SHALL apply.

  • The anatomy of opposition

    The anatomy of opposition

    That the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration has given Nigerians, nay the world, a lot to chew upon in the last two years of being in the saddle is certainly beyond debate. For while most Nigerians would not readily characterise the president as a disruptor in the mould of United States President Donald J. Trump, whose mission to carve the global socio-economic and political landscape after his liking continues to roil global capitals, the fact remains that nothing in the course that his Nigerian counterpart has set upon in the last two years can be said to be any less tremor-inducing in terms of their impact in fundamentally reordering the nation’s beleaguered political economy.

    From the swirling controversies over the removal of the graft-ridden fuel subsidy to the termination of the atrocious regime that left forex management in the hands of corrupt bankers and their allies, right up to the steady revamp of the decadent public finance infrastructure, there is, most certainly a lot to be said of the dismantling of those elegant castles of corruption as marking a turning point in the nation’s redemptive journey.

    Already, we know what the numbers are. From allocations to the federal, states and the local governments that have grown exponentially to the steady rise in foreign reserves that has brought relative stability to the foreign exchange market, the returns on the GDP (this newspaper, quoted a World Bank report as stating that the GDP grew 3.4% in 2024, the highest in a decade) the gradual moderation of the troubling inflation with foreign reserves now at $38 billion, there is a sense that things will return to normalcy in no distant future. In fact, only yesterday, inflation, the scourge of the working class, reportedly declined from 23.71 percent in April to 22.97 percent in May – a decline of 0.745.

    Today, if those numbers are any indication of the soundness of policy, a reflection of the extent to which some of the issues holding down the economy are being tackled headlong, what Nigerians must find exasperating isn’t just the unceasing denial of the reality by the so-called opposition, but their desperate insistence in foisting their specious, alternative reality on the people in the bid to make their prognostication of gloom and doom a living, self-fulfilling prophecy!

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    For while the idea of an opposition being unable to live down the prospects of citizens’ hope finally being renewed by an administration that has demonstrated far more grits in tackling the demons which have held the country down than those before it would not seem entirely strange, particularly concerning is the state of opposition politics in the last two years, given the inability of the leading parties, the PDP of Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party of Peter Obi, to reinvent themselves after the gruelling 2023 elections.

    Nigerians will recall the blatant campaign by these sore losers to de-legitimise the election outcome at every turn. When allegations of widespread malfeasance of electoral practices increasingly sounded hollow, their spin-doctors trained their attention on the I-Rev portal said to have ‘suddenly’ malfunctioned. They would neither countenance nor accept the rational explanation that this actually has nothing to do with the credibility of the outcomes – not with party agents in all of the 176,974 polling units already having in their custody, copies of the already scanned result sheets, which at that point, were being uploaded, albeit slowly on the I-Rev viewing portal. That a glitch occurred along the line was apparently sufficient to declare the entire process as compromised!

    But then, this would be child’s play compared with the vicious campaigns that followed, home and abroad, to kick out the winner, not on the basis of the election that had just been held; certainly not in any breach of any of its known guidelines, but on matters that could only have been conjured in their opportunistic flight of fancy! To ensure clinical execution of ‘righteous’ anger, their supporters had to literally put the guns to the heads of our eminent jurists in the Supreme Court in their bid to secure what could only have been justice pleasing only to them! As for the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, not only did they declare the body the number one public enemy, they wanted the body sequestered and their leaderships condemned to the guillotine!

    In the whole of 24 months, they have done little else but rant – over anything and everything that has to do with the Tinubu administration and its handling of the economy – which, by the way, is no crime – unfortunately with no coherent alternative suggested.

    Apparently, no lessons was learnt from the events prior to, and in the aftermath, of the 2023 elections; no time to reorganise and reflect; and no strategy to reconnect with the people after that electoral cycle. Rather, it was sufficient to retire to the shadows to plot, to keep playing the victim, to accuse the government of not working for the people; to claim that the removal of fuel subsidy – which they themselves – I mean the leading opposition candidates Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi – also swore to do – was callous – going as far as branding other notable reforms being undertaken to get the economy going as nothing but self-serving.

    Never mind that when the Labour Party candidate in particular was asked what he would do differently on the subsidy issue, he could only utter some incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo about doing so IMMEDIATELY but in an organised manner!

    Touching on corruption, he claims, in his utmost naivety, to possess the magic to stamp it out overnight, although he would admit that a good number of the policies that he wants to pursue, like the one the administration was being criticised for, would also require some time before gestation since he didn’t claim to be a magician! As far as the LP candidate is concerned, the policies aren’t working simply because, he, Peter Obi, is not the one in charge! Hubris or plain dissonance?

    Now, between the trio of Atiku Abubakar who would rather spend valuable time and cash in the (vain) pursuit of a vehicle of convenience that would guarantee that his perennial quest for the presidency finally comes to fruition, a confused Peter Obi, whose credo of leading from behind is largely responsible for the crises afflicting his Labour Party, and the brood of entitled wayfarers from the ruling APC, the most prominent of which are Rotimi Amaechi and Nasir El-Rufai, individuals,  who, apparently , could no longer bear the thought of life out of power – the anatomy of Nigeria’s current opposition may have finally come, fully unveiled. The sight, to say the least, is unflattering.

    Glad to be back from vacation, dear readers.

  • Sani’s loot, Mariam’s tale

    Sani’s loot, Mariam’s tale

    The three witches, in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, scammed that tragic hero into regicide. 

    But the then Thane of Glamis little knew that the actual witch was his wife: the no less tragic Lady Macbeth.

    Yes, the three witches teased Macbeth into illicit crown and doom, with co-General Banquo consumed as collateral damage — no thanks to blind royal ambition and paranoia.  But the evil Lady Macbeth drove the entire catastrophe.

    Still, beyond the avoidable tragedy that consumed both, let no one compare the Scottish Macbeth with Nigeria’s Sani Abacha, beyond that they were both generals.

    Before his self-induced fall, Macbeth was a noble general in the Scottish Army. 

    The doomed but grateful King Duncan confirmed Macbeth’s chivalry, after the “hurly-burly” was done; after “the battle was lost and won”; and Macbeth was romped from Thane of Glamis to Thane of Cawdor. 

    That promotion was even fore-crowed by the witches, who also “fed” Macbeth with regicide!  Poor Duncan! He was fatally naive to have lodged in traitor Macbeth’s castle!

    Abacha was none of Macbeth’s nobility, though he shared his treachery.

    Contrasted to Macbeth, Abacha was always a thug-in-uniform and a coup rat who, no thanks to military ethnic politics, was promoted above his stark mind into the red-neck cadre, when he ought to have been weeded out.

    Even as ratsy Head of State — he ratted the pitiable Ernest Shonekan out of power by sacking his illicit Interim National Government (ING) to impose himself — he was anything but noble: infernal bully, stark killer and ace thief with gargantuan greed.  His blasted memory is defined by stupendous sleaze, popularly tagged “Abacha loot”.

    Indeed, his name is an eternal stain on the Army rank of “General”. His humongous loot, which over-powering stench from his grave even 27 years after, continues to warn our present service (wo)men: Abacha is a classic tutorial on how not to be a General!

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    So, does widow Mariam Abacha think an insensitive TV interview, from the loot-cushioned luxury of her private space, would wipe out her husband’s horror from the Nigerian public mind?

    On this one, Mrs. Abacha looked rather like the evil, but much less delusional Lady Macbeth, even after she had lost our mind.  Lady Macbeth admitted that not even all the waters from the Atlantic could wash her hand clean of King Duncan’s blood.

    Mrs. Abacha clearly thinks otherwise in her grand delusion!  But she kids no one.

    Not even all the looted wealth the Abacha family now wallow in, nor all the insulting platitudes she spewed in that ill-advised interview, could blot out her hubby’s horrible memory: from a country he raped, the people he killed and maimed, the exiled families he split, and the Nigerian Army he disgraced and near-destroyed.

    The cheek of it — Mrs. Abacha grumbled about her husband’s unfair demonization; and moaned about fraternal love!

    Pray, how can you demonize the demon that her husband was?  How?

    Then, fraternal love!  Wasn’t Abacha, the brute that killed and maimed, to retain grubby power, the violent opposite of love?  Weren’t Abacha and love two parallel lines that would never meet?

    Where was Mrs. Abacha when her husband was bumping off Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, wife of the Basorun MKO Abiola, whose only crime was protesting her husband-in-Abacha’s gulag, for winning the June 12, 1993 presidential election? 

    That protest, for the grim and murderous Abacha regime, was high treason — high treason that earned Heroine Kudirat, and hundreds of nameless patriots, the death penalty in the streets of Lagos, from Abacha’s illicit bullets from licit arms!

    Yes, to be fair, Abacha didn’t kill MKO.  Abacha had expired in disgrace before MKO’s sudden death.  Thus, that query belongs to Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who ran a short transitional government that made the political military scurry into the barracks, after an “Army Arrangement” transition that handed power to Olusegun Obasanjo.

    But with MKO spending his entire presidential term (1994-1998) in his gulag, Abacha sure dug MKO’s open grave. So, what’s Mrs. Abacha’s newfound “love” to the Abiolas? 

    That it was okay to be brutally rendered full orphans, for rogue political reasons?

    Their patriarch won a free election — the freest and fairest in Nigerian history.  Gen. Ibrahim Babangida annulled that election.  Abacha, the cursed Khalifa, sustained it. 

    Now, 27 years later, Mrs. Abacha now preaches “love”, to protest the “demonization” of the brute that her husband was, without any apology for his heinous crimes?  Now, is that not raw witchery?  Love indeed!

    Again, an Abacha/Abiola comparison.

    The one stole his country blind, leaving cursed riches for his offspring. The ones he left behind push their democratic right to the inviolability of that loot.

    The other — though a military-era contractor accused of sweetheart deals — used his first-class mind and brain to grow his wealth in almost all sectors of the economy, not even mentioning his larger-than-life compassion for the poor and generosity to all.

    Now, the lean Abacha cow — to borrow that biblical image — gobbled up the fat Abiola bull, assassinated his wife and destroyed his thriving many ventures, aside sitting on the N45 billion debt the Federal Govermnent owed the man — classic military outlawry!

    All his wife could mutter, after 27 years, is growl demonization and moan false love!

    Spread the justifiable hurt and noble ire of the Abiola clan, into millions of Nigerian households no less furious at Abacha’s savage power play, and you’ll gauge the level of legitimate anger against the Abachas, because of their patriarch’s grim sins. 

    If Mrs. Abacha even realizes the tenth of that resent laced with contempt, from millions of Nigerian families, she would not have been so sanguine in her interview.

    Her hare-brained lies, to edify her best-forgotten husband, is best dismissed without much ado.  She claimed the ace thief didn’t steal but saved money for Nigeria. Really?  In his private and coded foreign accounts? 

    Perhaps Abacha was Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) personified; or the Nigerian state, cloned after the French King Louis XIV: L’Etat, c’est moi — The state, it is me!

    The other fib is that her husband was so powerful and well-loved!  O sure! 

    His might was powered by strutting cowardice, so much so that he had to kill whoever disagreed with him, having no brain for civil discourse, anyway!

    As for love, Abacha was so well-loved that when he expired, it was thrilling news that Nigerians capered in the streets, screaming “divine intervention” had taken away such a plague!

    But the ultimate perverse joy, from the show of shame by Mrs. Abacha — at least for the history-minded — is the umpteenth whodunit over June 12!

    IBB claimed Abacha did it.  Abacha’s wife counter-claimed her hubby, dead as dodo, didn’t.  For the entire clan of the political military, dead or alive, June 12 — and MKO who they thought they infernally cheated — continue to be their nemesis.  May their agony last forever!

    The Abacha matriarch’s rant again stresses the arch-evil of military rule.  May we never experience such plague in our country again — never!

  • Frank Macaulay’s UniLife series

    Frank Macaulay’s UniLife series

    Two weeks ago, the launch of UniLife, an innovative movie series set on a Nigerian campus, dramatically demonstrated Nollywood’s evolution. Produced by Frank Adekunle Macaulay’s 9jaStudio, a movie, TV and acting hub, the series, according to the producers, “follows a group of undergraduates as they navigate societal expectations, friendships, and personal growth. The drama intensifies when a student’s mysterious death triggers an investigation, unravelling hidden truths and testing relationships.” They add that UniLife “highlights the real-life struggles faced by Nigerian youth enrolled at university,” and presents “the highs and lows of Nigerian university life.”

     Macaulay’s words: “UniLife dives deep into the real life wahala: peer pressure, cultism, religion, class struggles, the hustle for identity that take place on our campuses.”

    On June 1, invited guests watched the first three episodes of the seven-part series on their mobile devices at the studio’s Magodo base in Lagos, in a setting enlivened with music, wining and dining. Mobile devices are central to the studio’s revolutionary approach, which is based on this logic: “For Gen Z, entertainment is on the go; so smart phones and tablets have become their best bet for consuming content, including drama series.”

     Using its YouTube channel, the studio aims to “achieve one million views per episode within six months of launch, and build a loyal subscriber base on the 9jaStudio Entertainment YouTube channel.” The target audience comprises 18-25-year-olds as well as individuals interested in Nigerian culture, drama, and entertainment.

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    In this first season, the studio streams an episode every Thursday. The last episode is scheduled for June 26.  Episode Five of UniLife, on June 12, was dedicated to “the memory of the incredible Wale Macaulay (1959 – 2024), who played ‘The Dean’ with such brilliance and was our Acting Coach during Screen Acting Boot Camps,” the studio said. The episodes can still be seen after the first season has ended.   Part of the beauty of social media is its archival capacity. 

     The studio’s Screen Acting Boot Camp (SABC) is another striking revolutionary aspect of the UniLife movie series. Most of the cast members are products of the unique residential training programme, demonstrating the studio’s motto: “Training the stars of tomorrow today.” This underlines its “commitment to providing opportunities for new and emerging talent.” 

    According to the director of the series, Afolabi Silver, “Working with young actors in UniLife, SABC made it easier for me and for everybody because we trained them, we understood them. It made casting even easier because I saw a little bit of everybody in the characters that they played.”

    The actors include Wale Ojo, Lucille Love Oputa, Oladaye Folaranmi, Peculiar Adunni Anthony, Rubelle Diamond, Iyang Victor, Mercy Essien Emmanuela, Prince Ejiroghene Badare, Celia Okechukwu and Promise Agbor.

    On the night, there were question-and-answer sessions involving cast members and crew members. These illuminated the making of the series. Cast members shared their experience playing the characters they represented, and crew members gave glimpses into activities behind the scenes. 

    Macaulay, founder of 9jaStudio and producer of UniLife, said the idea “started with wanting to build a studio, it started with wanting to work with young people because I had worked with young people in the UK and then it grew from there.”  Predictably, especially in Nigeria, there were several obstacles on the journey to the launch of the series, he said, adding, “you manage somehow to make it work and that’s something that we are able to do.”

    Executive Producer Olatunde ‘ED’ Ayoola, who spoke virtually at the event, told the story of his involvement in the project. He said: “A couple of years ago, Frank Macaulay, my childhood friend, messaged me and said, ‘hey, I’m going to be in Dubai, where I live, attending a film conference. Are you around to catch up?’ And we did. And it was a wonderful catch up with my dear old friend, Frank. And during the course of the conversation, he described to me why he was in Dubai for the conference, what he was trying to do, the idea and dream that he had about making a series called UniLife.

    “I don’t know anything about the film industry. But as he described it more and more, it wasn’t only the idea of the UniLife series. He shared with me bits of the script and it looked fantastic and sounded fantastic. I was quite captivated by it. But it was more so what he represented. He described to me the 9jaStudio, all the boot camps, the workshops, and the training.

    “It was all about helping people at the very beginning of their journey in their acting careers and supporting them as best as we can to help them achieve their dreams. That’s what got me about this, because I have been looking for avenues to support young Nigerians in their careers.” He decided to support Macaulay’s project.

    The writer of the series, Adeniyi Adeniji, said he created the characters based on people he knew in real life. Macaulay said the episodes for the second and third seasons had been written already. This is a strong indication of promising continuity. 

    Interestingly, after the invitees had watched the first three episodes online, one of them, a lady, remarked that, given the quality of the production and its relatable focus, she expected the studio to achieve the targeted number of views and subscribers quicker than planned.

    Macaulay’s linear approach to marketing the series reflects commendable self-belief. He aims to first establish the pull of the series as an irresistible selling point. Indeed, UniLife has the potential to serve as an effective vehicle for products and services targeted particularly at the 18-25-year-old educated demographic group.

    The night ended on a bright note. This studio has a lot to contribute to the development of Nollywood. Its emphasis on professionalism and best practices cannot be underemphasised. 

  • Honour due

    Honour due

    Sam Amuka-Pemu’s humour is quintessential and inevitably spontaneous.

    The trade of the laugh and its exponents will strain to classify his comedy: black, improvisational, slapstick, blue, or even anti-humour? Yet on his 90th birthday, who could pigeonhole in humour what his friend forever related at the Eko Hotel where he was feted by a cross section of people, including the media and politics, from the Trojan Babatunde Raji Fashola to Information Minister Idris Mohammed to His Royal Majesty, the Olu of Warri, Ogiame Atuwatse III?

     Aremo Segun Osoba recalled the Vanguard publisher walking into his home and warning the former Ogun State governor and his wife, two years ago, that he forbade himself to hit the 90 mark. His reason? He had committed too many sins.

     Osoba’s wife restrained his funeral fantasy by weighing his many good deeds against his iniquities and assured him a portal to heaven.

     That was humour as a friend. I had also witnessed another sort when he was with his gangling friend, Isa Funtua, who often stood beside him like an Iroko beside a banana tree.

    That picture itself  presented its humour. Funtua seemed  shorter metaphorically  as he often bent downwards to seek  Amuka’s attention.

     When Funtua told me “Sam is my brother from another mother,” Amuka retorted with mock gravity, “no mind am o. When you hear him name and my own, how you go say we be brothers?” Funtua knowingly chuckled.

    Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka looked with a critic’s eye at Uncle Sam’s days as writer and described how his satiric pen built the ego of the elite while making them feel happy with themselves. Soyinka, also a satirist, did not classify his humour, but that is what I might call burlesque fury.

    It is a rage that invokes the laugh of indignation. Ike Nwachukwu, a journalist who became a general, confessed to how it was hard for the army to arrest a man who enlarged your ego and made you suspect you should be angry. He knew how to massage his message.

     This author recalled his note to me when I wrote a column on the bloody chapter of the sleepy village Okuama in Delta State.

    In the column, The Shrine of Oil, I had written, among other things, the following lines about oil as the casus belli and god behind the tempest in the footling place.

     “The god is not on earth,” I crooned in my essay. “It is under the earth and water. Oil floats on troubled waters, a sea without a plea. A viscous mammy water flirts. It is a dark, slimy, seductive and crude deity. To the god are all the sacrifices of deaths, rage, blood spills and, of course, the conflicts of tribes and the death of a village.”

    Uncle Sam sent me a note: “Grammar Boy: So “A viscous mammy water flirts…” Congrats to the boyfriend.”

    There was also the other part, the offbeat generosity, the humble, which the BusinessDay publisher Frank Aigbogun and Vanguard pioneering editor Muyiwa Adetiba told the audience.

     Don’t ever admire any of his possessions or it is yours. He once gave instanta his shirt to Dele because he liked it.

    Aremo Osoba said Uncle Sam is an arts collector who barely had three  in his possession because he has given them  away to admirers. Soyinka said in Amuka’s 70th birthday, he requested that he wanted to dance with a certain woman “who was twice his size” and his head rested on her bosom.

    He did not wear a hat to the event in deference to the Olu of Warri, and in his speech, the Ogiame serenaded his 90-year-old son, who had earlier knelt on stage. The king returned the generosity in a moving speech, and gave him a rare privilege. He could wear his hat. The king promised to give a special feather. If he had a feather to his cap that day already, he did not expect a royal one, a literal feather of rare prestige to his nonagenarian hat.

    Another Prince, the suave Thisday Publisher Nduka, ‘the Duke,’ Obaigbena, who mastered the stage called me to deliver the citation.  He also announced that the Hallmarks of Labour Foundation would present a lifetime award to the celebrant, an ambush that the self-effacing Amuka-Pemu could not escape.

    As I walked up stage, I recalled my father Moses who first mentioned his name when I was a little boy in the early 1970’s.  I never expected to tell the world who was that same man. Below is the citation, with a retouch here and there.

    Let me preface this citation with a rumination on the number 13. Some people associate it with bad omen and fear. I have news for you on a day we celebrate a titan of news. He was born on the 13th. Nigeria’s first pilot, Captain Robert Hayes, a friend and Ughelli schoolmate of the celebrant, was born on May 13th, and he marked his 90th birthday in London a month ago. Our own literary supremo, the Nobel laureate and Professor Wole Soyinka, was separated from his mother’s womb on July 13, and he marked his 90th birthday, a year ago. Even out of these shores, the tennis prodigy Coco Gauff, the black athlete who just won the French Open in a sensational comeback, was born on March 13th. I can go on.

    Rest easy, folks. Friday 13 is a day of joy and rejoicing. These personages I just mentioned are great 13 ambassadors as demystifiers, frontiersmen and fearless, our holy trinity of the 13th. They are optimists whose lives say amen and not omen. With their pluck, they conquer ill-luck.

    Our beloved Samson Oruru Amuka-Pemu, son of Pa Amuka-Pemu and Princess Aritsehoma, was born on the June 13, 1935 at Sapele, in the now Delta State, with a royal blood because his mother was a princess of the Olomu kingdom. He attended Government School for his primary education until 1948. In 1949, he was admitted to Government College, Ughelli, known by many then as the Eton of Nigeria. He was the youngest in his class. As a student, the seed of his future started to germinate. He was a member of the music club, debating society and the school Magazine known up till today as The Mariners.

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    He did not make it as a music maestro, although he hobnobbed like a wannabe with the great Bobby Benson. However, he would bring the virtues of great music, its rhythm and sonority, to his future craft. His role in the school magazine was the prophecy of his profession as he became a journalist. I cannot forget this. He was a soccer star on campus. The great journalist Peter Enahoro, known as Peter Pan, also an Ughelli schoolmate, told me he had an inflammable left foot as a striker. Think of Thunder Balogun, Messi, Dombraye, Adokie, of course Haruna Ilerika. Then imagine what our Uncle Sam might have been if he did not exchange the boot for the pen. As a ball juggler, he carried that arsenal -apologies to the gunners here – to the topsy-turvy world of the press.

    After school, he honed his skill as a reporter with the Daily Express under another Ughelli School mate, the great poet and dramatist, John Pepper Clark. But he blossomed in the then Daily Times, the flower of Nigerian Journalism at the time. He rose to become its Sunday editor, but many remember his sojourn as a columnist. We call him Sad Sam today because of his edgy writings, but his life as a columnist began with a column called Off Beat Sam, distinguished by a picture of a Sam blowing from the wrong end of the trumpet, a picture of the writer’s haunting iconoclasm and subversion.

    But his Sad Sam Column was to endure and outlast his contemporaries. It was a writing of understated bombshells, sardonic, irreverent, throwing barbs at the political and military elite in a style I can liken to the laughing gas. It hit the ribs. It ripped them apart while they were laughing. He disarmed with his verbal armory. It was because he did not only write, but he also writhed. He wrote that way because his conscience groaned with glee.

    The entrepreneur’s bug bit him and he wanted to strike out on his own. He set up a publication known as Happy Home. He was in the throes of that adventure when his friend, Olu Aboderin, and himself teamed up to set up the Punch Newspaper. Amuka-Pemu brought his acumen into the new venture, became Sunday editor and managing director. The paper bloomed, became and remains a mainstay of journalism today. His signature shines in it even this morning.

    Things went awry in that chapter of his life, and he had to pull out. Many thought  Amuka-Pemu  was done. But like Ebenezer Obey’s line, Won se b’ola titan/ ola o tan ola kun seyin o. Amuka-Pemu  rose from the dead. He was a revenant. A phoenix. Ashes, for him, was no destination. He became an iconic, unparalleled abiku of the profession. In the words of Soyinka’s poem, Abiku,  Amuka Pemu called “for the first and repeated time.” Or in the poem of the same title by J.P. Clark, he remained “on the baobab tree” of the media.

    He resurrected with The Vanguard Newspaper. The paper pursued a delicate balance between the profound and the profane, bringing to his audience new voices, audacious visual aesthetics and gender experimentation. The paper was a revolution that would later define itself as a forerunner of a new brand of daily journalism. It is still alive and well today.

    But Amuka-Pemu  is not just a publisher, writer, reporter, manager and entrepreneur. He is patron of the Newspaper Proprietors Association Nigeria (NPAN) and a founding member. He represents Nigeria at the International Press Institute (IPI) headquartered in Zurich. As a journalist, he is also a statesman. We all know his role with General Abdulsalami Abubakar in brokering peace and acceptance after the 2015 presidential elections. He is a man who never forgets his roots. He remembers his roots and he was last year decorated as a notable Itsekiri son  with the honour of Royal Order of Iwere (ROI) by the Olu of Warri, His majesty Ogiame Atuwatse III.

     Unknown to many, he is the chairman of the Sapele Boma Boys. The word Boma is a corruption of Burma. Burma boys were soldiers who returned from hostilities after the Second Word War. Amuka-Pemu and others have turned themselves into soldiers for the fortunes of their community. He is also a perennial habitue and patron of the Amala Group whose members refresh their palates every month at another media icon Bunmi Sofola’s place in Lagos.

    Amuka-Pemu is a living legend, a man who pioneered two stalwart papers still standing tall. A patriot, statesman, a grandee of journalism. With a sly tongue and deceptively shy demeanour, Uncle Sam is a reluctant patrician of the trade because he is a great practitioner.

  • Major Ajayi’s death in captivity

    Major Ajayi’s death in captivity

    Incidences of kidnapping are no longer news on these shores. The degeneration of the malfeasance in the last couple of years in the face of the inability of security agencies to get a handle to it has left Nigerians seemingly at the mercy of all manner of marauders masquerading as kidnappers.

    Even with this seeming collective surrender to fate or helplessness, our consciences are still constantly assailed by the existential and mortal dimensions the scourge has continued to assume. Chilling accounts of the fate of innocent citizens in the hands of kidnappers dot the social space. It is either a tale of kidnapping for ransom, ritual killing or to settle scores for perceived wrongs.

    Many families have lost their loved ones; thrown into sudden grief by the devious activities of callous kidnappers who take advantage of the forests to perpetrate their heinous trade. One of such incidents was the death last week of Major Joe Ajayi, an 80-year old retired army officer in the hands of some demented kidnappers.

    Ajayi was abducted from his hometown in the Odo-Ape, Kabba-Bunu Local Government Area of Kogi State in the midnight of May 21. His abductors made an initial demand of N50 million ransom for his release which the family could not just afford.

    As his incarceration lingered, the family requested the kidnappers to allow them forward his medication to him.  But the kidnappers accepted the family’s request only on the ground that it would come with extra cost. It was inconceivable to fathom how a family that could not raise a substantial part of the humongous amount initially demanded could go about the additional cost. They were unable to meet that demand.

    Without the help of his regular drugs, Ajayi’s health deteriorated. And when his captors noticed this, they quickly reduced the ransom to N10 million. In the hope that the kidnapped was still alive, the family quickly agreed to pay the reduced sum. They rallied around, raised the money in the hope of securing his release.

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    “Once the ransom was paid, the kidnappers directed the family to where they would find him, only for them to meet Ajayi’s lifeless body” a source in the community recounted in utter grief. Sad indeed!

    The circumstances of Ajayi’s death denote an uncanny metaphor for the mindless killings and atrocities our citizens have had to go through since the social scourge resonated in our national chessboard. Perhaps, his case attracted the attention it did because of his position in the society.

    Across the country and on a daily basis, many innocent citizens are made to pass through life-threatening ordeals in the hand of rampaging kidnappers, losing their lives in the process without notice. In their homes, work places, along the highways and our railways, nobody seems to be safe any longer. The matter has so degenerated that the fear of kidnappers is now viewed as the beginning of wisdom.

     Apparently pained by the death, the Bunu Leaders Forum in a statement said the gruesome manner the retired major died was on the conscience of Nigerian leaders who neglected their duties to the nation.  For them, the nation failed the senior army officer who had spent much of life in the service of the country.

    Before Ajayi’s case, a former Director General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme, Brigadier-General Maharazu Tsiga (rtd) was also abducted in his hometown, Tsiga in the Bakori Local Government Area of Katsina State. The bandits struck around 12 am on motorcycles, shooting sporadically before forcefully gaining entrance into Tsiga’s residence.

    They abducted the retired army general together with an unspecified number of indigenes of the area. But that was not before some people had lost their lives to the senseless shootings.  The incident caused considerable fear and panic and forced many residents of the community to flee for safety.

    Gen, Tsiga spent 56 days in captivity as all attempts to have him freed proved abortive until some huge amount of money was paid as ransom. A retired Brigadier-General, Ismaila Abdullahi had after Tsiga’s release said that his freedom was facilitated by generous financial contributions from fellow army officers, generals, serving and retired military officers and a wide spectrum of other civilians. In a note of appreciation shared on his Facebook on behalf of Tsiga and his associates, Abdullahi detailed the community-driven efforts that secured the release of Tsiga.

    But the statement drew the ire of Defence Headquarters. The acting Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Tukur Gusau had said in a statement that the article by Abdullahi which claimed military generals contributed money to secure the release of Tsiga from captivity after 56 days was baseless.

    Gusau was apparently unhappy with the inability of Abdullahi to acknowledge the efforts by the military, both kinetic and non-kinetic, to secure the release of the kidnapped general. This could be discerned from the catalogue of what he called the relentless efforts by the military that facilitated Tsiga’s release which he went ahead to furnish.

    To the military can be conceded its claim to series of efforts that culminated in the release of Tsiga from captivity. Nobody is denying them that. But the fact remains that huge sums of money was raised and paid to the kidnappers before Tsiga was set free. Abdullahi did not disclose the amount. But he acknowledged in the post that donations came like August rains.

    Gusau may have been worried by the wrong signal Abdullahi’s claim that military officers, serving and retired, contributed to the donation to free Tsiga could convey. This is quite understandable. But that is the reality of the fate of those who have been unlucky to fall into the hands of kidnappers. It is money or nothing. And if a friend or relation is involved, donors defy ranks and professions especially if it is the only thing that could secure the release of the captive.

    Tsiga corroborated this dimension after his release when he said that the kidnappers do not want to hear anything about God. They are only interested in money. He gave a chilling account of how shortly before they were released, hungry hyenas suddenly surrounded them and how they co-existed with dangerous snakes and scorpions. He attributed his safety to divine providence.

    That was the ordeal Tsiga is alive to tell. But Ajayi has no story to tell as he succumbed in the hands of his traducers. Given his age, one could imagine what he would have passed through without his medication.

    They refused him his drugs. They obviously did not want him to come out alive. Yet, they deceived the family to part with N10 million only to show them the dead body of the elderly man. Where has our conscience gone to and how did we get to this point where human life no longer counts?

    These searing questions highlight the contradictions in the festering criminalities across the country that pays scant attention to human life. These are military officers who served the country in various capacities. They passed through the rigors of military training and must have encountered challenging situations while in service before retiring.

    While in service, nobody dared challenge or threaten their lives. They had full security back up. After retirement, they settled in their home towns only to be taken captive and dehumanised by a band of ragtag urchins masquerading as kidnappers. One could read the minds of the officers as were tortured by these criminals.

    They would have nursed reminiscences of their career in the military; the powers they wielded and how all that could give way to their incarceration by a band of ragtag criminals. That was the situation the Okun forum referenced upon when they said the nation which Ajayi served failed him at the moment of need.

    Ajayi and Tsiga are not alone in this dilemma that speaks of the inability of the government to secure lives and property. The Defence Information reeled out the efforts they made to secure the release of Tsiga. Sadly, nothing of such was heard in the case of Ajayi. If there was such effort, the fact that the kidnappers only released his dead body after ransom had been paid underscores the role of money in securing the freedom of kidnapped victims.

    Fund raising in such circumstances knows no boundaries or professions. And as in Tsiga’s case, the Okun forum also acknowledged military colleagues ‘that also joined to work round the challenge, friends and well-wishers’.

    The issue is not about who contributed money for ransom but the steps the government is taking to roll out effective measures to make kidnapping and all manner of criminalities a risky enterprise. The lesson served by the sad fate of Ajayi and Tsiga is that nobody is spared in the scourge of kidnapping that has stretched the energies of security agencies to elastic limits. Something urgent must be done to tame this monster.

  • Maryam Abacha’s lie

    Maryam Abacha’s lie

    • A widow’s failed attempt to whitewash her husband’s image and rewrite history

    For a taciturn person like Maryam Abacha, the country should be all ears whenever she opens her mouth. That was why many people did not take it kindly when the widow of Nigeria’s former despot, General Sani Abacha, bared her mind on certain issues on the country’s past, in a rate interview she granted Television Continental (TVC) on June 9. Gen. Abacha died on June 8, 1998.

    Mrs Abacha, rather than seize the golden opportunity of the interview to atone for the sins of her husband, chose, sadly, to rise in stout defence of some of his actions and policies.

    The former first lady spoke on sundry issues, including security, the June 12 election and the money her husband stole when he was head of state, better known as Abacha loot. I deliberately said the money Sani Abacha stole (and not allegedly stole as Maryam would have preferred, to rub it in) because that was (and still is) Sani Abacha in the eyes of millions of Nigerians.

    It is an understatement that Mrs Abacha’s comments in that interview got many Nigerians angry.  They said she had such guts to say what she said because she is in a country where corruption is treated with kid gloves. That she could not have had such privilege in a country where their entire family would have been wiped out for the fraud perpetrated by their patriarch!

    Coming from people who ordinarily would have been touting rule of law and due process in the circumstance had the matter concerned somebody else, shows the level of their anger and frustration with the former first lady’s comments.

    But that is Nigeria for you. We often determine the quality of a message through the messenger. Many of us tune off as soon as we see that the message is coming from a messenger whose face we do not like.

    But, it shouldn’t be so.

    Unfortunately, that was my position too until Wednesday when I decided to make the Abachas my topic for today. “Oro wo lo wa lenu asegita, to ni ki Oyinbo pade oun lagogo mejo owuro kutu hai”? (What would make a wood seller request for an early morning appointment with a White man?) What would the wife of a man who was hated with a passion by Nigerians, and for good reasons, say on the issues under discussion? Who else would she have sided with if not her late husband? Moreso now that the husband is no longer in a position to defend himself.

    I had to drop off the bus of Nigerians who like throwing away the baby with the bath water because it is not usually helpful.

    So, what were Maryam Abacha’s views on each of these issues?

    First security. Or insecurity, on which the former first lady spoke tongue-in-cheek! On the one hand, she commended the armed forces for their efforts and, on the other hand, wondered why we have not been able to bring insurgency down to its knees. But that was after rubbing it in that there was nothing like that in her husband’s time. Hear Maryam: “You are not even talking about the security of the country. I’m (sic) just a wife in the house. Yes, I’m (sic) close to him as his wife. But was there any insurgency during his time? No, there was none. He was able to tackle… Liberia, he went there and corrected things and Nigeria was at peace”.

    She didn’t stop there: “There are other countries, apart from Nigeria, that have insurgents and they have tackled them. And I don’t know what is the matter with Nigeria until now, that we still have insurgents…

    “And we have the government. We have the government from the top to the states, to the local governments and so on. So I don’t know how come these things have stayed so long and they have not been really tackled.”

    Mrs Abacha acknowledged that we have all it takes to deal with insurgency:

    “We have neighbours that have really tackled it. And they are smaller countries. And we are bigger. We are richer. We are more experienced.

    “I believe in our military. I believe in our army. I believe in the armed forces and I think they can do better if they wish to do so. And I pray that they do.”

    On this score, even though the former first lady tried to engage in some delicate balancing by saying “Now look at what we are in. I cannot say governments have failed. They have not really failed. No government can fail,”, the government should not fail to get her message on insecurity.

    As a matter of fact, she merely echoed what many people have said. Insurgency is still with us (apparently) because some influential people are making money from it. This is aside the elites that are also using it for political purposes.

    So, government must do more in this regard.

    Now, to the June 12 election.

    Apparently referring to the claim by former self-styled president, General Ibrahim Babangida, in his book,

    “A Journey in Service”, released in February, that Gen. Abacha was largely responsible for the cancellation of the election, Mrs Abacha rose in stout defence of her husband.

    It was a rare opportunity for the former first lady to give it back to her husband’s boss. The presidential election was won by Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola.

    We must admit that Maryam was making some sense when she wondered how her husband who was not the head of state at the time could have made such an important decision.

    Hear her: “I’m not here to talk about Babangida or anybody. I don’t want to talk about anything or anybody. All I know is that that annulment was not done by my husband, and then if it was him, then that means he was very powerful.

    “He was even more powerful than the president, and if the president is there and somebody else is calling the shots, then that means Abacha was the greatest.”

    Read Also: After daughter’s wedding, Maryam Abacha celebrates again

    I stand with Maryam on this, too. Babangida, from many accounts of him in the public domain is not the kind of general that would take bullet with his buttocks. True generals face, not back, bullets. How could such a man say someone else was calling the shots on a matter as crucial as annulling the freest and fairest election in the annals of the country? Something does not add up here.

    Definitely, if Abacha was the one calling the shots on Babangida’s transition programme, and was in fact responsible for the annulment of the election, then Abacha must have succeeded because his wish aligned with that of Babangida whose body language on the entire transition programme indicated he was himself not ready to go as agreed and announced by his government.

    Now to the main menu: the Abacha loot, stupid!

    It was on this aspect that I find Maryam’s comment most ridiculous and distasteful. Even then, as in the other issues, she is entitled to her opinion. This is much more so when her late husband was the ‘thief-in-chief’.

    She said, “Who is the witness of the monies that were being stashed? Did you see the signature or the evidence of any monies stashed abroad? And the monies that my husband kept for Nigeria, in a few months the monies vanished. People are not talking about that. Why are you blaming somebody? Is that tribalism or a religious problem, or what is the problem with Nigerians?

    “So where would he have stolen the money from? Where would he have stolen the money from?  Because Nigerians are fools, they listen to everything”, she added. Let Maryam listen to herself. Where do even lesser  people stealing public funds stealing it from?

    It was at the juncture where Maryam said her late husband kept some money for Nigeria but which disappeared in a few months that rekindled my interest on this aspect. Much of what we were told and which, in our “foolishness” we believed, was stashed abroad by Gen. Abacha.

    Barkin Zuwo who governed Kano State for only three months, from October 1, 1979 to December 31, 1979, kept N3.4m  (that is about N5.4 billion at today’s exchange rate and N952m at about N128 to a dollar then). We are talking of the equivalent of about 225 BRAND NEW (emphasis mine) Peugeot 505 GL at 15,000 apiece!. That was what a governor kept in the state government house and when the soldiers who sacked their government on New Year’s Eve in 1983 asked him why he kept such a huge amount out of the bank, he merely told them that he did nothing wrong. “Government money in government house, what’s wrong with that?”, he rhetorically asked.

    The point I am trying to make is that whatever Barkin Zuwo’s intention, what was found on him was found here at home.

    All the foolish questions about where Gen. Abacha could have got the money that he stole from were misdirected. Maryam should have asked her husband where they got all the private luxury they enjoyed and are probably still enjoying. Or, better still, ask today’s public officials who also have itchy palms to bail her out.

    Where has Maryam Abacha been all this while that Nigeria has been collecting money stashed abroad by her husband and his cronies? At least over $5bn of such monies had been recovered as at 2023. That is for the known.

    True, a wife properly so-called should try as much as possible to defend her husband, and vice versa. But even then, there should be limits. Maryam Abacha should indeed apologise to us (Nigerians) that she has called fools for believing that her husband was a ‘Grade A’ thief.

    It was not because he was smart that we didn’t focus on his thieving when he was around; it was because some other issues eclipsed that aspect of his life, especially after he overthrew Chief Ernest Shonekan’s interim national government (ING) and made himself head of state. The way he ruled repressively, especially in the aftermath of the annulment of the June 12 election engaged our attention more than anything else.

    Gen. Abacha had his stars to thank that somebody like Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was no longer around in his time. Fela would have put it to him that ‘e be thief’; ‘he be rogue’; ‘he be robber’ and in fact, that ‘he be ‘armu robber’ (armed robber’). And there was nothing he could have done. The General Obasanjo’s of this world know that for sure.

    If Mrs Abacha had said her husband was not the only thief, I am sure many Nigerians can live with that. If she had said some other people had re-looted some of the money recovered from her husband, many of us can still stomach that.

    But to say her husband was not a thief; I believe General Abacha himself must be struggling wherever he is to correct his darling wife that that  impression is not only far from the truth; it is blatant falsehood; and go ahead to apologise to Nigerians for the misinformation.