The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • June 12 and a ‘N45b debt’

    June 12 and a ‘N45b debt’

    Today is June 12, and the country remembers as it has done in the past 32 years the presidential election that took place that day in 1993. Why did the military annul the election won by the late Bashorun M.K.O Abiola? We may never know because a key figure in the saga, Gen Ibrahim Babangida, is not ready to open up on the issue. He had an opportunity to do so in his book: A journey in service. He did not; instead, he blamed those under him then, especially Gen Sani Abacha, for the annulment.

    But former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, who was secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) on which platform Abiola contested the election said it was annulled because of the N45 billion owed the business magnate by the military government for a contract in the 1970s when former head of state, the late Gen Murtala Muhammed, was federal commissioner for communication. The military, he said, at the release of his own memoir: Being true to myself last month, felt that Abiola would use his office to recover his money if allowed to become president. Why deprive a candidate of his mandate because of the money he legitimately earned? Contract execution and election are not related. If a man has discharged his contractual obligation, he is entitled to be paid.

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    Abiola was doubly wronged. He was denied his money and his election was annulled for fear that he would use his position to right the first wrong done him. For how long will we continue to bury our heads in the sand like ostrich over this matter? Is Abiola owed that much? Did he work for the money? If the answers are yes, why did  the military not pay him? If there were isssues, the best the military could have done was to go to court and not to arbitrarily withhold his money, and subsequently also deny him his mandate. I agree with Lamido that it was the height of injustice. There is no nexus between the contract and the June 12 election.

    Paying his family the money now, with interest, may not really address the criminal act of annulling the June 12 poll, but it will serve as some form of compensation for them. It may not be too bad if President Bola Tinubu weighs in on the matter in his address to the joint session of the National Assembly today. The claim has dragged on for too long.

  • Toast to Uncle Sam at 90

    Toast to Uncle Sam at 90

    Tomorrow, the father of modern Nigeria journalism, Prince Samuel OruruAmuka Pemu, will be 90. These are nine decades on earth, during which period he has touched and continues to touch lives, not only through journalism, but through other various ways. It is an understatement to describe him as the father of journalism. He is the grandfather, considering the generations of journalists that have passed through him.

    Many top journalists today and several others before them came under his tutelage. He mentored, trained, and nurtured them. A teacher of teachers, a reporter of reporters, the editor of editors, a columnist of columnists and the publisher of publishers, Pa Amuka, (sounds strange, uhm?), is a great asset to the noble profession of journalism. Uncle Sam is the oldest practising newspaperman in Nigeria today. He is papa, a grandpa, and great grandpa, to boot, but we rarely refer to him as such in media circles. To us, his acolytes, he is simply Uncle Sam, an appellation which came off his pseudonym, Sad Sam, under which he wrote his “This Nigeria” column those days in the Sunday Times.

    He is known more by his pseudonym than his real name. The pseudonym which he used in his days at the Daily Times, sold him to the world. At its apogee, the Daily Times was the paper to behold; it was second to none, and it was found in every nook and cranny of the country. Every other paper then was referred to as Daily Times. Give me Daily Times”, readers used to tell vendors, even where they wanted a different paper. That is how popular the paper was.

    It speaks to the then stature of Daily Times, which turned 100 years as a corporate entity on June 6 unsung, that many, including even practitioners, do not often remember that Uncle Sam began his career at the Daily Express under the guidance of renowned poet, the late John Pepper-Clark, years before he joined Daily Times in the 1960s. As a publication, Daily Times will be 100 next June 1. In the Daily Times of yore, the fear of Babatunde Jose, its then chairman/managing director, was the beginning of wisdom. Jose was Daily Times and Daily Times was Jose. He made and unmade editors. You were made an editor instantly, if you performed, and removed on the spot, if you underperformed.

    This was the Daily Times in which Uncle Sam grew and blossomed. So, he was one in whom Jose was well pleased. It was not easy earning Jose’s accolade. Being a journalist himself and an all hands on boss, he demanded the best from his editors and he promoted those who excelled above their superiors to the discomfort of the latter. Jose was not bothered. He identified talents, groomed and rewarded them. In the hierarchy of titles in the Daily Times stable, Spear, a family magazine, was the third to be founded. It was established in 1963, with Uncle Sam as its first indigenous editor.

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    “In fact to launch Spear we brought in an editor from London and it was between the editor and Sam Amuka that the journal was launched after which Sam became the substantive editor”, Jose said in his 1987 memoirs: “Walking a tight rope – Power play in Daily Times”. Uncle Sam was among Jose’s beloved because he knew his onions. He spoke of this atttibute of Uncle Sam and two others during his search for an editor for the Sunday Times of his dreams. “It took me some time, involving changes of editorship to find an editor who would produce the Sunday Times as I conceived it. That is, like the London Sunday Times… Only three editors achieved that standard – Alade Odunewu, Sam Amuka, and Gbolabo Ogunsanwo”.

    Uncle Sam edited the Sunday Times between 1967 and 1971 before going on to co-found Punch newspaper with the late Chief Olu Aboderin.

    He left a few years later to start Vanguard, a paper which he has been running since 1984. It says a lot about his professionalism to have founded two newspapers and managed them successfully. Since 1984 that Vanguard hit the newsstands, the paper has been on the streets without fail, except in 1990 when then Lagos State military governor Raji Rasaki shut it down. Uncle Sam has come a long way from a reporter to editor cum columnist writing either as Sad Sam or Offbeat Sam, to the publisher he is today.

    It has been a life packed full of activities for Uncle Sam. With a history of longevity running  in his family, we may have him around for a long time to come. Happy birthday sir and may you celebrate many more years on earth in good health and sound mind.

  • An elegy for Jibril Muhammad Aminu

    An elegy for Jibril Muhammad Aminu

    When I heard the unexpected news of Professor Jibril Aminu’s demise, I said to myself what William Shakespeare wrote in his play – As you like it about the seven ages of man: “All the world is a stage, and all the men and women are merely players…” Shakespeare meant that we are all actors and actresses and we have different routes to enter this stage and also have different exits to go out. We enter this stage when we are born and leave this stage when we die.

    Of course, it is not Shakespeare who first had this idea. It is also in the holy texts of the Bible and the Quran. When we die we say that God “gives and takes away“. The Bible says death is a transition to a state of “sleep” until the resurrection. The Quran says “Inna lilahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un” meaning – “Verily we belong to Allah, and to Him we shall return”. This reminds us about the temporary nature of human existence and about the inevitability of death.  This inevitability of death reminds us to work hard and be kind to one another while on earth pleasing man and God as much as we can, because no one knows when the last call shall sound.

    I first met Dr Jibril Aminu in 1975 in Ibadan when he worked under my late and beloved brother, Professor Kayode Osuntokun who was then head of Department of Medicine and was earlier on instrumental to recruiting Aminu into the department at the university when he was then a consultant at the Maiduguri General Hospital on the grounds that such a brilliant man belonged to a teaching hospital rather than a general hospital. I didn’t know I would meet him again but I came close to him in 1978 when I was recruited by the National Universities Commission  (NUC) of which he was the Executive Secretary.

    Aminu on the cusp of becoming a senior lecturer in Medicine in 1975 was appointed Executive Secretary of the NUC which was a small toothless body modelled after the British Grants committee on higher education. It was supposed to distribute budgetary allocation to the federal universities of Ibadan and Lagos. At that time, senior academics like vice chancellors and other professors felt Aminu was too junior a fellow to take over from Dr Okoi Arikpo, a venerable gentleman who had held the position under the chairmanship of Chief FRA Williams, a distinguished lawyer. When however Yakubu Gowon was overthrown in 1975 and Murtala Muhammad became head of state, Jibril Aminu’s role in government became much more prominent because the new head of state and Aminu had been students together in Barewa College Zaria, a high school that incubated and prepared northern Nigerian boys from the colonial times to modern times for leadership positions in post-independent Nigeria.

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    Between 1971 and 1975, the regional universities of Ile Ife, Ahmadu Bello in Zaria and the University of Nigeria at Nsukka had for financial reasons depended on federal financial support which was finally consummated by the federal government’s takeover in 1975. With the federal government’s take over, the NUC under Jibril Aminu grew rapidly into an academic octopus until what it has become now. From then on, and even after Murtala Muhammad’s death and until the end of the Muhammad- Obasanjo’s regime in 1979, Aminu’s shadow loomed very large in government. He became vice chancellor in Maiduguri from 1981 to 84 and then became federal minister of education under the short military regime of Muhammadu Buhari before becoming minister of petroleum under Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, falling and rising with the various leaders of the military regimes of the time.

    I worked under him when he was executive secretary of the NUC serving as director of the NUC offices first in Ottawa, Canada and then in Washington DC in the United States of America from 1978 to 82. I was then a senior lecturer, later associate professor in the Department of History and Security Studies, University of Lagos on leave of absence.   I was interviewed for the job by a panel of the late professors T.N Tamuno and Ayandele and Alhaji Shehu Musa, federal permanent secretary of finance. The job was competed for  by professors and senior lecturers but having taught in the University of the West Indies and the University of Western Ontario in Canada gave me an advantage  over others for the job in Canada while the directorate positions in Washington, London and Cairo went to older and senior colleagues.

    With  Aminu-inspired expansion of the Nigerian universities system to several new towns like Kano, Maiduguri, Sokoto, Bauchi, Jos, Yola, Calabar, Makurdi, Port Harcourt, Benin, Akure and Abeokuta, it became necessary to open offices in strategic places  in the western world for staff recruitment, training of staff, purchase of library books and machines and  laboratory   equipment. Instead of allowing each university to have overseas offices, it became necessary to centralise their operations under the growing NUC. As the NUC grew in importance, the position of vice chancellors diminished and this brought Aminu into more and more conflict with these gentlemen. But the new positions as vice chancellors of the new universities brought support for the young Aminu until he left the NUC in 1979 to become vice chancellor of the University of Maiduguri.

    I joined him in Maiduguri from Washington DC in 1982. Jibril was a careful and strategic man. When I showed interest in coming to Maiduguri, he asked for my publications and sent them for assessment at the ICU (Inter University Council) presumably to avoid any criticism. I was quite happy when the assessment came back positive. I joined him in Maiduguri to have a wonderful experience of access to the Shehu of Borno‘s palace and the humble homes of Sir Kashim Ibrahim, former governor in the old North and Shetima Ali Monguno, former federal minister.

    I made lasting friendships with these two great Nigerians and ended writing the biography of Sir Kashim Ibrahim with the title of Power Broker which drew the attention of Adamu Ciroma who said Sir Kashim was power himself and not just its broker!

    I had a good time in Maiduguri both among the students and staff of the university. I was head of Department of History and Dean of Arts and when an ambitious colleague put pressure on the system after returning to the university after a failed political adventure, I gave up the deanship and was immediately saddled with acting deanship of postgraduate studies. After some fundamental disagreement on political issues, I decided to leave against the wishes of Jibril Aminu in 1985 when he himself invited by Ibrahim Babangida to become minister of education and later minister of petroleum resources.  He later went as ambassador to Washington after the military finally exited power. He had a great run in this country. He had a brief mission as ambassador of Nigeria to Washington.

    He was after his diplomatic journey elected a senator from Adamawa. He became chancellor of one of the state universities in the north. The only jobs he never had were vice president and president but he left legacies above those people who held those positions. He is associated with the introduction of the 3-3-4 educational system and the change of school calendar beginning from September and ending in June to allow children helping their parents on the farms as well as admissions into secondary and tertiary institutions on quota basis with different cut off marks for states on the basis that there were states that were more advantaged than others and finally job opportunities in federal establishments based on quotas. These policies were more favourable to the northern part of the country but Aminu insisted that we had to be prepared to make uncomfortable sacrifices if we are determined to build a nation. For these policies, he was very unpopular in the south but popular in the north. He was very thick skin about public criticism even by his friends but he remained determined in his public life.

    He was a great man, an exceptionally brilliant medical scientist and fearless leader of men. If he had chosen to be a literary man, he would have been one of the greatest writers of this century. I admired him as a boss, colleague and a friend and even though I disagreed with him on some of his policies, I admired his courage. When asked what he would want to be remembered for, his answer was short “a good Muslim”. I am not surprised that he died on Arafat day just a day before Eid – el – Adha.

  • Tinubu at midterm: Like the economy, like the education system

    Tinubu at midterm: Like the economy, like the education system

    It is all too easy to criticise President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that he has not done enough with the education sector after two years in office. But it will be irresponsible to say that he has done nothing. If he has made any mistake at all, it is in taking on too much, as if he could correct all the imbalances in the education sector all at once and within one or two tenures. As I pointed out last week, that is precisely the mistake he has made with the economy. The truth is that it will take long-term planning and effective implementation over at least a ten-year period to make appreciable progress across both sectors. However, considerable progress could still be made in particular areas in each sector.

    Background

    Like the economic sector, at no time in Nigerian history has the government given enough attention to the education sector as revealed in the budgetary allocation to education over the years. Take a full decade before Tinubu came to power. From 2012 to 2022, government expenditure on education decreased from 0.55% of GDP to 0.35%. However, these figures masked the annual Naira increase in the allocations due to increased revenues. For examples, the allocation to education was only N400.11 in 2012. However, more than double that figure (N923.79) was allocated to the sector in 2022. But while the 2012 figure represented about 8 percent of the total budget, the 2022 figure was only 5.39% of the total budget. Nevertheless, the inadequacy of these figures is highlighted by the United Nation’s recommendation of 4 to 6 percent of GDP or UNESCO’s 15-20 percent of the total budget.

    Tinubu’s imprint on education so far

    Tinubu inherited an education system in shambles, one in which union strikes became a regular tool for waking up the government to its responsibilities. To worsen the situation, he inherited a depressed economy and there were no reliable data for effective planning in the education sector. That is why one of Tinubu’s first moves was to establish a comprehensive National Education Data System that will provide a comprehensive census of all schools, students, teachers, and facilities across all levels of education in the country as such data were useful for planning and research purposes. It should not take too long for the results of the data collection to be shared.

    In the meantime, Tinubu went ahead to establish the National Education Loan Fund to increase access to higher education. In 2025, as much as N58.4 billion was allocated for the loan scheme. As of May 21, 2025, nearly N57 billion had been disbursed to about 300,000 students in about 300 institutions.

    Still in pursuance of access to higher education, Tinubu has also approved the establishment of many new higher education institutions, made up of 22 universities, 33 polytechnics and monotechnics, and 12 colleges of education. This aspect of Tinubu’s education venture has been criticized for at least two reasons: First, existing federal higher education institutions lack adequate funding, proper infrastructure, and necessary resources (labs, libraries, and necessary technologies of learning). Second, young graduates are no longer interested in a teaching career, which requires them to toil further for a doctorate degree only to earn the poor salaries their teachers earned. The result is that the new institutions are bound to face teacher shortages. Besides, the present generation of teachers in older institutions may be difficult to replace. This twin problem can only be exacerbated by creating more institutions.

    There are two misconceptions about higher education in Nigeria. One is the mistaken belief that the larger the percentage of higher education among the citizens, the more progress the nation will make. Not true. Less than 40 percent of adults aged 25 and older in the United States have a bachelor’s degree or higher. Besides, the failure or drop-out rate in secondary schools is over 40 percent!

    The second misconception about higher education in Nigeria is prevalent among politicians, especially governors and federal legislators. They think of a university, polytechnic, college of education, or an institute as a political good to be used as a constituency project. If you trace the history of the new institutions credited to Tinubu, you will discover that they were sponsored by one legislator or another. To be sure, some of the sponsors donate generously to their pet institutions, but such funding can only be for a limited time in the life of such institutions.

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    Nevertheless, Tinubu has forged ahead with another neglected area of education—Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). Only recently, at the instigation of the Minister of Education and TEFund sponsorship, the Chairpersons of Governing Councils of Polytechnics had a 5-day retreat to make suggestions to the President on how to move forward with the renewed focus. I wrote about the communique issued at the end of the retreat (see Revisiting polytechnic education in Nigeria, The Nation, March 26, 2025). According to the Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education, Professor Idris Bugaje, Tinubu’s investment in technical education is “the best in the country’s history since the civil war.”  Skills development and entrepreneurial education are the focal areas of the renewed focus on TVET. The ultimate goal is to impart the right skills and competencies for the job market, while also promoting opportunities for entrepreneurship and self-reliance.

    Beyond linking technical education training to the job market, Tinubu is also interested in linking higher education with the agricultural value chain. To this end, a sum of N30 billion has been set aside for the nation’s 30 federal universities of agriculture to commence mechanized farming to improve the nation’s agricultural productivity. Similarly, medical schools will receive N17 billion to train healthcare professionals.

    Furthermore, N100 billion has been allocated to school feeding for children in primary schools to provide needed nutrition and boost enrollment for some children who otherwise would be out-of-school.

    The major problem with these efforts, including the proposed 12-4 educational system, is that none of them addresses the issue of excellence. There is no plan for the likes of Oxford, Cambridge, MIT or Berkeley, all public institutions, not to mention Harvard, Yale or Stanford, which are elite private institutions. Yet these are the institutions that have been producing the movers and shakers of their countries. We cannot continue to roll along with mediocre institutions and hope for a miraculous breakthrough, especially now that standards have been declining, rather than rising.

  • Naira ; Uwais; CBN; $38.32b Fx; Mokwa

    Naira ; Uwais; CBN; $38.32b Fx; Mokwa

    We do have good leaders, we just do not follow. Nigeria’s former, Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Mohammed Uwais dies at 88, appreciated supervising and delivering a good Electoral Reform Report in 2008, disgracefully still not fully implemented. May he RIPP.

    Foreign reserves rise to $38.32b. This is good especially after settling the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and settling past Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) mismanagement and debt to airlines and other forex debts and then properly doing the CBN’s duty of receiving forex inflows and promptly paying legitimate and approved forex demands. The foreign reserves target for the CBN, and the government should be $50b minimum. This should be government’s minimum target in order to defend and improve our naira, supposed to be our national pride.

    Our political class should be informed that, for our population size, we actually need $200b foreign reserves as our gold standard to protect the economy. Nigeria needs a compulsory percentage of forex earnings saving scheme to achieve this. Or we can make ‘foreign reserves’ the 38th state of Nigeria and allocate monthly to it like other states. 

    We must commend the CBN for fighting-the-good-fight with Nigeria’s greed and corruption-driven protected powerful forex cartels fighting back to preserve and grow their hugely expensive ‘forex middleman status’ which precipitated economically destructive black-market rates.

    In the old days, it was the forex cartels crashing the naira to horrendous black market rates, destroying the value of the naira – financial terrorism. After the forex cartels repeatedly and greedily increased the black market, or parallel market rate margin, the CBN too kept crashing the naira towards the black market rate which continued to fall until the CBN almost eliminated the difference.  We have all suffered for the callousness of the forex cartels as they destabilised our lives with the devaluation of our incomes, pensions, rents and purchasing power all spreading poverty. Fortunately, this tactic of CBN ensured financial ruin also for forex cartels which have suffered more as their self-created criminal enterprise, collapsed from billions being extracted from Nigerians daily to almost zero.

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    Nigerians may not know but Nigeria’s corruption has created several layers of ‘banking fraud’ which increase the cost of the naira and foreign exchange that exist in no other country. There is no black market in most other countries. The currency is the currency in most countries. In Nigeria, our bankers weaponised new notes under their control, withdrew the mint fresh notes from paying out by the bank teller over the banking counter, hoarded the new notes, made them scarce and then criminally created an army of usually young ladies specifically to carry out a financial crime of selling new naira notes. To this we must add the past criminal allocation of forex at CBN and through banks in exchange for financial reward-another layer of financial fraud.

    The government is at a crossroads. It has billions of weakened naira pouring in from the ‘subsidy withdrawal’ and other dollar incomes like international remittances. If the CBN manages to improve the value of the naira, that naira amount will reduce funds going to the federal and states and LGAs. Nigeria’s local debts in pensions and to contractors are in naira. It does not matter the value to the dollar on that day of payment. So, the dilemma at CBN is: having defeated the forex cartels, will they stay dead or are they just dormant, biding their time only to resurrect when the CBN tries to improve value of the naira?

    In addition, will the political machinery in Nigeria, so full of multibillions EFCC revealed corruption and ‘cash and carry’ mentality allow the naira to improve? Can they cope with their dollars hoarded abroad being worth less naira in future?  A strengthening of the naira is imperative for Nigeria’s dignity. Your country is currency! The fear is that whatever improvements are made, will they be abandoned when the pendulum of political power swings elsewhere, as usually happens in Nigeria. Why should CBN and government and Nigeria rebuild the treasury, forex reserves and naira value only for it all to be officially looted in an immediate subsequent regime?                 

    From a German immigrant descendant president, the US ban on Harvard international students may be interpreted as pathological jealousy of Obama’s Harvard success, just as he craves a Nobel Prize – already won by Obama. Or is he just a failed university owner enacting the BHB-Bring Him Down vengeance-is-mine syndrome. The US has also introduced a 3.5% charge on international remittances to non-US citizens. This double taxation will marginally reduce the value of US-Nigeria remittances. Could the long-predicted very public breakup in the ‘Muskmania Matter’ be extreme playacting, an Oscar winning ‘media deception performance’ ‘let’s pretend to fight and separate’ photo trick? 

    The Mokwa flood disaster death toll rose to 230 dead, 500 missing. Is aid being delivered to all the needy in a speedy and sympathetic manner? These people are not beggars, but victims. We are disgusted with disaster relief in the past and insist that accountability and monitoring bring transparency. It is a huge task to cater for the immediate, mid- and long-term needs from daily meals, shelter, rebuilding homes and infrastructure. Qualified distressed citizens must be included in their own recovery and care so as to inject funds back into their pockets and give them a sense of dignity, not just handouts.

    There will be many criminals stealing aid packages. This is why using affected citizens important.  

  • Amaechi’s peculiar hunger

    Amaechi’s peculiar hunger

    Rotimi Amaechi’s peculiar hunger sucks.  It makes him talk a lot of rot.

    Nyesom Wike, at his belligerent best, mocked: how would Ameachi not be hungry? Speaker for eight years; governor for another eight; minister for yet another eight: 24 unbroken years, from 1999 to 2003!

    Why would Baby Rotimi not screech, His Bristling Majesty, the Ezenwo, pressed, if you removed that “feeder”?  Gofment pikin, as they would say in the pidgin high street!

    Why does Amaechi’s political naïveté upbraid Karma for Siminalayi Fubara, Wike’s embattled successor, who now skins Wike — at least, pre-Rivers emergency rule — as Wike himself had skinned Amaechi, his predecessor?

    Why does Amaechi’s loose talks ennoble Wike, even at his most combative form?

    Amaechi also brags: he didn’t support APC candidate (now President) Bola Tinubu — and that he told him so, to his face — because of “capacity”!  Pray, what capacity?

    Make no mistake: Amaechi was a fine governor of Rivers. His avant-garde public primary and secondary schools, complete with tartan tracks for healthy school sports, was uncommon brilliance and people-first service.

    As a minister too, he brought infectious passion to his rail modernization mandate. That plan was not new: it was the comprehensive rail revamp of the dying years of the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency.

    Yet, Amaechi’s passion and the sheer grit of his principal, President Muhammadu Buhari, brought it new life; the same parallel grit that got the Dangote Refinery over the line, which made the Tinubu-era removal of fuel subsidy less foreboding, because of the twinkling possibilities of local refining in pump price moderation.

    Still, who is Amaechi to talk of “capacity”, when Tinubu is the subject?

    First, the policy front.  Peter Odili, Rivers governor (1999-2007) when Amaechi was Speaker of the Rivers legislature, was Governor Tinubu’s peer: Tinubu was Lagos governor, the same time Odili was Rivers’.

    Odili was of the federal ruling party, PDP.  Tinubu was from the opposition: the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD), from with he carved out AC, in time for the 2007 polls.

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    Despite Tinubu lumbering under a comatose AD — and the constant strafing from Obasanjo and his PDP, being the sole survivor among the South West AD governors from 2003 — which of two showed more “capacity”: Odili or Tinubu?

    The one, despite PDP’s famed “federal might”, was content to milk Rivers’ oil wealth, via thumping derivation from the central purse, with little or no value-added. 

    The other birthed a completely new economy, in IT-powered revenue mobilization and capture, that propelled the Lagos economy alone to be stronger than any economy in West Africa, except Nigeria’s.

    While the Tinubu Lagos order pushed the high engineering that eventually saved Victoria Island, and gifted Eko Atlantic City as gilt-edged bonus, Amaechi, as governor couldn’t even carry through his Okrika beachfront renewal project — “over the dead body” of Okrika girl and former First Lady, Patience Fika Jonathan.

    To those who love to brag that Wike had no godfather, Mama Peace, in the Jonathan court, was the mighty godmother that pushed Wike to the Rivers governorship; and rendered Ameachi a politically displaced person (PDP) in Rivers, even after he had junked PDP, as APC’s high-flying Transport minister.

    Besides, Amaechi’s urban rail, years after he let office, is still only a hanging dream. The Lagos urban rail, brewed during the Tinubu years, is already on, with Blue and Red lines done and dusted, work starting on the Green line, the Blue line on the brink of extension to Okokomaiko from Mile 2, and talks buzzing on the Purple line, from the Redeemed Camp in Ogun State to Ojo, in Lagos.

    Capacity!  So, what pre-presidential capacity was Amaechi talking about?

    Then, to politics, which is even starker!

    Pre-1999 from 1993, when Amaechi’s political ancestors were still hedging their bets, not deciding if the war against the political military wasn’t class suicide — democracy be damned! — Tinubu threw himself, and everything he had, into the fray.

    Even after anti-democracy forces had gained ascendancy, from the panicky, military-rigged transition, it was this same Tinubu that bided his time and eventually chased them all away: first from his native South West from 2007; then from Abuja, in 2015.

    Did Amaechi ever think he was as pivotal to the APC alliance and eventual merger, as Buhari and Tinubu, the most senior partners? Did he ever think, colourful court rumours aside, that Buhari would junk his partner, and pick Amaechi as his successor, even within the democratic framework?

    Believe that, you believe anything! 

    Besides, as the Odili Rivers house is sundered — witness Amaechi, Wike and Fubara, pulling in different directions — the Tinubu Lagos house still stands, though a little frayed at the edges too.  Yet, Amaechi blabs “capacity”!

    This same conceit pushes Amaechi to another wild goose chase: the Atiku-el-Rufai-Amaechi gang-up, simply because they all declared themselves tired of power Siberia!

    This though, comes with a caveat — or two.

    Court commentators and avid meddlers have hardly been fair to el-Rufai, on his post-2023 poll blues. Even if el-Rufai was dumped by the president, must they always rub it in? If they can’t make new friends for the president, must they mint him new foes?

    The president himself, for good or for ill, will answer for his harsh surgical policies.  He campaigned as a “progressive”.  But his ultra-right economic policies — business first, the people much later — paints him as a pragmatist, now powered by neo-liberalism.

    Even then Tinubu, warts and all, still towers above these three in the so-called “capacity” — policies or politics.

    Abubakar Atiku is fated to political self-destruct.  He’s only in for what he can get out.  As Obasanjo’s Vice President, he made himself president of vice to upstage his boss.

    As part of APC, he scurried off immediately he couldn’t land the presidential ticket. 

    At a critical juncture of North-South power-sharing in 2023, he chose self over PDP, his party; and self over the North, his region.  By that, he near-completely smashed PDP in the South.  That party may never recover from that setback. 

    His blind power ardour is yet again leading him to familiar doom in 2027.  The grim logic is simple: if you’re not there for anyone, why should anyone be there for you?

    El-Rufai’s self-nemesis is emotional retardation.  As acute is he is — one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, North or South — he’s emotionally stunted. 

    That explains his tragic presumptions: as rushing to declare himself SDP — but thinking deeply about it much later! — just to spite real or phantom APC foes.

    It’s this deluded company that Amaechi joins, in strutting naïveté, to further shatter his mystique. 

    Well, he comes with a rich resume!  Who would shun his ruling APC Abuja presidential glory, to join the Umuahia inauguration of LP Abia Governor, Alex Otti, just to make the point he is sulking, over an election lost and won?

    Politics might be a leveller, where everyone is free to brag. But for Amaechi, comparing himself to Tinubu on “capacity”, is raw conceit that shows nothing but full emptiness!

    Again, colourful pidgin has the last word — and laugh: capacity kee you dia!

  • Ejeagha as a philosopher

    Ejeagha as a philosopher

    Gentleman Mike Ejeagha, the exponent of the popular, gwo gwo gwo ngwo, was a man who saw his tomorrow. He foretold his glorious end, in one of his folklore, “uwa ngbede ka mma” which can be translated as, “the good eventide is the best”. That song enjoins patience and orderliness in life. He narrates that after a child is born, it takes caring to nurture the child to begin to sit, to crawl, to stand and to take the first step. And eventually, to walk, and before long, to work for the parents.

    He intones that from the ground we begin to climb. From counting one, we move to two, three and eventually to a billion. He juxtaposed life with the two types of palm tree, which produces a variety of palm wine. While Ngwo when harvested produces a lot of wine, like a broken dam; it however dies off within a few days. After, the tree trunk dries up, and at best the owner can only use it as fire wood, to cook.

    But conversely, the Nkwu, which gives out a little wine, every day, produces for many years. It lives very long, productively. Ejeagha, prayed to God that his life should not be like that of Ngwo tree, but rather should be like the Nkwu. He prayed for long life and of course to be perennially productive like the Nkwu. He admonished everyone to note that it is more sensible to first secure a land, before one puts up any structure on it.

    He philosophizes on the planting process. When one gets a land, the first step is to cut the bushes and gather the rubbles and burn them. Then the farm space is cleared and heaps of mounds are cultivated, after which the yam, is sowed. The owner keeps watch and continues to clear the weeds, nursing the yam until maturity. After the harvest, the owner decides how to enjoy the harvest. He exercises what in law is referred to as acts of ownership. He can choose to cook, roast, pound or do whatsoever pleases him, with his yams. The owner enjoys the revelry of a feast, as he takes his snuff after a munificent meal.    

    The law maxim which says quicquid plantatur solo solo cedit, which means, he who owns the title to the land, owns what is permanently affixed on it is applicable to the philosophy expounded by Ejeagha. Should a trespasser without settling the ownership of a land, go ahead to build on it; when the rightful ownership is determined, the owner owns what is on the land. Ejeagha calls for the virtue of patience, as anyone who lives by the sword dies by the sword, and if one acquires hastily, one may dispense hastily.

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    Ejeagha, lived to be 95, and remained a veteran of highlife music, till the end. Like the Nkwu, he continued to be productive, even in his nineties. Last year, one of his hit songs, Ka esi Le Onye Isi Oche, was re-popularized with the gwo gwo gwo ngwo challenge by, Brain Jotter, a content creator. Ejeagha, through a satirical fable, sang on the consequences of greed. The song tells the story of how the tortoise tricked the elephant into submitting itself as a gift to the king to enable the tortoise marry the king’s daughter.

    In the story, the king first called a democratic assembly, of his entire household, to know why the Princess, Adaeze refused requests from suitors, for her hand in marriage. Ejeagha, enjoins leaders to once in a while call such an assembly, so the governed could air their views and any displeasure, as to how they are being governed. At the meeting, was the queen and all the siblings of Adaeze. The king asked the princess to tell them why she has refused all marriage proposals.

    The princess, explained that whoever wants to marry her, must present the king with an elephant, as a gift. So that whenever, there is a ceremony, she will climb the elephant to showcase to all and sundry, that she is a princess. The tortoise, who was interested in marrying the princess, went to his friend, the elephant, and cajoled him that the king has set a date for a festival in commemoration of his enthronement as a king, and that he has requested the elephant to be the chairman at the occasion.

    The elephant who has been thinking of how to endear himself to the king, so he could marry the daughter saw that as an opportunity to get close to the king. He accepted the offer and got himself ready for the occasion. On the big day, the tortoise deliberately came late to take the overexcited elephant on the trip to the king. The elephant kept urging the tortoise to hasten up, so they don’t miss the ceremony. Cunningly, the tortoise told the elephant it may be better for him to climb on the back of the elephant, who has a faster pace.

    Without thinking, the elephant asked the tortoise to climb on his back. Again, the tortoise, asked that the elephant put a rope on his neck, so that he can use it, to hop on the back of the elephant. Again, the elephant agreed, as his mind was set on the big occasion where he was going to be the chairman. Approaching the king’s palace, the tortoise raised a song, my lord the king, I have brought a present, the elephant. When asked by the elephant what he was singing, he said he was praying for long life for the elephant, who will be the chairman of the ceremony, but it sounded as if he was saying, he was making a present of the elephant to the king. 

    With pomp and pageantry, in the giddy atmosphere of music and dance, the tortoise led the elephant to the king, and handed him the rope, and intoned that the elephant is a gift to marry the king’s daughter. As I listened to the music again and again, my mind searched the dramatis personae, in the many gwo gwo gwo ngwo dances, in the political scenes. The more I look, the more the various role plays in the political arena, is increasingly bearing some resemblance to Gentleman Mike Ejeagha’s folklore.

    Ejeagha, who hails from Umuagba Imezi-Owa, a stone throw from Amofia, Ogwofia-Owa, where this writer comes from, must be chuckling in his grave, as fiction is comingling with reality in the political sweepstakes. As the All Progressives Congress (APC), engages in unending harvests and thanksgiving, I have been trying to decipher the role-players. Who is the tortoise and who is the elephant, in each of the harvest? Of course, it will be silly, to ask who is the king.

  • Bode George: The last PDP man standing

    Bode George: The last PDP man standing

    Bode George has an abiding faith in PDP. And using the humongous amount of Rivers State funds frittered away on some ungrateful “chop and clean mouth” PDP politicians as index of measurement, the only other person close to Bode George in this regard is Nyesom Wike, his estranged godson, with whom he is currently engaged in brickbats over the soul of their beloved PDP.

    Not many of those who once swore by PDP’s name want to identify with it today. Many are in a mad rush to abandon a sinking PDP ship. The South-south geo-political zone once regarded as the bedrock of PDP, we now know, was because the now tattered PDP umbrella provided cover for massive mismanagement of state funds in a zone where leaders claim stealing state funds is not corruption but ‘misapplication of funds’. (Augustus Aikhomu and Goodluck Jonathan).

    While PDP stalwarts who once ate with their 10 fingers in the 16 years of the locust are today falling over each other to escape PDP sinking ship, what we hear from the likes of Olusegun Obasanjo, Atiku Abubakar, David Mark, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, etc., the oligarchy that changed PDP from its founding fathers’ dream to a garrison-commanded by self-serving leaders, is a foreboding silence.

    Bode George however remains not only passionate about PDP, but its very embodiment as conceived by its founding fathers. When Obasanjo asked him to choose a role he would like to play after being foisted on the Yoruba nation and Nigeria as PDP candidate in 1998 by the military and the interest they serve, Bode George’s choice without hesitation was a PDP apparatchik. And even when offered the position of Sole Administrator of NPA by Abiye Sekibo, after the government had been inaugurated, his response was “My Honourable, thank you for the honour. I have more important job to do in the party than go and be any sole administrator.”

    Even now as the oligarchy and other PDP stakeholders pretend not to hear the tolling of the death knell of their party, Bode George’s vociferous voice is the only one ‘jarring our earlobes’. Nigerians can still hear the ringing echo of his voice as he squared up with Arise TV’s Charles Aniagolu last week, insisting:

    “PDP is like Iroko tree. Or the Oak tree found in Saudi Arabia”; “PDP is the only party in Nigeria”; “Our party is not like APC owned by individual”; PDP party as packaged by our founding fathers has the capacity to solve Nigeria problems”, etc.

    More intriguing is that George is not exhibiting any evidence he is ready to give up on PDP despite his political son’s last week call on him to go and ‘read newspapers’  if he had nothing doing. And that was after challenging him to identify one politician PDP made from Lagos or one PDP elected politician he successfully supported despite his 25 years of misguided war against Tinubu. AD senators Wahab Dosumu, Adeseye Ogunlewe and Musiliu Obanikoro that he and Obasanjo lured into PDP in 2002 was regarded as ‘mandate theft’ while the 2003 governorship mandate theft in Edo, Ondo, Osun, George took credit for, were reversed by the courts.

    Long before Wike’s advice, one of his other disrupting political son, Ayo Fayose had, back in 2020, asked him to retire to give room to younger ones. In his words “it’s high time Bode George retires. Let him be a support stand for the younger ones in the party …all those stories of how we formed this party in 1998, eight of us sat in my sitting room to form the party, is no longer important because the young too must be allowed to grow. (African Examiner September 30, 2020).

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    Indeed, the joke was on George himself when in an attempt to admonish Wike who is insisting “he is Mr PDP’ resorted to his favourite Shakespeare quote “Life is like a walking shadow… It is like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and after that you are heard no more”.

    Consumed by his love for PDP, Bode George is yet to come to terms that there is indeed ‘time for everything’.

    But is Bode George’s passion enough to save PDP? I don’t think so. It will appear it is too late to change the tide. It is also of little relief that not many members of his embattled party share his optimism.

     For the PDP governors who are not ready to take chances, because they are seeking re-election: “if the taste of the wine changes, drinking habit must change” or “if you must fly to Abuja and your private jet is grounded, it will be foolhardy not to join another plane that guarantees a safe flight”. And to PDP former governors like Gabriel Suswan and PDP stalwarts like Segun Sowunmi, Atiku’s former spokesman, PDP is ‘in intensive care’. 

    And neither can anyone fault APC, the irresistible bride that “we are in a democracy and democracy allows freedom of association”.

    Unfortunately for Bode George, the pervading gloominess gives no assurance of light at the end of the tunnel. By the verdict of students of political party system including John Campbell, former US envoy to Nigeria, PDP, unlike parties that serve as recruitment centres for political office holders and as modernization agents, is in fact not a political party. It is an association of ‘wheelers and dealers he dismissed during a debate on Nigeria in British House of Commons as “an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria that came together essentially as a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils”.

    Much as PDP card-carrying members in borrowed toga of journalists may want to change the narrative, not all Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia. Nigerians remember it was PDP stalwarts that created artificial fuel scarcity at the onset of Obasanjo’s government to stampede him to set up the Petroleum Pricing Product Regulatory Authority (PPPRA) under which PDP leaders and their siblings defrauded Nigeria of about N1.6trillion through fuel subsidy scam. Only last week, the son of retired Brigadier Ahmadu Ali, former PDP chairman and PPPRA chairman, was jailed for 13 years for the same offence.

    Nigerians remember Atiku Abubakar supervised the ill-implemented privatisation programme, through which Nigeria’s total investments of about $100billion acquired between 1957 and 1997 were sold to PDP stalwarts and their fronts for a paltry $1.5billion.

    We remember the monetization policy was another scam through which PDP stalwarts including ex-Senate President David Mark, ex- House speaker Dimeji Bankole and ex CBN governor Chukwuma Soludo bought their mansions at giveaway prices while other government officials and civil servants converted to personal use properties kept in their temporary care for our children at prices determined by them.

    Of course, there was the unbundling of PHCN during which government injected between $8billion and $16billion, taxpayers money only to have the electricity distribution companies sold to stalwarts of PDP some of whom shamelessly donated as much as N5b to President Jonathan’s 2015 re-election bid.

    Bode George’s passion for PDP will most likely not erase the memory of how Sambo Dasuki, President Jonathan’s National Security Adviser (NSA) became an ATM without password with leading PDP men and women sharing US$2.1billion loan meant for our fighting soldiers’ hardware and welfare.

    We remember very clearly the years of the locusts when for 16 years, PDP stalwarts without self-discipline, ate with their 10 fingers and boasted they would rule for an uninterrupted 60 years.

    Without excusing Buhari’s eight years of gross incompetence and Emefiele’s mismanagement of foreign exchange market through forex ‘round tripping’ or even the toll of current President Tinubu’s two years economic policies on Nigerians, we remember Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Nigerians that Jonathan government was borrowing money to pay salaries. And more foreboding, both she and Chukwuma Soludo predicted that whoever or whatever party took over in 2015 would have an uphill task trying to reverse the damage of 16 years of economic recklessness.

    Unfortunately for George, Atiku Abubakar who presided over the sales of our budding industries and Peter Obi, the ‘container economist,’ who as importer of foreign labour, are jointly responsible for our nation’s current nightmare. Driven by greed for power, both have serially betrayed PDP, their party as they did Nigeria.

    The tragedy is that they are today jostling for power not on the basis of a new vision to redress the tragedy they brought on a nation where my total estacode as a young journalist going for holiday in London in 1982 was N500, an amount that cannot buy a loaf of bread today, but on the basis of current temporary hardship, the result of their repeated rape on Nigeria.

  • Fencing Nigeria’s borders

    Fencing Nigeria’s borders

    Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa last week identified two key challenges militating against the war against insecurity in the country. At a security summit in Abuja themed, “Renewed Hope Agenda: Citizens’ Engagement and National Security”, Musa rooted for the fencing of Nigeria’s borders as it will forestall the entrance of armed groups and reduce the escalating insecurity.

    He also fingered good governance at the local level as a means of tackling the root causes of insecurity.

    “Border management is very critical. We have countries that because of the level of insecurity in their country had to fence their borders”, he stated. The CDS cited the examples of Pakistan which fenced its 1,350 kilometres of border with Afghanistan and the 1,400-kilometre border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq which is completely fenced to buttress his point. According to him, it was after Pakistan fenced its border with Afghanistan that they had peace.

    And he asked, “Can we start thinking of fencing our border, we have 1,500km with Niger Republic, 1,900km with Cameroon. Chad is there, all over us, we are surrounded by francophone countries. The Sahel is heating up; if the Sahel falls, it is Nigeria that they are interested in”.

     This is perhaps, the first time in recent memory a top government official is coming up with the idea of fencing the borders with neighbouring countries. But that is not to imply that the multi-dimensional challenges facing the national economy due to the porosity of the borders have not long been recognised. Not at all.

    Not with the penchant by the government to blame the socio-economic and security challenges confronting the country on illegal infiltration by foreigners into the country. One of the key arguments raised overtime to justify the so-called fuel subsidy removal was the unabating smuggling of fuel across the borders where it sells at higher prices, depriving the government of the needed revenue for development.

    At the centre of all manner of smuggling in goods and services to neighbouring countries has been the inability of the government to effectively police the country’s extensive borders.  According to a former minister of Interior, Abba Moro, as of 2013, “there were over 1,499 irregular/legal and 84 regular/legal officially identified entry routes into Nigeria”. The number could be quite higher given that there are other illegal routes and pathways not officially known to the government.

    Even then, official knowledge of these illegal routes has not had any substantial impact on the illegal movement of goods, persons and services in and across the country. It has been difficult to effectively police the vast borders of the country in the absence of border fences, barriers and modern surveillance equipment.

    Matters are not helped by thriving corruption among officials of the Nigerian Customs Services and other sister agencies that man the identified entry points into the country. Complications in identifying certain categories of foreigners due to affinities bordering on culture, language and religion constitute another serious challenge.

    Fencing the borders is a good start to controlling the influx of aliens into the country. It is definitely an expensive venture given the vastness of the borders. But the idea is not to have all our borders fenced in one fell swoop. That could turn out a tall order.

    The first step is to identify those borders that account for the highest traffic in terms of security challenges and smuggling and begin with them. In this regard, the borders in the Northeast from where terrorists strike and run into the neighbouring countries should be accorded top priority.

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    The current war against terrorism is replete with accounts of terrorists either of the Boko Haram, ISWAP or Lukarawa variant striking communities in the northeast and northwest only to return to their bases in neighbouring countries The fact that Nigeria is currently involved in joint security engagement with some of its neighbours in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency reinforces the importance of gradual fencing of borders in those theatres of war.

    This should be followed up with the fencing of those areas that are notorious for all manner of smuggling activities. Before then, the government should take quick measures to acquire modern sophisticated surveillance equipment for monitoring what goes on at the country’s borders.

    A country unable to effectively monitor and control its borders cannot seriously lay claims to its sovereignty. Is it not sufficiently troubling that insurgency simulated and perfected in the Sahel region is easily deployed to kill, maim and destabilise the country? Ironically, our leaders are quick to blame the cascading insecurity on infiltrators from neighbouring countries as if we are helpless. Sometimes, the way these blames are traded mock the officials behind them.

    A few years ago, when killings by the herdsmen and their despoliation of host communities went out of hand, the government was quick to lay the blame at the doorsteps of foreign herders. Former president, Muhammadu Buhari had in 2018, seven years after the death of Libyan leader, Muammar Ghaddafi, blamed him for the alarming dimension insecurity had assumed in Nigeria.  He told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby in London, that the arms Ghaddafi provided to his supporters had filtered into Nigeria where they are now being used to fuel killings across the north-central.

    “These gunmen were trained and armed by Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. When he was killed, the gunmen escaped with their arms. We encountered some of them fighting with Boko Haram. Herdsmen we used to know carried only sticks and maybe a cutlass to clear the way, but these ones now carry sophisticated weapons” he had said.

    Buhari may have brought the purported Libyan angle to cover up the Fulani herdsmen who have been serially accused in the killings in many communities especially in the north-central. Curiously, Libya shares no border with Nigeria and is not on record that it is destabilising its neighbours.

    So, it is difficult to fathom how Ghaddafi could be blamed for the crimes committed by Fulani herdsmen or Boko Haram that originated from this country. It is possible to encounter guns from that country smuggled into our shores from neighbouring countries. It is possible to encounter other makes of sophisticated weapons in the hands of sundry criminals. But it will be wrong to attribute the crimes committed with such guns to the country they came from just like the ones our security agencies work with. At any rate, those fighting alongside Boko Haram may have been recruited by their sponsors, enablers and financiers whom we are told can be found among top politicians, government functionaries and the military. Borno State governor, Babagana Zulum repeated this accusation just recently.

    But that is beside the point. The real issue here is that the relative ease with sundry criminals, arms and ammunitions flood the country is because of the porosity of our borders. Nigeria has vast and unmanned borders with at least four African countries. Some of these countries’ citizens share remarkable affinity with sections of the country and this blurs efforts to differentiate them. Little wonder the horde of foreigners lurking around the major cities undetected.

     Apart from the security challenges it poses, there also socio-economic dimensions to it. That is why cross-border smuggling has gone on unabated depriving the country the resources to the tackle the crisis of multidimensional poverty that has been the sad tale of our citizens.

    The CDS spoke of good governance at the local level as a veritable way of tackling insecurity. That goes without saying. The uncanny contradiction is how to actualise that high-minded objective when it has remained largely illusory at the state and national levels.

    But that does not diminish the potency of the recommendation. It only reinforces the challenges on the way to tackling the cascading insecurity in the country. And since our leaders are in the habit of rationalising the cycle of insecurity on infiltration by foreigners, it is only proper that securing the borders with neighbouring countries is key to winning the war against terrorism and cross border smuggling. That would seem the heuristic value of the CDS intervention.  Whether the leadership can muster the political will to see this through, is another ballgame.

  • Buhari’s vomit

    Buhari’s vomit

    The battle for peace in the northeast has taken a new dimension with men and arms coming in hordes from the Sahel countries around us.

    I think we should enlist the genius of military contractors, and let those mercenaries come back and tackle the beasts of death and plunder. The fellows were driven home by the Buhari administration, and their expertise has been missing in the region.

    Mercenaries know no mercy. They know stealth and strategy. They evince ruthlessness and result, and they have no respect for the enemy, especially because they are cultural agnostics.

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     They have no roots in the place, and so can root out the bad weeds. They want money, we want peace. A great trade-off. President Jonathan made progress with them, and we need their acumen to add to what we have on the ground.