The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Nipco: The RRN angle

    Nipco: The RRN angle

    After some back and forth, he blurted out: “all I need is the RRN. With that I can reprint the receipt from my machine and sort this issue out”. RRN is not Greek; it is the Retrieval Reference Number normally found on the receipt of every POS transaction. But many of us do not pay attention to it until there is trouble. I learnt the hard way too.

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    Upon enquiry, he said I could get the RRN from my bank and I did. Despite that, Nipco and its official who asked for the RRN are still playing games with me on refunding the N20000 debited from my account for a failed transaction at their Arepo, Ogun State retail outlet since January 15.

    The battle has just started, and God willing, there will be more on the RRN angle the next time out.

  • Shadow chasing

    Shadow chasing

    It Is Laughable. The suggestion, that is, for a team to shadow the activities of the government. And as the Yoruba wise-saying goes, you laugh over something that is beyond weeping for. Coming from Patrick Utomi, that of the Patito’s Gang fame that used to pontificate on air, who you think should know better, the suggestion, to say the least, is ludicrous.

    A shadow cabinet, government or team or by whatever name or guise he styles it, is the least of the nation’s problems now, with its avalanche of opposition parties. For another, a ‘shadow team’ is alien to a presidential system of government like ours. We run a presidential, and not a semi-presidential, or parliamentary system of government, with all executive powers residing in the President. The system recognises the opposition, but not as a shadow government in the sense that Utomi is proposing.

    Utomi wants his shadow team to be the face of the new opposition in the light of the failure of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP) to which he once belonged, and others to effectively play that role. The opposition including the Social Democratic Party (SDP) on which platform some people are planning to coalesce to wrest power in 2027 is crumbling like a pack of cards. Having seen the handwriting on the wall, the smooth talking Pat is creeping out of the sinking boat and beating a new path to political relevance.

    He says he is not looking for an appointment, but is embarking on this journey in the national interest. As usual, he regales his audience with how he joined government at an early age to serve in the administration of former President Shehu Shagari in the second republic as a result of his brilliance. The same brilliance that earned him the jobs of chief executive of the moribund Volkswagen of Nigeria and the chair of the liquidated BankPhB which former MD is now marking time in jail for theft and fraud.

    No doubt, Utomi is brilliant. No one becomes a professor, the highest academic honour which can only be earned, without being smart and intellectually sound. This is why many, including some professors like him, are wondering why on earth he is pushing for a shadow team. This is no television debate where he and his gang just threw fanciful arguments on democracy, economy and governance about.

    There is a limit to which theories can be pushed and propounded. We cannot keep on theorising when there is an urgent work to be done. Is his proposed shadow team the answer to whatever he thinks are the ills of the country? Utomi like every Nigerian has the right to hold views and express them the way he likes, but he cannot do so in breach of the Constitution. The 1999 Constitution talks about a presidential lsystem, with the executive, legislature and judiciary as equal partners.

    The executive functions are subject to the scrutiny of the legislature with the judiciary as the arbiter of disputes within the system. This principle of check-and-balance is what makes the system tick. In this system, there is no room for shadow government. It can only be in the imagination of manipulators who think they can use their academic and media reach to upturn what is already constitutionally provided for.

    Nigerians know better. They know when certain people want to manipulate the system for selfish reasons, citing public goodwill. What public goodwill is that when Utomi is coming from a place of bias and partisanship. He stepped down for LP’s Peter Obi for the party’s presidential ticket in the 2023 elections.

    How then can such a tainted figure call for a shadow team and expect to be taking seriously? Beyond his call being unconstitutional, what is the shadow team going to do that he, Obi, Atiku Abubakar, and their co-travellers are not already doing? Have they not been talking and criticising the government? Why then does Utomi require a shadow team to do that? What is the difference between what he is doing now and what the shadow team will do?

    Hear him on this amorphous shadow team: “It will be a group of people that will meet at intervals…say like two weeks. Each shadow team with a watch on an aspect of government will go in there and ferret out information, make it public and seek a second opinion. The Constitution guarantees this. It does not say there will be a shadow government or not. Shadow government is just a nomenclature.”

    “Ferret out” information. What if the ‘shadow teamers’ are caught in the process?’ Does Utomi remember the Watergate scandal under former America’s President Richard Nixon? We are not saying that citizens should not hold the government accountable, what we are saying is that they should do so within the ambit of the law, as guaranteed under Section 22 of the Constitution, which says:

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    The press, radio, television and other agencies of the mass media shall at all times be free to uphold… the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people.

    Utomi’s proposal is offensive to the Constitution. He wants to, through his proposed shadow team, usurp the oversight functions of the legislature which is empowered to scrutinise the executive. It cannot arrogate that power to any shadow team because in his word: “shadow government is just a nomenclature”. It is not a mere nomenclature. It is the recognised title of the opposition in a parliamentary system like what Britain operates.

    To call shadow government just a nomenclature is Utomi’s way of hiding the illegal act he is trying to perpetrate with a name that is politically and democratically recognised under the parliamentary system. It will not work. Right-thinking Nigerians can see through his gimmick. It is not too late for him to retrace his steps from this shadow chasing shadow cabinet. Or is he thinking of a shadow government under the conspiracy theory of individuals lording it over elected leaders? The professor of political economist should know the consequences of that.

  • Indo-Pakistan war over Kashmir and Jammu

    Indo-Pakistan war over Kashmir and Jammu

    Shortly after the division of the British empire (RAJ) over India, the territories were divided into two, the bigger and most populous part retained the name India while the remaining largely Muslim parts were constituted into west Pakistan, modern PAKISTAN, and East Pakistan today’s BANGLADESH, and the two sides were separated by more than a thousand miles of Indian territory.

    To show the artificiality of the new Pakistan, the name was an acronym of the provinces constituting it, namely Balochistan, Khyber, Pakhtunkhwa (formerly NWFP) Punjab and Sindh. These provinces, along with Islamabad capital territory and the federally administered Tribal Areas, constituted the federation of Pakistan.

    To show the instability of the Muslim state each of which differed from each other ethnically but united by religion broke into BANGLADESH and PAKISTAN in 1971 after a brutally fought war which ended in 1971 in which India supported the secessionist East Pakistan.

    This was virtually an impossible country to run with the west Pakistani army ruling East Pakistan like a conquered territory. Mahatma Gandhi, the founder of modern India, had foreseen this and had tried to persuade his Muslim colleague and founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Governor General of Pakistan (1947-1948), but the Muslim – Hindu distrust was so fundamental that emotion prevailed over centuries of mutual hatred.

    Despite the problems of the two embryonic nations, they were again faced with what to do with the knotty problem of Kashmir and Jammu that were left unsolved by the departing British. This territory was ruled over by a Hindu Maharaja over a vast Muslim population. The principle of the religion of the ruler should be the religion of the population became impossible to apply.

    When the majority Muslim population tried to seize power in 1947, the Hindu Maharaja appealed to India for help and Pakistan went into the war to help the Muslims, thus a territorial war became a religious war on top of the approximately 2 million deaths and about 20 million displaced people.

    The enormous human loss attendant on the partition had remained a bitter memory for the two countries and had damaged their relations leading to war over Kashmir in 1965, 1971, and 19991 and a seven-day shooting and bombing campaign in 2025, following the murder of 25 Indian tourists in Kashmir by presumably Kashmiris nationalists resisting suspicious Indian Settlers.

    A nationalist resurgent India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has, in recent years, changed the constitution of India, administered Kashmir and Jammu to union states removing the temporality of the province thus denying the promised UN referendum promised the territory to determine its eventual status in 1948 to the chagrin of Kashmiris who either want to join Pakistan or become independent.

    India legitimately feels armed Muslim terrorists, both in India itself where there are more than 100 million Muslims who feel disgruntled or discriminated against by Hindu overlords using their majority dominant demographic position against them, and Muslims in disputed Kashmir, are being encouraged into armed terrorism.

    Optimists have felt that with the increasing wealth of India there will be less tension between the two religious communities but it does not seem to be getting better as long as there are politicians available and ready to fan the embers of religious fanaticism.

    To add to the complexity of the situation, India became a nuclear weapons state in May 1998; within two weeks later, Pakistan, after a series of nuclear tests, declared itself a nuclear weapons state. This means any war between the two antagonistic states may deteriorate to nuclear conflict in which the side effects of their nuclear exchange will spread beyond the two countries.

    To add salt to injury, the Indian – Chinese border cuts across Kashmir and Jammu, which means final settlement of the Kashmir/ Jammu problem cannot ignore the interests of China which has recently become a strategic ally of Pakistan.

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    It is interesting that the United States allegedly has a military base in Pakistan, not too far away from the nuclear weapons sites of Pakistan, apparently keeping watch over the nuclear activities of the Pakistanis.

    Pakistan politics is hugely dominated by the military, and when it is not directly in power controls the levers of power, installing and removing prime ministers as it wishes. A critic of this situation said Pakistan is the most dangerous country where the possibility of “a mad mullah armed with nuclear weapons may seize power and threaten the whole world “is a pressing concern.

    An Islamic fundamentalist regime may decide to spread the joy of nuclear Armageddon to the tinderbox of the Middle East in a war to end all wars! As a student in London in the1960s and 1970s, I witnessed the mutual hatred of Indian and Pakistani students, even in a foreign country, and on visiting India in the 1990s, the mutual hatred was still palpable. Yet the two people must live side by side with each other, and even though separated by religion and culture but united by history and geography and race.

    It’s easy for an outsider to suggest that India accepts a UN conducted referendum, but the possibility of India being surrounded by potential enemies in Kashmir and Jammu, Pakistan, China, and Bangladesh is too ghastly to consider. Perhaps a condominium of India and Pakistan over Kashmir and Jammu could be tried for half a century before the eventual status of the country is determined.

    An economic community of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sikkim, Nepal and possibly Myanmar could be encouraged in which case the power of Kashmir will be a case of subsidiarity. A case of no war, no peace, is just not reasonable and acceptable. There are just too many problems that the UN is simply too overwhelmed to handle.

  • Dangerous lust

    Dangerous lust

    Life becomes breathtaking for once, and only once, everyday, for Aliyu Salisu. Just before dusk, while he is perched on the rail tracks of Galadima, in the bowels of Maiduguri, Borno State. Out there, in the sweltering heat, he tastes the unprecedented cool of ‘Ice.’  He sees for the umpteenth time, the city’s limitless possibilities and his place amid the urban sprawl.

    In that space and at that hour, he sees what his relatives are unable to envision about him: Aliyu, the successful timber merchant; Aliyu, the billionaire transporter, Aliyu, the responsible son.

    In a rare encounter with him, the 28-year-old widower recounted with zest, why 4pm is his best hour of the day. In that hour, he whisked out his discoloured glass pipe and fired up his daily dose of methamphetamine (meth) aka Ice, a ‘dangerous’ synthetic drug. Aliyu sucked on his pipe with conquering immersion, all the thwarted longings of his life urgent on his puckered brow and dependent breath. His face was hard and calloused with craving, and his eyes, reddish, like burnt earth.

    As the “Ice” thawed, he lighted an ample wrap of marijuana thus “stepping down” or chasing off the chills that succeeded his high at every deep drag. His mouth, incongruous at exhalation, became slightly distended like that of a whistling boy.

    The marijuana smoke was ingenuously haunting; it spread over him like a brassy blanket, and made the rest of him a soiled, grey background. Irredeemably high and past caring, miseries that lied within their grave of submissive sternness in his heart, spilled their troubled ghosts nonchalantly out of his mouth – all in a smoky spiral.

    His wife dumped him and “followed (married) a Boko Haram insurgent” and his paternal uncle believes he would “never amount to anything,” he drawled. Soon as his euphoria began to ebb, Salisu sprang abruptly from his seat muttering: “Why dem close this place sef?” his eyes scanning dejectedly what was left of Galadima’s redlight district.

    His smoking routine usually ended with a romp in a prostitute’s bed, in Galadima’s days of decadent glory. All that is history now as the Borno government demolished several brothels and pubs around Maiduguri, acting on intelligence that they posed security threats. More than 67 structures were destroyed for violating extant state laws that banned their operations since 2018.

    More curious kinks abound on the streets, in the pubs and numerous drug dens scattered across the country. For instance, while Salisu and his friend seek their highs in marijuana and synthetic meth, Suleiman Tanko finds his thrill in madaran sukudai, a potion chemically prepared with formalin (formaldehyde gin).

    Perhaps because it tastes like wild love, making him dance to a beat no one could hear. From dawn through dusk, Tanko boogies in ecstasy to the psychoactive potion. Although it is used to preserve corpses by mortuary attendants, it incites Tanko’s apathy to “big and small trouble;” like his joblessness and tragic loss of his drunkard son, Yusufu, in a gang fight.

    Yusufu, 13, took to the bottle very early; like his father, he fell in love with madaran sukudai, continually downing it to get high. In the end, he got stabbed to death, while high, in a turf war along the Galadima rail track, where local gangs converged to smoke and drink. But Tanko, has no regrets. “Wata ya seyray kankantchi’ii garra,” he said, meaning: “Does the moon trouble itself about the punishment of an ant? I won’t worry and die before my time,” he said, in the tenor of a man whose native “land” had gnawed his joy to feed grotesque lusts.

    At the backdrop of Salisu and Tanko’s wild indulgences, several youths across the country abuse hard drugs, despite the government’s outlawing of the sale and consumption of psychoactive substances.

    Strolling along Oju Irin – along Fagba-New Oko Oba axis – the modern-day Mecca for Lagos addicts, a suspicious mix of darting eyes and dank smell gives you the impression that the sea of shops and stalls offer something slightly more sinister than your standard cannabis, SK and heroin replicas.

    Between 2018 and 2019, nearly 15% of Nigeria’s adult population (around 14.3 million people) reported a “considerable level” of use of psychotropic drug substances, a rate much higher than the 2016 global average of 5.6% among adults according to a survey anchored by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse (CRISA) with technical support from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and funding from the European Union.

    Baring any urgent intervention, the typical life span of a teenage addict is just two or three years from time of the addiction, argued Sarat Ilyasu, an addiction psychiatrist. For instance, Theophilus Adeoye, 17, died of excessive consumption of vodka and tramadol one year into his addiction.

    The Medical Director (MD) of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital (FNPH), Yaba, Dr. Oluwayemi Ogun equally sounded the alarm over the increasing prevalence of drug abused induced mental disorders among children, adolescent and adult Nigerians saying over 150 new cases are admitted at the hospital and its Child and Adolescent Centre, Oshodi Annexe every week.

    Reacting to Lagos teens’ addiction to Gutter Juice (Omi gota) and other psychotropic substances, she told me, in an exclusive interview, that: “Only disturbed people drink Gutter Juice. Each of the substances mixed in the juice is highly dangerous. Codeine, cocaine, Indian Hemp, Tramadol and Rohypnol are seriously dangerous to health the way they are abused.”

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    According to her, there is need for a lot of counselling and education of the youths, particularly at the home front. “They must understand that taking psychotropic substances would have adverse effects on them and possibly wreck their lives. Troubled teenagers especially must understand that the good times are made, not sniffed, drunk or smoked,” she said.

    Priscilla Benjamin-Olaoye, another mental health expert, argued that although the first assumption many parents make is that drug addiction is a spiritual problem, substance abuse is actually a chronic relapsing disorder, leading to mental and behavioural challenges.

    A spiritual problem, she stressed, is one in which the individual has no control over, but “in this case, substance abuse is one which the individual behaves themselves into. You cannot pray yourself out of what you behaved yourself into,” she argued, urging parents to implement a healthy balance of both.

    Benjamin-Olaoye could save her homily for desperate parents like Moyin. Moyin persistently dismissed expert advice that her 16-year-old son, Toye, needed psychiatric help, stressing that her son’s problem is spiritual – even as findings revealed that he was hooked on a strong brew of Gutter Juice containing strong doses of cocaine, boiled cannabis, codeine, tramadol, and rohypnol.

    Occasionally he smoked thinner and crack. After a chain-smoking and binge-drinking episode, Toye went off the deep end.

    Predictably, his mother sought spiritual help. But when exorcism failed with Toye, his mother shipped him off to a traditional asylum in Agbara, Ogun State. When I visited the home, I found the 16-year-old tied to a steel bar fastened to the concrete floor. He looked gaunt with flecks of eko tutu and agunmu (cornmeal and herb) spattered over his parched lips.

    His eyes bulged out of their sockets and his skin bore red welts from sustained beating. He looked spent and lost in an alternate universe but his caregiver paused from using the whip on him to assure that his case had remarkably improved.

  • JAMB lessons; Emefiele’s forfeited estate

    JAMB lessons; Emefiele’s forfeited estate

    The poor showing in JAMB-2025 is another tragic signpost demonstrating the difficulties on the very tortuous road to providing a better education environment for our youth. With so many not getting the marks they require, we have created another army of undereducated youth to add to the 18m Out-Of-School Youth already out there.

    Youth require to be coaxed, led, forced and directed towards acquiring an education they often resent. Our youth cannot be expected to educate themselves. No matter how eager they are, they need massive educational support on the journey. But judging from the lack of content, and poor infrastructure in most of our schools, our youth are required to contribute far too much of themselves to cover up for the gaps in equipment and professional skill.

    A picture is worth 1000 words, except in Nigerian Classrooms, which are almost as if as a policy, are not supplied with pictures, posters, maps et cetera -the standard ‘wall decorations’ in all advanced country school walls. In Nigeria, would you believe, teachers are not allowed to ask students to bring anything to school for fear that an opposition political party will claim the government failed to provide adequately for the students.  Abroad, students are asked to bring books, magazines, newspapers from which articles and pictures may be extracted as educational aids mounted in the walls.

    Youth need dedicated well-paid, well-motivated, well-equipped, modern technique equipped teachers teaching in an encouraging atmosphere -A TEACHER AND STUDENT FRIENDLY LEARNING ENVIRONMENT INCLUDING SANITATION AND TOILET FACILITIES.

    We must never get tired of suggesting and offering improvements in the learning environment. This most recent JAMB2025 is a huge wake-up call to the huge task of achieving AN URGENT 2025 EDUCATION UPGRADE.

    Every day’s delay will add to the failure rate. The yardstick of success in schools and education is a simple one – passing examinations. If the students do not pass the examination, the preparation for the examination system has failed them and the components of the system need to be overhauled, re-examined and upgraded.  If not, the failure rate will be an annual recurring figure.  That figure, more than one million, is actually one million youth with dashed hopes.

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    It must be pointed out that JAMB authorities have done a good job in fighting the cheaters who used mercenaries and other cheating methods like ‘miracle centres.’ But just like the fight INEC has against violence and corruption in elections, corrupt parents and teachers and students fight back.     

    The percentage of classrooms and toilets and laboratories and libraries in schools that are fit for the use of our Fellow Nigerian Youth is very small. It is not expensive to render a good environment for our youth. All over the country, and especially in Lagos, we see thousands of street urchins and older youth, some sent by their parents and others by gang leaders to beg, or steal in broad daylight at street corners and in traffic jams. The JAMB results have no effect on those Out-Of-School youth. But ask yourself how that street urchin trying to clean your windscreen in today’s traffic jam would have done if he or she had been given the opportunity to go to school. No one will know until and unless those youth are sent to school.

     The final forfeiture of the 753 duplex or 1506-unit massive estate in Abuja linked with Emefiele, the disgraced CBN Governor, to the Federal Government, raises several issues. The effrontery of the accused to even try to claim legal ownership is mind-blowing. Congratulations to EFCC on this fantastic achievement which has given 1506 accommodation units to the Government. The battle will now be how to finish the construction of the estate and how to manage it when it is finished. Government is not a good manager of such estates. Will the estate be sold in toto or will part of it be sold to raise funds to complete the remaining houses? Who or which organisations will the houses be allocated too?

     Please try and find out exactly where Emefiele actually got the funds from to carry out this huge megalomaniacal egocentric project. If it was stolen from an international loan or grant, then the funds raised should be used to pay back the loan. It is certainly money from somewhere. Was it a massive bribe? If so, please release the details of the bribe, and which contract was inflated, and which contract it was deducted from, so that it can be refunded to the project.

    We do know that Government officials and political appointees tend to be too greedy, and it is likely that they are already lining up to stake a claim to one or more of the houses. We are so used to never hearing about the fate of forfeited property and funds once the court case is over, that Nigerians will soon lose interest in the matter.

    However, Nigerians need to be informed of every stage of the fate of this estate. There is a need for office space and also residences. Beyond the needs of civil servants and Ministries, Agencies and Departments, MAD, Sports, the Mentally and Physically Challenged and NGOs are also in need of assistance and office and subsidised accommodation. Let the 1506 apartments go round, by lottery, if necessary, to fulfil the needs of the needy, not the politically greedy.          

  • What exactly does Pat Utomi want?

    What exactly does Pat Utomi want?

    Patrick Okedinachi Utomi, popularly known as Pat Utomi, is a professed intellectual, who has been walking the corridors of power and business since his twenties. Born in 1956, he was drafted into politics early to serve in the Shehu Shagari administration (1979-1983). He would later serve in the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Along the line, he also served on the management or Boards of various companies, beginning with the defunct Volkswagen of Nigeria Limited, where he was Assistant General Manager of Corporate Affairs. He was not even 30 yet.

    Now at almost 70, he cannot imagine himself far from either corridor, especially the political corridor to which he has turned maximum attention in the last 20 years or so. No one doubts that Utomi wants the best for Nigeria. However, genuine intellectuals often cringe when they find him inserting himself in discussions about power and even seeking political power for himself. It makes observers think that the best he wants for Nigeria is to create room for himself or his associates in power.

    This is one of several reasons why the criticism of his newfound approach to speaking truth to power has been vociferous. Of course, the power he wants to criticize is the one held by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, who defeated the candidate of Utomi’s party, the Labour Party, in the 2023 presidential election. Nothing, of course, is wrong with the Labour Party, and other opposition parties, criticizing the government in power.

    But there is something wrong with Utomi’s novel approach. Noticing that LP, his latest political party, was crumbling, he chose to go beyond it, instead of helping to rebuild it. Observers quickly read through him and concluded that such a use-and-dump approach is consistent with Utomi’s political trajectory—the tendency to run away from a political party that does not, or may not, favour him anymore.

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    Utomi’s political trajectory speaks volume in this regard. In 2007, he was the candidate of the African Democratic Party for President. He lost. In the following election in 2011, Utomi had moved to join another party, the Social Democratic Mega Party, and was adopted as its presidential candidate. He lost in the general election and the SDMP died with that election. Sensing that the presidency might not be his lot soon, he veered to the governorship. So, in 2019, he joined the APC and obtained the governorship ticket of a faction of the party in Delta state. Eventually, that faction was discredited.

    Back to the presidency again. In 2021, in preparation for the 2023 presidential election, Utomi joined with others in seeking to form yet another mega party. At the end of the day, however, he joined a fourth political party, the Labour Party, to contest for its presidential ticket. He claimed he stepped down for Peter Obi during the primary. He would later join him in the campaigns. Now that the Labour Party is in turmoil, Utomi sensed that it may no longer be an appropriate vehicle for him to criticize the President. He needs a clean slate!

    Now you might ask: What alternative golden ideas just occurred to Utomi on the eve of President Tinubu’s midterm mark, when the political tempo has been rising toward the 2027 presidential election? There’s nothing bad, of course, in criticizing an administration at anytime. What is rather strange about Utomi’s plan is the process. He began in April with what he termed “Freedom Converge”, a mobilised group of 7.2 million Nigerians to converge on Abuja to reclaim the country from “entrenched systems of state capture and self-serving leadership”. The protest, he emphasized, will last nearly one month. And here’s a real threat: “If they try to stop us, somebody may stop them. Let them be sure of that.”

    But before the planned protest, another idea. Within three weeks of announcing Freedom Converge, Utomi launched the “Big Tent Coalition Shadow Government” as a “national emergency response” to President Tinubu’s policy failures. The group, drawn from various opposition parties, would meet every week to deliberate on policy failures in every sector of national life and propose alternatives. All well and good. But why Shadow Government in a presidential system? Even in parliamentary democracies, where the concept of shadow cabinet belongs, members of such a cabinet hold elected political positions in their party, but their party is not in government. No matter your status in the opposition party, you cannot belong to the shadow cabinet unless you have been elected. Any shadow cabinet or shadow government beyond this established norm is viewed as subversive.

    Of what use is a name that raises eyebrows which may obscure whatever good intentions may be behind the formation of Utomi’s group? Developments like this one that make many a professor cringe at Utomi’s actions and pronouncements.

    Some fellow professors have argued that Utomi really has little or nothing to offer beyond drawing attention to himself. When I argued otherwise, they directed me to his old columns and TV programme, named Patito’s Gang. Before he made his point in his columns, he would take you to the latest country he visited, the latest political figure he met, his most recent conference at a topflight university, or the most recent book he read! A similar tactic pervaded Patito’s Gang, his defunct TV programme.

    While these media outings may brand him as a public intellectual, his political participations betray his intellectual disposition. An elder statesman once asked me, “How many true professors can you name who jumped from one political party to another three or four times in search of a presidential or governorship ticket? What’s the difference between Utomi and Atiku Abubakar in that respect?”

    These are questions that raise other questions: What exactly does Utomi want? He alone can answer that question.

    As I indicated last week, no political noise should be ignored as election time approaches. Some noises are full of sound and fury but they signify nothing. Other noises are symbolic in that they stand for something else. In politics, neither type of noise should be ignored. In particular, Pat Utomi’s political noise should not be ignored because it is more than noise.

  • Tinubu’s promises

    Tinubu’s promises

    This writer has always been worried about the unfair distribution of national developmental assets across the regions, in our country, Nigeria. He has argued that if Nigeria is vertically sliced into two, the north-west, western side of the north-central and the south-west have more developmental assets than the other half, made up of the north-east, the eastern part of the north-central and south-east. Until the 1999 constitution provided for 13% derivation, which made Cross River and Akwa Ibom states economically prosperous, the eastern part of south-south was in the same boat as other easterners.

    This became glaringly so after the fall of the First Republic and the consequential civil war. There are variegated causative factors, but what is important is for the Federal Government, which has the bulk of resources and the power to determine where to allocate the national resources, to understand the need for balanced development of all parts of the country. As I have argued, what eventuated into the Boko Haram insurgency is substantially economics. With minimal infrastructure and industrialisation, the north-east quickly degenerated into insurgency as Lake Chad, which provided resources for food, agricultural activities and sustenance, receded.

    With poverty steering the youthful population in the face, they became more aware and more agitated over the failure of governance, and so more receptive of the doctrinaire solutions to the economic challenges. As the initially localised insurgency metamorphosed, the economic challenges exacerbated and got out of control. The little resources available are presently being used to fight an unwinnable war. Of course, as the consequences of poor governance spread farther, the infrastructure and industrial advantages in the north-west could no longer sustain their burgeoning youth population.

    And today, the banditry and criminal activity in that region seems to compete with the consequences of insurgency in the north-east. Similar or worse fate as happened in the north-east could have befallen the south-east, but for the sheer luck that her people are sojourners. Being an itinerant race, the full impact of the low level of infrastructure and industrialisation in the region has not been felt as much as it ought to. The agitation in the region is, of course, traceable partly to those challenges.

    So, the promises of gas, road and railway infrastructure, made by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) during his recent visit to Anambra State, where he was honoured with the title of ‘Dike si mba,’ if fulfilled, will help to address the yawning gaps that have fueled the separatist agitation in the south-east region.

    In a message signed by PBAT’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, titled: “In Anambra, President Tinubu pledges to tackle erosion, reactivate gas plant and integrate state into the national rail system,” the message of hope resounded.

    PBAT had promised to review the railway master plan to incorporate Anambra State. He said: “I am standing before you to say that the Ministry of Transportation is aware and will include the connection in the Master Plan and give it attention.” He also promised on completing roads linking Anambra to Kogi State, to facilitate easier access to Abuja, thus: “abandoned federal road projects that link Anambra to Kogi can then become the fastest gateway between Abuja and Anambra south and south-south. I agree.”

    PBAT made other promising promises. He said: “with our progressive ideological alliance, we will continue to partner with your state and to deliver shared prosperity in Anambra and to all Nigerians.” He went on: “as your President, I have always said and am saying the same now: In our national anthem, we sing, ‘Though tribes and tongues may differ in brotherhood, we stand.” Philosophically, he enthused: “We will continue to be brothers. We are one family, a single family, diverse, living in the same house called Nigeria. We are only staying in different rooms. Our diversity must lead to prosperity. We must work together to be a united Nigeria.”

    This writer cannot agree with the president any less. And the significance of the president’s visit to Anambra State, where the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in 2023, Peter Obi, hails from, cannot be lost. The president persistently referred to Governor Chukwuma Soludo as his friend, and the governor in turn reminded his people and, by extension, the south-east that the people are progressive, and his party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), is a progressive party, just like the party of the President, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

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    Governor Soludo, promised PBAT the support of his party, the APGA, and the people, in 2027, as is customary with the tradition of his party to support a ruling president seeking reelection. The governor intoned: “APGA is ideologically and strategically aligned with the centre.” He went on: “In Anambra, we are firmly and comfortably progressive. We are implementing bold, people-centric programmes, free education, healthcare for women, youth empowerment, and massive agricultural initiatives that align closely with the Renewed Hope Agenda.”

    He sang sweet tunes to the ears of PBAT: “For the sake of Nigeria and future generations, President Bola Tinubu must succeed. We are prepared to support him in every possible way, not just to succeed, but to excel.” This writer supports the strategic partnership of the government of Anambra State with the Federal Government, for the state to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. He has called for strategic partnership between political actors in the south-east and Tinubu’s progressive political family.

    The ideology of now or never is anathema in politics. There was yesterday, there is today, and there will be tomorrow. While the majority of those who voted during the presidential election in the south-east states rebuffed PBAT in 2023, the reality is that today, he is the president, with enormous constitutional powers to share and/or influence the distribution of national resources. It, therefore, makes strategic sense for the leaders of the region to engage with him to attract his favours to their people.

    Looking at the current political landscape, and then imagining what the future portends, especially the 2027 presidential election, there is the likelihood that PBAT would be returned as president. Governor Soludo has sensibly keyed into that by declaring that his party has adopted him as its candidate. If his strategy pays off, as this writer projects it will, then the people of the state and the south- east will be better for it. A strategic alliance in 2027 can bear fruit when the presidency returns to the south.

    This writer urges PBAT to right the historical injustices by keeping the promises he made in Anambra State, last week. As I have argued, no part of the country will enjoy its prosperity if the other parts are disproportionately disadvantaged. The rich will not sleep, when the majority are poor, hungry and wailing.

  • Adebanjo meets Awo

    Adebanjo meets Awo

    “E ku’le, Bami,” Pa Ayo Adebanjo went down, the full-stretch ‘idobale’ as the Yoruba do it, speaking his native Ijebu dialect.  He just arrived the heavens, celestial bliss, provocative peace and all.

    “Ayo!  Iwo reyen!” Awo enthused. “Welcome!  How’s Nigeria?  I hear Reuben (Fasoranti) just turned 99?  Loyal fellow!  Very reliable!  I rejoice with him.  Welcome!”

    Awo then bawled.  “Michael (Ajasin)!  Triple A (Abraham Aderibigbe Adesanya)!  Bola (Ige)! AMA (Adisa Meredith Akinloye)!  All of you, come out!  Ayo is here!”

    They all did.  Their collective “Welcome!” boomed and chimed like some heavenly symphony.

    “Ayo, you see,” Awo explained, “all your Afenifere folks are here.  Even AMA who coined ‘Afenifere’ during our sweet, early Action Group years, before he left us for the conservatives — or were they reactionaries?  They’re all anxious for news on Afenifere. I hope all is well?”

    “Bami, indeed all is well.  Afenifere is strong.  Afenifere is united,” Adebanjo enthused.

    “That’s good!  Very good!  But what’s this we hear about you, shortly before you left, being named ‘National Leader’ when the ‘Leader’ — Reuben — is still there?”

    “Ngbo Bola,” Awo turned to Ige before Adebanjo could respond. “Was there anything like ‘National Leader’ while you were there?”

    “No, my Leader,” Ige answered.  “It was the Leader, followed by the Deputy Leader, which I was before I was called here.”

    “Is that so, Triple A?”

    “Indeed!” Adesanya chipped in.  “I myself was Deputy to my Leader, Baba Ajasin. When Baba became ill and frail, I dutifully acted as Acting Leader. Baba Ajasin was Leader until he was called here.”

    “Is that right, my partner?” looking in the direction of Ajasin.

    Ajasin, always deep and taciturn, only nodded with a good-natured grunt.

    “So, Ayo,” Awo turned from Ajasin to Adebanjo, “what happened?  How come you became ‘National Leader’ when the Leader was still there.  By the way, were you not his Deputy?”

    “Yes, Bami.  I was.”

    “And he even made you Acting Leader, when he said, as I was told, that with old age he could no longer cope with the rigour and demand of the office?”

    “Yes, Bami,” Adebanjo nodded.

    But before he could answer further, Adesanya asked for permission to speak.  Awo gave him the go-ahead.

    “Please permit me, Baba.  Even that — Fasoranti appointing Adebanjo Acting Leader — was not unique.  I remember my own tenure as Leader.  We had suddenly lost Bola,” Adesanya went the historical lane, “in tragic circumstances.  He was my Deputy, and he never acted as anything beyond that, though the likes of Adebanjo also canvassed that we expel him, for nudging his zealous followers to form the rival Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE)”

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    “Was that so, Bola?”  Awo asked.

    Ige nodded, a tad crest-fallen. “But, my Leader …”

    Adesanya continued: “We never expelled him, though.  But in the midst of all that, he was despatched here!  We were all in great pains!  Great anguish, indeed!  So, we named another Deputy to succeed him — Fasoranti.  But later, I fell ill.  It was old age mixed with the rather draining efforts to keep Afenifere as one. During my very serious illness, however, Fasoranti served loyally as Acting Leader.  I hear that his loyalty paved the way for him to become Leader after me, just as my loyalty to Baba Ajasin made me succeed him as Leader.”

    “Very interesting!  Very good!” Awo quipped. “So, you’re saying, Triple A, that Acting Leader had become the Afenifere convention, long before Fasoranti named Adebanjo as one?”

    “Yes, indeed, Baba!”

    “And everyone, from you, had kept to that principle, without rupturing the ingrained protocol that Afenifere only has one valid, living Leader?”

    “Yes, indeed, Baba!” Adesanya concurred again.

    “So, Ayo,” Awo said, turning to Adebanjo, “how come this ‘National Leader’ thing?  Can you explain it?”

    “Bami,” — it was the combative, no-retreat-no-surrender, eye-blazing-with-passion-of-conviction Adebanjo that faced his Leader, in whose name, as life-long Awoist, he did whatever he did — “times were changing.  Too many opportunists were calling your name in vain.  Too many of them had infiltrated Afenifere to gain political office in your name.  Yet, they are not true Awoists!  I felt I had to act before it was too late!”

    “So, you’re saying Reuben is not a true Awoist?”

    “No, Bami.  I can’t say that — never!  But he had allowed, as Leader, too many suspect Awoists to take advantage of your name for political office.  Bami, I just had to act!”

    “Interesting!  Was that why you supported Peter Obi for President in 2023, against Bola Tinubu, who Reuben, your Leader, announced as the Afenifere choice?”

    “Partly, Bami!  But it was a bit more complicated.”

    “How, Ayo?” Awo queried. “Are you saying Obi is more Awoist than Tinubu?”

    “I can’t say that,” Adebanjo hee-hawed.  “I really can’t say that.  But Bami, Bola (I mean Tinubu) is only Awoist or progressive in name.  He’s more of a pragmatist, who uses progressivism or Awoism as veneer.  He does whatever works for him.”

    “I see!” Awo chuckled.  “But does he get results — I mean ‘progressives’ results? ‘Awoist’ results?”

    “Bami!  S’agbe loju yo yo ni! It’s all fake Awoism!  Fake progressivism!  Imagine tinsel passing as solid gold!”

    “I see!” Awo chortled again.  “Still, is Peter Obi more ‘progressive’ than Tinubu?”

    “It’s more complex than being progressive or not.  A fundamental core of Awoism is fairness to all.  The Igbo had not produced a president.  We had produced Obasanjo, the first elected president since 1999.  So, I thought another Yoruba man becoming President was grossly unfair.  That was why I backed Obi.”

    “Not because he was a better Awoist or progressive?”

    Loud quiet. But Ige stepped up to break it.

    “There he goes again!” He told Awo, gesturing Adebanjo, enveloped in his loud quiet. “It’s either his way or the highway!  The trouble Ayo gave Baba Adesanya!”

    “Let’s even leave all that,” Awo interjected. “Ayo, do you realize naming yourself ‘National Leader’ may have split Afenifere for real, this time, thus putting a dent on your Awoist reformation or revolution?  Even AMA, that left us for the reactionaries, doesn’t have the splitting of Afenifere to blight his name and foul his memory …”

    “Bami!” — Adebanjo was clearly agitated now — “I didn’t name myself ‘National Leader’!  We held a meeting!  We duly debated it! It was a thorough debate …!”

    But alas!  It was all a dream!  Ripples just woke up!  Goodness me!  It seemed all so real!

  • Utomi’s search for vision of good society

    Utomi’s search for vision of good society

    Patrick Okedinachi Utomi, born in Kaduna but of Delta state extraction, is passionate about Nigeria. Perhaps the only other Nigerian whose passion for Nigeria rivals that of Utomi was another Kaduna-born Delta Nigerian nationalist, Chukwuma Nzeogwu, whose effort to rid Nigeria of “ten percenters and others that make us ashamed of being called Nigerians” was betrayed by some of his military colleagues including Ifeajuna, Ironsi and Ojukwu who sabotaged Nzeogwu’s revolution in Lagos, Enugu and Kano.

    Prof. Pat Utomi, like Nzeogwu, has a vision of good society which became more elusive the closer they came towards it despite deploying all his talents and energy towards securing a better Nigeria for Nigerians since he started his crusade in the early eighties.

    He first bewitched the Shehu Shagari administration with his in-depth newspaper analysis of the state of the economy, an endeavour that earned him a place in Shagari’s cabinet. Even after the collapse of the administration, he was given a chance to put into practice all his theoretical postulations at V/ Wagon Nigeria Limited which, under his control, suffered the same fate as other assembly plants of the period.

    Utomi, a resourceful professor of political economy, is perhaps the face of Nigeria’s public intellectual home and abroad. He belongs to many professional bodies, including the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, (NIPR), Institute of Directors (IOD), Nigeria Economic Summit Group and Nigeria Economic Society. He has served in various private-sector associations, including the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), the National Council of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, and the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA).

    He has carried the crusade for a better Nigeria through intellectual debate beyond the shores of Nigeria, especially at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, and Chatham House in the UK.

    He has to his credit several books and journal articles on economic underdevelopment, including, ‘Nigeria as an Economic Power House,’ ‘Crafting the New Nigeria – Confronting the Challenges,’ Nigeria ‘Changes as Prospects,’ ‘Values and Economic Stagnation in Africa: A Paradox of Poverty in Nigeria,’ ‘Managing Uncertainty: Competition and Strategy in Emerging Economies,’ ‘Critical Perspectives in Political Economy and Management’ etc.

    The labour of Utomi has not gone unacknowledged.  For his pains, it has been honours without end.  Numerous awards. He has been nominated and voted for by the public as one of Nigeria’s top ten Living Legends in the Vanguard/Silverbird Television Awards, Great Nigeria Lives of the 20th Century and Who is who in Africa.

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    Unfortunately, Utomi’s theories have not reflected positively on the state of our economy.

    The record of his intervention in politics has, however, not been any less dismal. But this has not diminished his enthusiasm for a vision of a better society. Thus, he last week once again came up with his “Big Tent Coalition Shadow Government,” over which he declared himself ‘Leader of Opposition.’ The initiative, which is to serve as critique of the President Bola Tinubu’s administration, was, according to him, dictated by his desire to save Nigeria’s democracy following his inability to stop the gale of defections from Labour and PDP, where membership of his new coalition was selected.

    The task before the group would be to regularly scrutinise government actions, identify policy failures, and propose alternative solutions in key areas- economy, education, healthcare, infrastructure, law and order, and constitutional reforms of the present government.

    These are no doubt noble objectives except that the Information Minister, Mohammed Idris, has said, the idea of a so-called ‘shadow government’ is an aberration as “Nigeria is not a parliamentary system where such a system is practiced.” Many seem to agree with the minister that “Our bicameral legislature amply features members of the opposition, and it should be the right place to contest meaningful ideas for nation-building.”

    Besides government opposition, Utomi’s current search for a vision of good society seems threatened by the choice of his crusading team drawn from opposition PDP democrats without democratic ethos and the ‘obidients,’ an unthinking mob Obi, as the falconer, cannot control.

    For instance, Dele Farotimi, who will lead the Ombudsman and Good Governance portfolio, is a man many of his critics believe talks more than he thinks in order to prove his valour. Not too long ago, he was ready to publicly disrobe Chief Afe Babalola, an elder statesman, over unproven allegations, just as he, on account of some bad eggs, didn’t mind pulling down his own noble profession without which we all return to a state of nature where life is ’nasty, brutish, and short.’ And this was a self-confessed ‘obidient’ who, in search of ‘Obi’s imaginary ‘stolen mandate,’ recklessly declared without proof before his American audience, “in a few days’ time a convicted drug baron will be sworn in as the president of my country.”

    Before Prof. Utomi’s latest gamble, most of his past efforts at building a coalition in pursuit of a new vision of good society failed. He contested the 2007 presidential election on the platform of the obscure African Democratic Party and failed. Following his initial setback, he formed another party, the Social Democratic Mega Party, on which platform he tried to contest the 2011 presidential elections before withdrawing at the last minute.

    But in 2012, he joined the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) “because the progressive opposition in Nigeria has been unable to bring itself under one umbrella while the enemies of the progressive struggle are disciplined enough to coalesce under the conservative/retrogressive Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).”

    Utomi is a rolling stone. His attempt at contesting a senatorial seat in Delta under PDP failed. I have heard him declare publicly that the APC manifesto was drafted on the dining table in his house. Indeed, Utomi was declared as the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress for the 2019 general election in Delta State by a faction of the party until it was overturned by the national working committee of the party.

    In January 2018, Utomi floated the Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM), with former Cross River State governor, Donald Duke, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Charles Soludo, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Olisa Agbakoba, Tafawa Balewa, former Education minister, Oby Ezekwesili, former Information minister, Frank Nweke Jnr, Col. Abubakar Umar (retd), Ayo Obe, Rabiu Ishyaku Rabiu, former presidential adviser, Akin Osuntokun as members.

    The group described itself as a pro-democracy movement and pressure group of like-minded Nigerians, “Concerned that left to their schemes and antics, a class of entrenched leaders will lead Nigeria into a state of indescribable human misery, characterised by death, hunger, disease, illiteracy and manipulation.” They decided to create a third political force, a platform to mobilise all citizens of goodwill and conscience towards engendering a new political system and culture in Nigeria. The intervention movement brought no relief to Nigerians.

    Restless Utomi in 2020 and Naaba formed a group to lead mass action against corruption and insecurity in Nigeria. They wanted Nigerians to rise up and put an end to the situation where the president was being caged and his office being run by some unelected proxies and power

    traders operating without any form of mandate from the Nigerian people. Chasing out that clique of ruinous political cartels ravaging our commonwealth enabled by their self- serving capture of our Government and State. The result was not different.

    Then ahead of the 2023 general elections, Utomi was among prominent Nigerians that established a third force, Rescue Nigeria Project (RNP), ostensibly to give Nigerians an alternative platform, other than the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic

    Party (PDP). Other founding members of RNP included former governor of Kwara State, Ahmed Abdulfatai, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, former Governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, Senator Lee Maeba, Usman Bugaje, Prof. Attahiru Jega, Amb. Nkoyo Toyo, Yomi Awoniyi, Dr. Rose Idi Danladi, Dr. Sadiq Gombe, among others. They set out to fight “the high level of nepotism and lack of inclusiveness” which had given rise to agitations by different ethnic groups.

    “We want to salvage this country and see how we can fix the mess. We want to set a template and key criteria leaders must have before they can attain any political position.” Abdulfatai had hardly finished delivering this keynote address when Utomi was discovered to be gunning for the presidential ticket of the Labour Party, which he later ceded to Peter Obi.

    While the closer we came towards Utomi’s vision of a good society, the more elusive it became, it has not been all doom for Nigeria’s foremost professor of political economy and management at a personal level. He is the chairman of close to two dozen Nigerian companies and a shareholder in many others.

  • New Pope talks to Nigerian churches

    New Pope talks to Nigerian churches

    Pope Leo XIV, whose name is Robert Prevost, Stepped onto the perch of the Catholic Church last week in a breathtaking moment. Stepped onto the perch

     His choice as the first American tells me he was a counterfoil to Trump, and American cleric as “provost” of peace and unity, to help save the world from an American perdition.

     It overstates it to think the Pope can do it alone, but it shows how the church can do good by its appeal to the righteous regions of our souls.

    This new Pope visited Nigeria as part of his evangelical work as an Augustinian.

     The Augustinian hails from the theological philosophy of Saint Augustine, that loved to dissect the word and pay homage to the poor and help the sinner.

     The new Pope follows Leo XIII because he united the people and helped the poor. Which is what is lacking in the Nigerian church today when pastors, especially of the Pentecostal type, who elevate material splendor over the life of the spirit.

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    It reminds me of a cleric who said it is better to die a rich man than a poor man. Another, one pastor Ibiyeomie, said Jesus hates the poor, and he hated them so much in his earthly ministry that he did not visit the poor at home. Well, the real poor don’t have homes.

     He himself said, the birds have a home, but the son of man had no place to rest his head. If he hated the poor why did he live in poverty when he was on earth, so much so he cursed a tree for lacking a fruit.

    He did not visit the poor in the house? Do you have to visit the poor in their home to empathise? Did he not dine with the publicans, who were regarded as poor?

     When the Bible says he was poor so we might be rich, he was speaking of being rich in spirit according to James 2:5. To be rich is good. But to be poor is no sin.

     Some of these pastors encourage terrorism, kidnapping and fraud in this society by talking down the poor in church. it turns meek worshippers into conniving villains.

     Jesus himself was with poor people when he changed a few loaves of bread and fishes to feed a multitude. Were they rich? Jesus warned how hard it is for rich men to enter his kingdom. E.T Okere muses on this in his book, Church, Money and Power.

    By materialising scripture, they have defrocked the word of its power and glory, and made it a secular gambit.

     After all God said in the book of Samuel that He made the rich and poor, and in proverbs that the rich and poor should meet together because God made them all. (Proverbs 22:2).

     Is the parable of the Rich man not to condemn insentivity to the poor. It is not enough to live with the poor, but to care.

    That was the kernel of Pope XIV’s message, and our overabundant clerics will do well to learn.