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  • From Ghana’s “Koren Busia” to Nigeria’s “GhanaMust Go” to America’s “Remain in Mexico”

    From Ghana’s “Koren Busia” to Nigeria’s “GhanaMust Go” to America’s “Remain in Mexico”

    Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, was a Pan-Africanist par excellence. In his clear manifestation of this Africa-wide vision, Nkrumah declared as follows at the independence of Ghana on 6 March, 1957: “Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa.” In recognition of this broad commitment to African unity, Ghana became a magnet for Africans from across the continent and the diaspora. Many of the Africans who moved to Ghana were into farming, especially cocoa farming, and other commercial activities, and constituted a thriving immigrant community.

    Unfortunately, the allure of Ghana as a Pan-African magnet was undermined, beginning with the coup which ousted the Kwame Nkrumah government. As GhanaWeb put it in a 24 February, 2020 article titled “Today in history: Ghana’s first coup – Nkrumah’s overthrow in 1966,” “On 24 February 1966, the National Liberation Council (NLC) overthrew Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in a military coup d’état while he was on a peace mission in Hanoi the capital of Vietnam at the invitation of the president, Ho Chi Minh.” This coup was a joint military and police operation and was led by Lt-Gen E.K. Kotoka, Major A.A. Afrifa and then Inspector-General of Police, Mr. J.W.K. Harley, with the significant collaboration of civilians such as Professor Kofi Abrefa Busia.

    According to biographical accounts, Busia acquired a First degree with Honours in Medieval and Modem History from the University of London (through correspondence), another First degree in Politics, Philosophy & Economics from Oxford University, a Master’s degree in the same subject area from the same university, and a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Nuffield College, Oxford. He was also a Fulbright Scholar in the United States in 1954. Busia was the first African Professor at the University College (now University of Ghana), and became a Professor of Sociology and Culture at the University of Leiden in The Hague, The Netherlands, and a Senior Member of St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford.

    About the 29 August, 1969 parliamentary elections, All Ghana Data, in a 12 April, 2008 article titled “The National Liberation Council and the Busia Years, 1966-71,” said: “The major contenders were the Progress Party (PP), headed by Kofi A. Busia, and the National Alliance of Liberals (NAL), led by Komla A. Gbedemah. Critics associated these two leading parties with the political divisions of the early Nkrumah years. The PP found much of its support among the old opponents of Nkrumah’s CPP … [while] the NAL was seen as the successor of the CPP’s right wing, which Gbedemah had headed until he was ousted by Nkrumah in 1961.”

    Incidentally, regarding the elections, the immigrant community in Ghana, particularly Nigerians who were predominantly Yoruba, was largely sympathetic to Gbedemah’s NAL, but Busia’s PP won. He assumed office on 1 October, 1969, and by 18 November, 1969, ostensibly as an act of political vengeance, Busia announced the Aliens Compliance Order. Corroborating this fact, in a May 2009 Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) in History thesis titled “The origins, implementation and effects of Ghana’s 1969 Aliens compliance order” and submitted to the University of Cape Coast, Adjei Adjepong noted: “In spite of its general landslide victory, the Progress Party, it is alleged, blamed its minor losses on the presence of immigrants in the country. To prevent a similar occurrence in the future, the government decided on outright expulsion of all illegal immigrants as the only alternative.”

    In addition to the political motive, Adjei Adjepong listed some of the other reasons for the order as: “the government’s desire to reduce the rate of unemployment and remittances from Ghana, combat crime, guarantee the security of the country, compel immigrants to comply with the immigration laws of Ghana, control the growth of the country’s population, ensure cultural homogeneity, clear the streets of immigrant destitutes and beggars, continue the policies of the NLC, and xenophobia on the part of some Ghanaians.”

    Read Also: Obasanjo back on familiar terrain

    Johnson Olaosebikan Aremu and Theresa Adeyinka Ajayi, in an invaluable 2014 journal article titled “Expulsion of Nigerian immigrant community from Ghana in 1969: Causes and impact,” quoted the most critical part of Busia’s Aliens Compliance Order which states: “It has come to the notice of the Government that several aliens, both Africans and non-Africans in Ghana, do not possess the requisite residence permits …. There are others, too, who are engaging in business of all kinds contrary to the term of their visiting permits. The Government has accordingly directed that all aliens in the first category, that is those without residence permits, should leave Ghana within fourteen days that is not later than December 2, 1969. Those in the second category should obey strictly the term of their entry permits, and if these have expired they should leave Ghana forthwith. The Ministry of Interior has been directed to comb the country thoroughly for defaulting aliens and aliens arrested for contravening these orders will be dealt with according to the law.”In local parlance, interestingly in Hausa which is widely spoken in Ghana, especially in the Northern Region of the country, expelled immigrants were derogatorily called “Koren Busia” (‘People expelled by Busia.’) The expulsion of Nigerians from Ghana was done at a most traumatic time. As Aremu and Ajayi put it, “it needs be stated that perhaps the greatest impact of the 1969 expulsion of Nigerians by Ghana in the heat of [the] Nigerian Civil war was interpreted as a tacit way of destabilizing Nigeria and weaken its cohesion, especially when the Igbo elements in Ghana were classified as ‘special refugees’ and were thus exempted from the expulsion order.” The expulsion led to widespread humiliation, suffering and even death of some of the expellees.

    Busia’s precipitate ejection of so many investors from Ghana resulted in economic shock. Due to a combination of adverse local and international conditions, and the inflation and patent pains that come with implementing IMF/World Bank policies (which Busia adopted), he fell out of favour with the people, because the Eldorado that the common folks had envisioned from the aliens expulsion did not come to reality. Moreover, the inclement economic climate of the nation necessitated reducing the funding of the military, and the army rode on the back of the citizens’ disaffection with Busia to oust his government on 13 January, 1972 in a coup led by Lt-Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong. At the time, Busia was in London receiving medical treatment.

    In spite of the coup, Ghana’s economy continued to nosedive. This led to Ghanaians’ economically-motivated ‘reverse immigration’ to Nigeria. Following the established pattern, Ghanaians and other immigrants were held accountable for economic decline, religious crises, and violent crimes like armed robbery. Elections were approaching and anti-immigrant stereotyping was made a campaign strategy. As a show of how the ruling National Party of Nigeria could defend the ‘besieged’ citizens, President Shehu Shagari issued an Executive Order giving illegal immigrants two weeks to leave Nigeria, with effect from 17 January, 1983. Ghanaians were about half of the around two million illegal immigrants affected. The preponderance of Ghanaians among the expellees gave the policy the name “Ghana Must Go” – a name that has also come to stand for the very practical, red or blue, strong checked low-priced bags with which the expellees caried their belongings.

    The expulsion was horrendous and led to the death of some of the victims. But it didn’t result in the social and economic benefits that had been envisaged by its supporters. As with the case of Busia, the disillusionment provided the excuse for the military to take over government and usher in the General Muhammadu Buhari military administration on 31 December, 1983. Incidentally, the Buhari government continued with the immigrants expulsion policy. 

    Beyond West Africa, United States President Donald Trump and his supporters have regularly alleged that illegal immigrants were allowed to vote in 2020, and that this was what led to Trump’s loss. In relation to this claim, CBS fact-checker · Laura Doan, in a 30 October, 2024 piece titled “Trump falsely claims noncitizen voter fraud is widespread,” notes: “During the 2024 presidential race, former President Donald Trump and his allies, including X owner Elon Musk, have promoted an unfounded conspiracy theory that undocumented migrants are being allowed into the U.S. to vote. Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud by undocumented immigrants are not new. In 2020, after losing his reelection bid, he alleged that tens of thousands of noncitizens voted in the battleground state of Arizona, which election officials there disputed. Trump made similar claims about illegal voting as far back as 2014.”

    Moreover, Trump often blames immigrants for crimes in America. In fact, in his inaugural address on 20 January, 2025, he said: “First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border [with Mexico]. All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. We will reinstate my “Remain in Mexico” policy. I will end the practice of catch and release, and I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country. Under the orders I sign today, we will also be designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. And by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities.”

    There is also the belief that undocumented immigrants have been taking Americans’ jobs, and that they have been enjoying benefits they never worked for. So, from his first day as the 47th President of America, Trump signed a series of anti-immigrant Executive Orders. As a consequence, thousands of immigrants have been arrested, handcuffed with legs shackled, and herded on to military planes to be dumped at various borders and foreign airports in horrible conditions. The Executive Orders also allow security personnel to raid stores, farms and churches, among other places, looking for illegal aliens. Many undocumented immigrants have therefore stayed away from work. This has been having devastating effects on Americans with some stores already limiting the quantity of food items a single person can purchase, and with inflation biting hard.

    From the foregoing, whether it was Busia’s 1969 “Koren Busia” or Shagari’s 1983 “Ghana Must Go” or Trump’s 2025 “Remain in Mexico” policy, the pattern has been the same. Economic, social and political problems were encountered; immigrants were held responsible; expelling them was seen as the solution; the massive expulsion of immigrants was ordered; and the crises worsened.   

  • Okanlomo Omoluabi John Olukayode Fayemi at 60

    Okanlomo Omoluabi John Olukayode Fayemi at 60

    Love or hate him, as some do with the very sinew of their entire being, but which will, in the end, do nothing to detract anything from the  sterling attributes Yorubas have for centuries, attached to those two idiosyncratic epithets, namely, Okanlomo and Omoluabi used to describe Dr Fayemi in the caption.

    More interesting is the fact that he  earned them, having lived every facet of his multi- faceted life, whether as an academic, a public servant, public intellectual, politician or even as citizen, right up to the bill, emerging in the process, a glowing pride of our Alma Mata – the 89 year old Christ School, Ado – Ekiti, aka THE SCHOOL.

    Writing about a luminary like Kayode Fayemi can be something of a jigsaw especially for one, like me, who wrote  several articles evaluating his performance as governor of Ekiti and more.

    Given the byzantine web then of trying to select a particular article on this occasion, I would rather, choose to quote from my forthcoming book, a portion of the chapter which is dedicated to Dr Fayemi.

    I believe that the bit space constraint will permit will still give the reader a good grasp of the essential Kayode Fayemi.

    The chapter is titled:The Fayemi Phenomenon and The End of a Political Sabbatical.

    It reads as follows:

    “The sheer carnage of the Ondo state political crises of 1983,  my near escape, but more importantly,  the fact that my entire family – my wife , three young children  and I, could  very well have been wiped out  in those horrendous events, but for God, were more than enough to send me into a political sabbatical of over 25 years. This position was further accentuated by  the military coup that would  last from ’84 till ’99, my wife’s abiding dislike for  politics and the fact that it coincided with a time my children were going through  secondary schools and universities, both here in Nigeria, and abroad. This last meant that I had to take up an employment – as my business had been very badly disrupted by the Ondo state political convulsion.

    I did that with the Caprisonne Group,  a German-Nigerian company for a fairly long period before I went back to  business.

    The period also saw me  writing a column for a newspaper in a manner quite different from my, on  and off, articles of old in both The Sketch and The Tribune on Sunday. The result is that today, as you read this, I have written consistently, without fail even for a single week, for a period of  nearly twenty years, first for the Comet newspaper – for which I wrote for two years – and its successor, The Nation, for the remaining years.

    My articles which centred mainly on current political events took a dramatic turn when the  then incumbent Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired general  who had been a one-time military Head of state, had been  jailed for a phantom coup and was rail-loaded into office again by a Northern  military cabal as  civilian President, began to treat Nigeria like his fiefdom.

    He literally ‘abrogated the Nigerian electorate’ through the shambolic national elections conducted under his watch both in 2003 and 2007. Indeed, towards the end of his two-terms, in 2007, he began at first cladestinely, but later much more flagrantly, by compromising members of the National Assembly, a spirited effort at elongating his tenure, if possible, to a life presidency in what is popularly known as The Third Term Project.

    Most disgusting to me personally, however, was how Obasanjo elected to treat Ekiti state and its people. He had started off in the Fayose administration to trample over all we stood for in Ekiti and when it pleased him, in a move designed to rig the next election ahead of time, he had schemed the impeachment of Governor Ayo Fayose, a man he had visited severally, and had many times called his son.  He cleverly schemed the governor’s ouster via a messy impeachment which turned out inchoate according to the highest court of the land. That was how Fayose twice humiliated him. Nonetheless, in Fayose’s place, he coyly brought in his Ogun state kinsman, Brig-General Tunji Olurin, a gentleman, but whose primary assignment, it seemed in retrospect, was to ensure that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ‘won’ the  2007 gubernatorial  election in the state, as all that Obasanjo ever truly  cared for, in reality, was to imagine himself competing with Awo’s legacy in Yoruba land.

    That was the primary reason for the brutal rigging of the 2007 elections everywhere in the Southwest, all of which were subsequently overturned through the unprecedented, yeoman’s efforts of Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu – AKANBI ENIA- particularly in his involvement, in the different prosecution teams, of Adrian  Forty, an English Forensic expert, who exposed PDP election riggers – all of them – as no better than mere rookies.

    Obasanjo’s treatment of Ekitis got so indecent that there were some 2- or 3-day governors; and at the elections in 2007, his errand boys, friends, the INEC and the security services all combined to rob Dr Kayode Fayemi, the candidate of the Action Congress of victory at a time Ekiti people were already jubilantly dancing on the streets.

    All these would combine to dictate a completely new trend for my articles. And I was going to be in no way sparing of a man who treated us Ekiti’s so wretchedly.

    This was the juncture at which my paths crossed Dr Kayode Fayemi’s, even though I had known him by reputation much earlier.

    Of course, there was no way I could  have missed his exploits with Radio Kudirat.

    I came head on into the Fayemi campaigns during the rerun election (2009) though I had all along been very supportive of his brilliant campaign through my weekly articles in The Nation on Sunday.  Though I came into the campaign late, I have never accorded a greater devotion to any political cause. I thought nothing of the harm, nor reckoned with all the bestialities the opposition was known to be quite capable of, especially in the state.

    I saw in Dr Fayemi the decisive political leader I have looked for in vain after Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

    I saw in him a brilliant young man who had taken upon himself, the huge responsibility of  wanting  to morally lead a politically bastardised society into the mores of  true democracy and good governance as well as one who was  determined to carry on, whatever the odds; a marathon runner, indeed.

    And daunting odds mandate – thieves sure threw his way!

    The more I read of him, the more convinced I was about his genuineness. 

    I would finally meet him at the fund raiser hosted by his Christ’s School mates which held at the Events Centre, Ogba, Lagos at which Dr Eniola Ajayi, was Chairperson.  I remember sitting next to Professor Akin Oyebode who, Bolaji Aluko, then a U.S-based Professor of Chemical Engineering, had first asked to send him my telephone number with a view, I later learnt, to asking Dr Fayemi to link up with me. Bolaji had apparently been reading my  column. 

    So corrosively anti – PDP and Obasanjo were my articles that the authors of ‘The Long Walk’ – a chronicle of  Dr Fayemi’s titanic struggle with these anti-democratic forces wrote as follows concerning my humble  role in that effort:  ‘Dr. Orebe, columnist, The Nation newspaper, is a  man of vibrant disposition to public commentaries on discipline in private and public life, choosing transparency and good governance as his specialty. His many articles on Ekiti State debacle greatly helped in mobilizing critical public opinion against the fraud that was committed by the rogues in high places against Ekiti people before and after the re-run election, which cost responsible Nigerians their honour and integrity in the international arena’.

    I have referred to that first meeting with Dr Fayemi but  I  left out something I went away with from the event. In his speech on the occasion, the late Sir Remi Omotosho,  a consummate board room guru who  had served not only as the Personnel Director of Lever Brothers, a multi-national, but had also been the Group Managing Director of the O’dua Group, Ibadan and who must have  seen a thousand and one top grade curriculum vita, said: “On seeing the bio data of Dr Kayode Fayemi what first  came to my mind was  that were Ekiti not in dire need of the services of this young man, Nigeria should be recommending him for the position of the next Secretary-General of the United Nations”.  Remi did not make those remarks lightly.

    Dr Fayemi belongs in the top drawer. A thoroughly reflective individual, his education, erudition and accomplishments completely thump his under 50 years. I quote, once again, from the authors of the Long Walk. Writing on Dr Fayemi, they wrote:  ‘Signs that he would be an activist and a leader had manifested as early as the mid-80s when he was the Chairman of Eni-Njoku Hall, University of Lagos, where he earned his first degree in History. A charismatic personality, Fayemi easily understands people at first sight. He radiates a  pleasant aura which endears him to people. A good listener, he solves even intricate problems with the suave calmness of a combat soldier and he is very unassuming. This explains why the atmosphere was always electrified each time he was in Ekiti before, during and after the 2007 elections  He has always been a dogged fighter and underlying his gentle mien is the courage and strength of a lion. 

    Fayemi attended Christ School, Ado-Ekiti and received degrees in History, Politics and International Relations from the Universities of Lagos and Ife in Nigeria and obtained a Ph.D. in War Studies from the prestigious King’s college, University of London – where he is now a Visiting Professor, specializing in Civil Military Relations.   As a prominent member of the Nigerian opposition in exile, he was actively involved in the establishment of Radio Freedom, Radio Democracy International & Radio Kudirat, and played a key role in the opposition’s diplomatic engagements during the infamous military rule. He was the Technical Adviser to the Human Right Violations Investigation Commission (Oputa Panel) which investigated past abuses in Nigeria. 

    We would soon become quite close, especially as the campaign for the rerun election gathered momentum, and at a private fund raiser, over dinner for five  of us, hosted by the inimitable, absolutely unforgettable Dr Tosin Ajayi of blessed memory, at a Chinese Restaurant on Bank Anthony Way, Ikeja, Lagos I asked him: We know what these people are capable of doing and you know that Obasanjo continues to play God. Suppose they rig the election again? To which he promptly answered: Oga, I am a long-distance runner and to the tribunal I would head gain’.

    How uncannily we both proved!

    I soon became very involved and when on his campaign visit to my Irepodun wing of our Irepodun/Ifelodun  Local Government  Area  my people at Are-Ekiti saw me raise his hand on the podium  and declared him  the reason I was back in politics for the first time since ’83, my people rose like one man to give the candidate a tumultuous welcome and support.

    The elections came again, and as we had anticipated, the thieving  PDP, with the connivance of the powers that be, once again rigged it shamelessly.  And to the tribunal Fayemi again  headed but, again, surprisingly lost.

    All thanks to the Almighty God these elements were finally routed and put to shame at the Court of Appeal, Ilorin on 15 October, 2010, when the Appeal court ruled in favour of Dr Fayemi declaring him winner of both the 2007 election as well as the rerun.

    With that pronouncement ended the rule of man, as designed by Olusegun Obasanjo for Ekiti.

    My first official involvement with the new Fayemi government was in respect of the governor’s Education committee – The Education Task Force and Visitation Panel. The governor had invited me  to  his Isan country home on Christmas Day, 2010 and  during our discussion, he informed me of his intention to have an Education Stakeholders conference to take a holistic look at the  challenges he had observed since resuming office. It was my opinion that what he needed was a committee of experts whose recommendations would then form the working papers for the Stakeholders’ conference. He agreed with this view and we played around some names of probable members many of who later served on the committee.

    The Membership of the Visitation Panel to assess and appraise the state of Education in Ekiti State was as follows:  Chief (Dr) J. G. O. Adegbite (Chairman), Prof  Funke Egunjobi, Prof  L. B. Kolawole, Elder Fasanmade, Mr. Idowu Aderibigbe, Dr Femi Orebe, Prof Dupe Adelabu, Prof Tale Omole, Prof D. S. Daramola, Mr. Olu Ipinlaye, Prof Susan Ajibade, Alhaji Afolabi Ogunlayi, Alhaja Monisola Badmos, Prof Bolaji Aluko,  (Consultant) and Mr. Jide Akinleye (Secretary)

    Many of us subsequently served on the Stakeholders committee and I had the great honour of chairing the communiqué committee at the meeting proper at which Papa,  Professor Sam Aluko and Mama Joyce Aluko spent the entire duration with us.

    Read Also: Fayemi advocates electoral reform to address winner-takes-all politics

    Talking about the Fayemi phenomenon, I have never chosen a worthier political cause. It has been for me, the denouement of a long search for a politician with integrity, with a timeless devotion to cause, or causes, to which he believes. Twice, I have heard Dr Fayemi talk about how ephemeral he considers fleeting political office, even that of the governor of a state, in respect of which many will kill and, have indeed, killed. For him, what matters is how effectively you impact on society and for him, his 8-Point Agenda was  the driving force of his government.

    Below is the 8-Point Agenda:

    1) Governance – To enhance democratic governance and accountability at all levels

    2) Modernizing Agriculture – To make Agriculture a viable source of revenue and sustainable livelihood by ensuring suitable employment, food security, provision of industrial raw materials and poverty alleviation.

    3) Education & development of human capital – To improve access to and quality of education in the ‘fountain of knowledge’ towards the creation and consolidation of a knowledge economy.

    4) Health care services – Prevention will be the key goal of Ekiti Health Service under our watch and we will seek to ensure the provision of holistic and comprehensive health care services and facilities for the people of Ekiti.

    5) Industrial development – To expand Ekiti’s industrial base as a mechanism for increasing internal revenue and providing sustainable employment.

    6)Tourism & environmental sustainability – To make Ekiti an attractive and competitive tourism choice in West Africa.

    7)Gender equality & women empowerment – Promoting gender equality and empowering women by maximizing the potential of half of the population of Ekiti.

    8) Infrastructural development – To establish optimum communities that will improve the quality of life of citizens and attract maximum investments – with provision of electricity, well maintained roads network, potable drinking water, affordable shelter and security.

     On this joyous occasion, I am going to leave to my younger Aburo’s who are far gifted writers than I, and who also have the extra advantage of working directly with the governor – Wole Olujobi, Segun Dipe among others, to give details of Dr Fayemi’s meritorious achievements during his two terms during which not a single community, hamlet, village, town or city was left unimpacted.

    That freedom will give me the opportunity to dwell, at some length, on what in my view represents Governor Kayode Fayemi’s greatest achievement in Ekiti.

    His name of that achievement is His Excellency,Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji popularly called BAO,  by Ekiti’s home and abroad,  and I don’t mean this in the glib way people say that without a viable successor, a governor cannot be deemed successful.

    Without a precedent in any state of Nigeria, Fayemi’s installation of BAO as his successor, of course, through due process, though as usual, contentious was the very meaning of scoring a bulls eye. I won’t waste time on this but would suggest that whoever doubts that Fayemi was scrupulously neutral in the choice of his successor should read my indepth article on the subject titled- BAO: The Apple Does Not Fall Far From Tree, of 22 October, 2023.

    Ekiti politics of that era, including even that of Fayemi, was a bedlam; what I once described on these pages as: “bo ba o pa, bo ba o bu lese”-meaning just harm the opposition.

    I should know because I not only personally mediated quarells, there are still, as you read this, some party leaders of that era, who still do not greet each other, except, of course, BAO has worked his magic.

    I shall be lying if I say I know how BAO did it all – resolved all disputes across party lines, and restored peace in Ekiti politics so much that all our past governors, on all political party platforms, are now ‘ad idem” on literally all matters.

    But this I know, and here I shall be quoting from my aforementioned article of 22 October, ’23 wherein I wrote as follows, first about BAO: “As a writer, and close to government, even though not a government official, I have seen BAO at work, have keenly observed this quiet, and easy going  ‘complete Ekiti bureaucrat’, who not only studied mostly here within Ekiti, but have served, meritoriously, in various sections of the state government over a long time, and is attested to by those who should know, as a loyal and  competent gentleman who knows both the Ekiti people and the terrain very well”.

    Despite the near, all pervading bedlam in Ekiti politics, BAO was particularly lucky. He worked with, and under two, of our very best.

    I wrote further:”Even though it goes without saying that Oyebanji is well bred, that is, from home, his almost unparalleled respect for people, young and old, must have a lot to do with his long tutelage under the Omoluabi governor, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, whose Chief of Staff he was, just as governor Fayemi’s – whose SSG he was -natural, decent and quiet mien, must have  positively robbed off  on him.

    He must have many times, while not yet governor, wondered as to how the attitude to office, by the two were so unlike what he observed under other governors.

    This I suspect can only be the springboard from which Oyebanji’s approach to governance owes its origins

    All put together, it is a win – win for the long suffering people of Ekiti.

    Happy birthday Governor Fayemi.

    Many happy returns and super congratulations to our darling Erelu, your jewel of inestimable value.

  • The rise, rise and rise of capitalism (VI)

    The rise, rise and rise of capitalism (VI)

    Having gone right round the world in the course of this series, I think it is time to return to England. After all, that is where capitalism set up shop in the middle of the eighteenth century and planted the seeds of capitalism.

    Right until the Peasants Revolt in 1381 England was a purely agrarian nation with virtually all the workers toiling on estates belonging to their lords and masters. The immediate effect of the Black Death which killed roughly half of the population was on labour relations as the number of available workers, skilled and unskilled fell drastically causing a shortage of all forms of labour. Surprisingly, this did not lead to an enhancement of wages as could be expected. The employers of labour continued to pay low wage and the workers or peasants as they were called revolted against the king and his nobles who on top of everything insisted on raising taxes to collect the funds necessary to fight against the French. Although the young king acquiesced to the demands of the peasants at first, some of his Nobles who were loath to give up any of their privileges prevailed upon the king to repudiate the agreement. The peasants returned to the fray but this time, they were subdued by superior forces and with their leader wounded and later dragged away from his hospital bed and beheaded on the orders of the Mayor of London, they were stumped. This dastardly murder brought an immediate end to the rebellion. And so, the rebellion did not bring about any significant changes to the very poor living conditions of the peasants. They continued to work in the fields for little pay and even less hope for a better life on the horizon. Although Thomas Hobbes described life in the absence of government control as being solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, these descriptions could be used to describe life in the Middle ages in England.  Ironically, it was at this time that the light of the Renaissance period began to flicker weakly at first but went on to do so quite brightly as  productive learning began to take root.

    As with virtually everything in Europe, the learning that led to the Renaissance came from the East and it is not a coincidence that it entered Europe through where we now call Italy. There was no Italian state as we know it and that region at the time was made of a series of city states, the most influential and powerful of them being Venice. The seeds of the Renaissance in Europe were laid when East and West met on the battle fields of Palestine when Christian crusaders were persuaded by Pope Urban through the offer of the remission of their sins to go to the Holy land. The injunction was clear; once there, they were enjoined to kill  go and kill as many as they could in the name of Christ and all your sins are forgiven and your place in heaven is secure. Echoes of modern day suicide bombers who are persuaded to take out as many innocent people as possible.  The aim of the crusaders was to kill as many Muslims as possible and in doing so, seize Jerusalem for Christendom. That they did not kill all the Muslims in Palestine was not for want of trying. At least they killed enough of them to lead to the capture of Jerusalem. They ruled that city which is holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews then and now for all of eighty-eight years before the city was wrested from them by a Muslim army under the leadership of the exalted Saladin known to history for his outstanding military skills and his chivalry. Following  the efforts of Saladin, Jerusalem remained in Muslim hands until British forces wrested it from the Ottomans in the closing stages of the First World War thus bringing the crusades to a close or more appropriately, open another phase of fighting in the holy land. The conquerors this time around are not Christian crusaders but Jewish Zionists who are laying claim to Palestine on the strength of some passages in the Bible. The situation in Palestine remains fluid, explosive and terribly dangerous. It is anybody’s guess as to how this situation will pan out. It is perhaps pertinent to point out that the crusades left its mark on England when there was a falling out between  the English crusaders and the king of France who kidnapped and imprisoned the English king Richard also called Lionheart. The royal kidnapper then demanded such a large ransom that England was practically bankrupted in paying it and gave rise to the expression, a king’s ransom. To pay a king’s ransom is to pay out an inordinately large sum of money for anything.

    What is immediately associated with the crusades is mayhem of gigantic proportions. On the other hand however, the crusaders came back home bearing items of knowledge in several crucial areas which shaped them and their societies profoundly for a thousand years. Without the experiences acquired in the East, it is unlikely that there would have been a Renaissance, that bust of knowledge creation which created modern Europe. The Europe which went out to inflict crushing damage on the rest of the world, especially Africa. We still have to live with the effects of that damage.

    The crusades were a dismal failure from the point of view of military adventurism but they opened the eyes of the Europeans to what was a available in the rest of the world and changed how they lived profoundly. They discovered spices which made their food, at least palatable, cotton which made it possible for them to make comfortable and yet, fashionable clothes. They could even begin the fashion of drinking coffee after picking up the habit during their foray to the East. It has to be said that these niceties were restricted to the Nobles as the peasants were still living a hand to mouth existence. Perhaps the greatest shift in the way the peasants lived was the movement from the countryside into the quick growing cities, the population of which grew phenomenally throughout the middle ages. To be sure, the cities were overcrowded and brimming with pestilence and vice, not to talk of hunger and poverty. For all that however, they were also centres of creativity with craftsmen in every conceivable trade setting up shop and struggling to make a living in the midst of numerous challenges including the harshest laws which were administered implacably. There were more than two hundred capital offences on the statute books ranging from sodomy to the theft of trivial items such as pocket handkerchiefs. Justice was not just done but in many cases, was seen to be done as executions were carried out in public with the rich paying for ring side seats whilst thousand were milling around trying to get a good view. Ironically, pickpockets had a field day at these executions making the deterrent factor of these executions a sick joke. From the beginning of the eighteenth century the option of being transported to Australia became available and it was used liberally in an attempt to provide broad range of deterrents to the common people who lived at bare subsistence level. The situation was that with all the loot which was flooding into England at the time, none of it was filtering down to the common people who had no form of social security except the workhouse within which conditions were very bad to appalling and some people were ready to die rather than to be at the mercy of the merciless parish authorities who saw poverty as a sign of moral depravity. For the poor in England of that period therefore, life was quite nasty, brutish and frequently short.

    For people who had some financially negotiable skills however, it was quite possible for them to put away an impressive stash of money. A literary example of one such person was Silas Marner in the eponymous novel by George Elliot. Silas was a skilled weaver who produced high quality materials which were  sought after by a broad spectrum of customers who were willing to pay handsomely for his products in sharp contrast to the general mass of people who had no skills whatsoever and had nothing but their labour which could not provide sustenance to the worker and a family of a couple of children. To all intents and purposes, they were only  marginally better than slaves in their condition. They lived in the richest nation on earth but could hardly stitch body and soul together. The extant conditions under which the workers toiled were intolerable.  These conditions were perfect for the earliest capitalists who needed workers to go down the mines bringing out the coal which was needed to fire the machines on which their trade goods were produced and sent to all parts of the world. They set workers to work under dangerous conditions in factories within which conditions were atrociously poor. With a worldwide empire at their beck and call British capitalists were making money hand over fist as they had access to raw materials from the colonies and had a ready market for their cheaply manufactured goods.

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    By the time that Marx and Engels were warning of the spectre of communism haunting Europe, it had become clear to the workers that they needed to free themselves from the yoke which had been clamped on them by their employers. By that time also, local capitalists were springing up in other European countries and were replicating conditions in England. Almost a hundred years after the Luddites went about destroying the mechanised looms which were to force them under the thumbs of the capitalists, the workers came together to form unions which they hoped were going to deliver them from the capitalists.

    In the early days of union struggle, the workers were fighting for the establishment of the most  basic conditions under which workers could work. They were fighting for wages from which it was possible to reproduce themselves in a dignified manner. Capitalism was rampant as it threatened to squeeze the workers to death as they produced unimaginable wealth to the capitalists a few of whom were called robbed barons in the United States. In the closing years of the nineteenth century capitalism was king of everything within its ken.

  • Tread softly, Ajaero

    Tread softly, Ajaero

    My initial reaction to the (suspended) protest by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) against the 50 per cent hike in telecoms tariff that should have taken effect on February 1 was to lambast the congress for overreaching itself. Why must Labour think it can jump into just any situation even when the issue is not strictly about workers’ welfare?

    I however, soft-pedalled when I remembered how the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication service providers exploited Nigerians when they began operation in Nigeria in August 2001. Perhaps the highpoint of that exploitation was their initial refusal to offer per second billing on their menu. They gave us the impression that it was impossible, even though that was available elsewhere.

    But the entry of Globacom in 2003 changed the narrative. Glo launched itself into the Nigerian market with per second billing and others had no choice but to follow.

    It was this reminiscence that made me soft-pedal on the said protest. But then, the position of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) is more like it. It still pointed at the lacuna in the NLC’s stance.

     We would return to that shortly.

    The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the telecoms sector’s regulator, had on January 20 approved a 50 per cent hike in tariffs for the telecommunications firms, as against the 100 per cent that the companies had been clamouring for. NCC cited rising operational costs driven by inflation, foreign exchange fluctuations, and higher energy expenses to justify its approval. Unassailable points.

    But the NLC rejected the 50 per cent hike and in its stead pushed forward a five per cent increase. But it never told us how it arrived at the five per cent. It merely said the hike was insensitive and unjustifiable, adding that it would impose an extra burden on Nigerian consumers. Huh!

    Joe Ajaero, the union’s president, said

    “After extensive discussions…NAC-in-session totally rejects the 50 per cent telecom tariff hike, which it considers too harsh for citizens. It, therefore, strongly condemns the Nigerian Communications Commission’s decision to approve the increase.”

    He added: “This decision is insensitive, unjustifiable, and a direct attack on Nigerian workers and the general populace, who are already suffering under worsening economic hardship caused by government policies beyond their control.”

    The congress therefore asked Nigerians to prepare for mass protests against the hike. It also called for a boycott of the telcos’ services.

    But the telecom fìrms stood their ground and insisted on the approved 50 per cent. As a matter of fact, they ruled out negotiations with organised labour. I saw this coming; that a time would come when some organisations would begin to call the NLC’s bluff. More of this would come for as long as the congress thinks banging the table is solution to all problems. That belonged in the past. These days, ideas rule the world.

    The Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, explained the telcos’ position: “This increase is a lifeline that enables us to survive. Anything lower would be like giving someone who needs 100 litres of oxygen only a fraction—barely enough to keep them alive but insufficient for long-term survival.”

    The stage was thus set for a showdown.

    Mercifully, however, the Federal Government intervened and the protest was suspended.

    For me, the NLC’s action was misdirected aggression. The telcos’ are operating in the same economic milieu that Labour is complaining about and are therefore not immune to its vagaries. Unless the congress wants us to return to the era of queuing up at designated centres to talk to our people wherever they may be on the surface of the earth, the congress has to tread cautiously on this matter.

    Those of us who were around in the days of the almighty Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd. (NITEL) when the entire country was served by about 450,000 telephone lines would never want that. Not even in our dream. Only our children who were born after the introduction of GSM in the country can say whatever they like on the said tariff hike because they do not know where we are coming from.

    For the benefit of our youths, some of whom are now carrying some of the very expensive telephones even as students, there was a time in this country when a minister of the federal republic told us that telephone was not for the poor! It was that bad. But the minister was not wrong; if about 180 million people then had to share 450,000 telephone lines, we did not need anyone to tell us that that was not an essential commodity that every Tom, Dick and Harry should have access to!

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    Today, it is convenient for us to be saying ‘we no go gree’ because telcom firms said they want to review upwards their tariffs. We can now conveniently stay in the comfort of our rooms and talk to Papa and Mama in the village. Today, we can send money to them and they will receive it within minutes. Today, we can talk to our people who have ‘Japa’ to the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, etc., right from wherever we are. Not only that; we can even do video chat, send text messages, chat on various electronic platforms and what have you.

    It has not always been like this. It was the advent of GSM that revolutionised the way we used to do virtually all things – read, relax, work, talk, etc. It has become part of our lives that one feels incomplete if his or her phone is misplaced or stolen. Such a person is like fish out of water.  

    It is not surprising that the GSM Association (commonly referred to as ‘the GSMA’, originally Groupe Spécial Mobile), has welcomed the upward tariff review. And understandably so. GSMA is a non-profit industry organisation that represents the interests of mobile network operators worldwide.

    Workers in the telecoms sector too are happy with the hike. Again, understandably so. Unfortunately, the NLC did not even seek their opinion before threatening fire and brimstone. The workers who spoke through their umbrella union, the Private Telecommunications and Communications Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PTECSSAN) rejected the planned nationwide protest by the NLC. The association told the NLC that the tariff hike, though painful, was necessary to prevent the imminent collapse of the sector, with its far-reaching consequences for the economy.

    PTECSSAN, in apparent solidarity with their employers highlighted the severe challenges facing the sector, including skyrocketing operational costs occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy, rising prices of diesel (Automated Gas Oil), and increased electricity tariffs.

    The union also mentioned the issue of foreign exchange that the sector sorely needs to import equipment, but which the depreciation of the naira has made increasingly expensive.

    PTECSSAN, of course did not forget to say that while public sector and other private sector workers have benefited from salary increases due to the new minimum wage law, telecoms workers have been left behind simply because their employers could not afford to pay from the inadequate revenue they are generating.

    In conclusion, the association said: “If a situation like this persists, what employers resort to is the termination of employment of workers. We are sure that you and the congress leadership will not be happy to see this happen, as

    we will not”.

    As things stand, the points have been well made. If a sector has retained a particular tariff regime for 12 years, it is more than ripe for another review, given

    the vicissitudes the economy has undergone in recent years that have dramatically altered the economic landscape and so significantly altered the business climate too. Prices have gone up across board since costs too have shot up astronomically.

    It is against this backdrop that the NLC should attend the meetings of the 10-man committee set up by the government and the congress on the issue with an open mind. What is on ground is a purely business matter; not an emotive one. Any attempt to go with a fixated mindset based on emotive arguments or rule of thumb (?) will be counter-productive.

    It was this commonsensical approach to the issue that made the National Civil Society Council of Nigeria (NCSCN) (which says it represents over 600 affiliate organisations) that had initially planned to occupy the headquarters of the NCC and the National Assembly, to also suspend its protest, having been shown the parameters used in arriving at the 50 per cent hike.

    But I wonder why TUC was not involved in the arrangement because it is also a major stakeholder in the matter. As a matter of fact, its position seems to me more unassailable than that of the NLC. Unlike the emotive argument of the congress, TUC dissected the problem well, pointing out the issues that others have identified as reasons necessitating the tariff hike, particularly the foreign exchange component.

    I am not opposed to further negotiations and possibly a further reduction in the tariff. But it is pertinent to let the NLC realise that it cannot be issuing threats all of the time, otherwise the threats would lose their potency. The fact of the matter is that telecommunications is not one of the sectors that the government is subsidising. The service providers are

    in business to make profit. They are therefore not bound by threats of boycott or protest by the congress or whoever. The NLC should not be behaving like policemen who intervene in every matter, including helping their friends or relations to recover loans or stolen property, which is not their core responsibility.

    People have a choice to use or not to use telephone, or at least regulate their use of it if it becomes expensive. As we say, no matter how tiny the hand of the rat is; it is that same hand that it uses to scratch its ear (bi owo eku ti mo lo se nfi yun eti). How much people enjoy the white man depends on their pockets.

    If the telcos say they cannot go below what the NCC has approved if they must maintain quality service, so be it. Let subscribers regulate their use of phones. Nigerians should not forward march to the better-forgotten past.

    We all know how frustrating it is to make calls that drop or send messages that don’t get delivered. We know what it means to be in a hurry online only for network not to cooperate because service providers are not getting commensurate charges to maintain their facilities.

     NLC cannot arrogate to itself the duty of a price control agency because that is what it is attempting to do in this case. Unless NLC provides concrete evidence that the telcos had been overcharging Nigerians, its reaction to this tariff hike is analogous to blaming waiters in restaurants for obesity.

  • Elephants and the Castle

    Elephants and the Castle

    • A Convergence of Consequences

    There are some big elephants in the sitting room. And when elephants converge before a magnificent castle, it is usually a sign of unusual developments. Elephants are known to have a long memory. But with the humongous mass of their brains, nothing less must be expected except by foolhardy and feckless humanity .They are usually placid and easygoing without the ferocious temper of a rhinoceros or the tempestuous rage of a hippopotamus.  But that is until they sense danger or the perpetrator of some old infractions in the neighborhood. That is when all hell is let loose with the infuriated pachyderms pulling out and pulling up everything in sight or out of sight in elemental rage. The jungle can no longer contain the plaintiff and the defendant. This is when the hunter becomes the hunted.

     Like the ghost of Banquo at state dinner, Bola Ige, a master poet, intellectual pugilist and political prizefighter, seems to be whispering from beyond: Tell my perjurers and assailants that I did nothing unworthy of poetry and philosophy! That is only two of the three Ps, leaving out perhaps the most important P, which is punitive politics in a postcolonial penal colony. Ige himself would be the first to let you know upfront that he was not a saint and that politics in a fractious, multi-ethnic and multi-faith polity seething with primordial envy and animosities is not for saints. Even then, it beggars belief that a   nation’s chief law officer could be slain like that in his bedroom without the assailants caring a hoot about the consequences. Here was a man who could not hurt a fly, despite all appearances to the contrary. He was armed only with his abrasive tongue and nettling pen and it was with these that he whipped political fools and other chancers into line.

      But Abuja is not the most benign habitat for literary generals. Before Ige, its most famous poet who was a warrior-general was militarily liquidated by his colleagues. Sensing danger, many of us who felt close enough railed from a distance that leaving the comfort of his ethnic fortress in a towering huff for the killing fields of Abuja was a bridge too far. But we were sidelined and testily ignored. Caesar must cross The Rubicon. Ige had privately told some of our mutual friends that he could not understand how a teacher of Literature could have the temerity to be telling him what to do in politics. Like Cicero, his Roman progenitor, who had his tongue literally pulled out, it was our own Cicero’s proud and noble Ijesa heart that was shot to pieces.

       But it is well. Almost a quarter of a century after his dastardly assassination in his bedroom, James Ajibola Idowu Ige seems to be having the last laugh over his tormentors. First, and in a remarkable piece of finely honed historical denouement, the late Cicero of Esa Oke appears to be presiding over the funeral rites of the group he belonged to and of which he was the undisputed intellectual and political master of the game. It is a remarkable funeral pyre, an enchanting spiral of decline, dissolution and death enacted as a consuming public spectacle. Judging from the bits and tidbits of information being released by his family, his close associates and acolytes and the cagey pushback this has elicited, it is becoming obvious that Ige’s elimination was hatched and executed from the innermost sanctuary of state liquidation. But we must warn that nothing last forever. The Nigerian postcolonial state is not an organic formation but a brittle ensemble of deadly intrigues and Byzantine conspiracies against the people of Nigeria. Judging from the deadpan and poker-faced revelations of recent weeks, it is just possible that countervailing elements from a rival power formation now have access to classified information which they may not be averse to insinuating into the public domain if only to put some Nigerian tin gods permanently out of political contention. Beyond the public purview, it is just possible that another deadly power struggle for the soul of Nigeria has commenced and it is going to be nasty and messy.

       It is only in the Third World that people act without expecting repercussions for their actions.  Sometimes, the sheer wickedness of humanity is ascribed to God himself. But as Dele Giwa, the martyred Nigerian superstar journalist, once hauntingly put it, nobody mocks God and the rewards of villainy are often handed out in life. In the fullness of time, karmic retribution often appears strange and unreal if not totally bewildering to the onlooker. This is the beauty of historical development which on the surface appears to obey only its own law and inner logic. The public excoriations and private torments our former military and civilian dictators are currently experiencing may appear to be against the run of play, but they are the logical consequences of past infractions against a nation and its people that they owe so much.

      The impunity of lawlessness is often a reflection of lawlessness as the organizing principle of a society in the trauma of transition. No one, however highly placed, should exploit the void to conduct themselves with abominable lawlessness. Order, or some semblance, will eventually return to question disorder. In postcolonial societies transiting to modernity, the unstructured and ungoverned nature of things makes impunity to wear the garb of divine immunity. But that is only before hitherto unseen and unknown countervailing forces rise to the occasion, forcing a resolution of the crisis or a tense deadlock as the case may be. It is known as the return of the repressed.

       This much is evident in the other elephants that have taken up residence in Nigeria’s palatial sitting room in recent times. Namely, the protracted legal tussle over the Mambilla Hydro-electric Project which has exposed the soft underbelly of official impunity in Nigeria in all its cancerous possibilities. There is also the statement said to have been issued on behalf of Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar asking the South-West populace to accept the reality of Sharia rule over their considerable Muslim segments. Yoruba self-determination groups have been implacable in their umbrage. These are dangerous developments indeed that tug at the heart of the National Question and could lead to a recrudescence of ethnic, religious and geo-economic tensions in the nation. Both Obasanjo and Buhari have already had their day in the court of International Arbitration. It was a sad day for Nigeria.

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    If the two gentlemen were expecting national commendation for their yeoman’s labour in Paris, the gale of rebuff and recrimination should serve as an indication of the seething national misgiving about their conduct in office. As for the Sultan and the insidious charter of domination however diplomatically coded, the furious rejection of his suggestion even by traditional die-hard Muslim adherents in Yorubaland should inform him that the days of extending feudal hegemony under the guise of some  pernicious narrative of superior compliance are over. In a multi-ethnic nation, the rising tide of ethnic nationalism appears to trump religious overlordship of some dubious vintage. The instant uproar in the west ought to serve as a cautionary reminder. Allow me to conduct my Islamic religion as I deem fit, is a joyous Yoruba refrain. Fundamentalist adherents of an Islamic credo that has nothing but debilitating poverty and political anomie to show may scoff at this, but it is this eccentric and idiosyncratic syncretism that is the strength of Yoruba culture which has allowed the people to survive ages and epochs of adversity from invading hordes. Nigeria is in a state of tense and precarious equilibrium. We must refrain from doing anything that could tip the balance into anarchy and chaos which are the usual precursors of the collapse of regular politics.

      In advanced societies, the collapse of regular politics can have adverse and ruinous consequences for the ruling classes. This is why Donald Trump is currently kicking their butt about in America with aplomb and cruel relish. Governance of fickle humanity requires constant vigilance and continuous inventiveness. In what feels like an outstanding feat of magical realism, Trump has just revoked the security pass of his predecessor. Once the ruling classes allow the initiative to slip either through carelessness or a stalling of vision, it opens the door to either demented demagogues of the right or deluded messianic crackpots from the left, depending on the balance of forces. Donald Trump is an exemplary product of the regnant contradictions of contemporary American society. He does not possess the intellectual wherewithal or the political temperament and emotional intelligence to make a dent on America’s social, economic and political problems. But he will so muddy the waters that resetting America will be a herculean task for his successors until one of them is able to rediscover the magic that made America an exceptional country.

      In less advanced societies with weak structures and weaker institutions, the precipitate collapse of regular politics can have more catastrophic consequences for nations and their traditional ruling classes. Twice in Nigeria in January 1966 and December 1983, it led to state collapse with the first one accompanied by virtual nation-collapse culminating in a thirty-month civil war. In post-independence Africa, the collapse of regular politics has led to civil wars in Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Algeria, Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Cote D’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau and Libya.

        It is within this broad context that one must express grave concern and particular disappointment about the outcome of a recent gathering of political notables and their freshly recruited satraps ostensibly to feel the pulse of the nation and to offer new insights about how to take the country to greater heights. On both counts, it was a dismal failure. It was a celebration of trivia and platitudes about who did what to whom in the run up to the last presidential election and its aftermath. If this is a peep into the embryonic formation of what is shaping up as opposition force in the next presidential election, the ruling party might as well go to sleep with a Do Not Disturb sign screwed to the door.

     Those who are principally fixated on the dreary outcome of an electoral process without focusing attention on the shambolic state of opposition forces will have plenty of tears to shed when they come to grief once again. By then, those who rely on traditional disruption of the electoral process in its concluding phase would have become so enervated and exhausted by their errant exertions that they would have become a spent political force with the status of extinct volcanoes. By the prevailing logic of a fractious, multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation, power can only be forcibly wrested and will not be shared out except by stringent and pacted elite negotiations.

       What the gathering left unsaid is more eloquent than what it actually says. The unstated fact is that they have been rendered hors de combat even before the commencement of battle. In Literary Theory, this is known as “the effectivity of the absent cause”. In this case, the absent cause which the political notables could not bring themselves to reflect on is the complete homogenization of the Nigerian ruling class which has made it impossible for the so called opposition to come up with an authentic alternative vision of the country since nothing can distinguish or set them apart from the ruling faction apart from their infantile tiffs. This unification of elite consciousness is a direct result of politics without principles and party formation without coherent ideology. If this is where we are almost a quarter of a century after his martyrdom, Bola Ige will be frantic in his grave.

  • Remaking political opposition

    Remaking political opposition

    Those who suspect that opposition parties in Nigeria are dedicated to taking or retaking office rather than offering realistic policy options to the parties in power are not far from the mark. Both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), but more accurately both former vice president Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, exemplify this suspicion. They have sometimes spoken copiously and abusively about certain government policies, but they have done little else to explicate the foundations of the policies, particularly the economic ills those policies are targeted to address. Oppositional imperfections and wild assumptions, including the opinionatedness of political candidates and party leaders, are not peculiarly Nigerian. These failings are fairly global, leading to the conclusion that great leadership has been greatly diminished everywhere.

    That the PDP is embroiled in crisis today does not mean it cannot solve its problem and go on to offer Nigeria great leadership. But it has not shown any likelihood that it is capable of meeting the country’s idealistic yearnings. Indeed, for its 16 years in office it went from being a divisive and overbearing party to a divided and cowering party without the redeeming grace of being a promising or inspiring party. Since it lost the presidency in 2015, it has teetered on the brink of implosion, careening from the desire to become Africa’s leading and biggest party to managing to rein in its recalcitrant members and fractious leaders. Its leading lights, such as the politically nomadic Alhaji Atiku, are flawed and tightfisted, and its platform ideologically suspect and detached from reality. Hobbled by internal dissension, and weakened by tenuous ideology, the party has so far been unable to unite behind a common cause. But without putting its house in order administratively and ideologically, a task they are now undertaking clumsily, amateurishly and frantically, it is impossible to champion any oppositional cause, let alone fight the ruling party.

    The LP has not fared better. In fact there is little hope it can unite its members around a common cause, seeing that the party leadership is reviled by the sometimes lawless and obtruding unionist leaders who founded it. Factionalised into two, much like the PDP, it nevertheless boasts of one factional leadership under Julius Abure, a lawyer, who has had the good fortune of winning nearly all the court cases brought against his faction or suits his faction filed. Though founded by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the union has unimaginatively tethered the party to its withered apron strings, and hoped that such linkage would be enough to guarantee discipline and control. It has not. Worse, the union has been successfully resisted by the court-sanctioned faction; and so far, everyone other than Mr Abure aspiring to the leadership of the party has come to grief, including the unresourceful and pretentious ideologue, Mr Obi. To the dismay of those who support the party at the instance of Mr Obi, the party has appeared to lack ideological direction, having never been imbued with any philosophical paradigm by the NLC at its founding. The union has sometimes pretended to be left-of-centre, or at times practical, but it has been unable to produce a consistent and coherent ideological foundation for a party which, in its hands, has turned into a disreputable special purpose vehicle for taking power.

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    Both the PDP and LP must, therefore, find solutions to their existential crises before they can aspire to real opposition or take/retake the presidency. The PDP may be able to achieve unaccustomed unity among its cantankerous members and leaders, but it is likely to create a worse tear in the party’s fabric. Whatever is left of the party, and whatever forced concessions it makes in order to present a smiling face to the electorate, will not include an administrative and ideological remake of the party powerful and convincing enough to drive its campaigns in the years ahead. It will need a tectonic overhaul to create a synergetic effect capable of unifying the party and catalysing its electoral drive for power. That overhaul will have to involve forcing out the main combatants who have turned the one-time ruling party into a relic, men like Alhaji Atiku, Nyesom Wike, Bala Mohammed, Iliya Damagum, Adolphus Wabara, et al. Unfortunately, the party is unused to such massive decapitation. It has a foreboding history, not to say habit, of bandaging its gangrenous wounds and pouring on them nothing more than medications that have only analgetic properties.

    For the LP, no one really holds out hope that the fractious party can be salvaged, not even the unusually optimistic and romantic Mr Obi. It is a lot of headache for him to have to battle to smother the crises in his borrowed party. He has never formed a party, and has always preferred to hitch a ride when the steed is close to being described as a thoroughbred. When he latched on to the LP and began to mouth his sectarian rhetoric and fulminate against the Muslim religion’s capture of Nigeria, it was fun for him riding the pedigreed stallion he thought for one crazy moment he could dashingly ride to power. Once he failed and was exposed as an opportunist, and once the mob he inflamed to cause havoc seemed finally spent, he began to dither badly, wondering what next to do beyond propagandising the absurd theories of opposition. Accused of being disinterested in offering the requisite leadership to manage the crisis in the LP, he waded in belatedly and half-heartedly, huffed a little in one breath, sounded grandiose in another breath, but finally resigned himself to fate as he sought succour elsewhere, preferring to meet minds with PDP, APC and New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) rejects in a political merger they love to describe as a mega party.

    The APC has not operated flawlessly, and some of its policies and appointments have raised eyebrows. There are, therefore, enough reasons for a resourceful and imaginative party to play the opposition role fittingly and productively. That they are not doing it is not because the ruling party is fostering division in the opposition or crippling their efforts; it is simply because the opposition parties have found themselves in unfamiliar territories, unable to appreciate their roles in a presidential as opposed to parliamentary system. They will need to develop sound administrative frameworks for their parties, unite their members as much as it is practicable, and anchor all their existence and operations on very sound, if not sounder, ideological and ethical principles. They must be able to give what the APC does not have, both in style and in party philosophy. And they must engender discipline on a scale that makes them far more appealing than the ruling party. Can they do it? In fact, are they capable of it? If they have no idea what ails them, why on earth would they feel compelled to do what needs to be done, not to talk of give what they do not have?

  • Rethinking the Lagos Assembly impasse

    Rethinking the Lagos Assembly impasse

    The January 13, 2025 removal of the Lagos State House of Assembly speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, came out of the blue. He was on holidays when the putsch took place. On his return, he has quibbled about the legality and semantics of the removal, insisting that during and immediately after the process some people used the words removal and impeachment interchangeably to describe what was done to him. It is true that some reports described his removal as impeachment, but it is equally true that the Assembly described his ouster as removal. Regardless of his book knowledge or his conviction, there is no semantic stalemate regarding his removal. His colleagues, all 32 of them out of 40, knew what to call the process that led to his exit, and they are comfortable and adamant about it. They deserve the support of everyone.

    There are indications that in one form or the other the Governance (or Governor’s) Advisory Council (GAC) was involved in the removal, perhaps even sanctioning it. The Council may be an extra-constitutional body, but it has remained influential since it was set up under the Bola Tinubu governorship. Soon after Hon. Obasa was unhorsed, his successor, Mojisola Meranda, visited the GAC and received their blessing. Their assent as well as the visit should have been more nuanced, lest many analysts begin to squirm over the role of the Council, even believing erroneously that it was behind the putsch. But since the mistake was made, both the GAC and the Assembly have battled to sustain the action the state’s lawmakers took against Mr Obasa. It has turned out that a few members of the GAC, perhaps three or four out of about 24 have balked at the former speaker’s removal, but regardless of the stridency of their voices and protests, they have been unable to give traction to their reservations. There are speculations about All Progressives Congress (APC) hierarchs wanting to return Mr Obasa to his seat, but no one is sure the rumours are not just amateur name-dropping or red herring.

    The procedure adopted by the lawmakers to remove Hon. Obasa was democratic. His removal over alleged financial misappropriation, misconduct, and high-handedness cannot be downplayed. Indeed, the lawmakers could even remove him if they happened to take a dislike to him at any time and at any point. It is unclear what role the GAC played in the removal beyond merely assenting it. If the party and its hierarchs begin to nitpick over such removals, ignoring the sensibilities of the lawmakers, and overplaying their hands, they risk alienating the rank and file. Worse, they risk becoming accessory to the many alleged misdemeanours of errant officials. Hon. Obasa was in his tenth year as speaker; he had become complacent, imperious and garrulous. For these and other reasons, his colleagues got tired of his tyranny and wanted him out. The removal may upset the political permutations of the party, but they would be courting disfavor, if not disaster, to insist on reinstating him. If the removal blindsided them, they must find intelligent and democratic ways of closing ranks and regaining control of the party and the legislature.

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    Hon. Obasa makes it hard for party leaders and members to defend or back him. Regardless of his misunderstanding with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, his response to the governor’s budget presentation on November 21 exhibited poor judgement and a lack of grace and understanding. He was not only mortifyingly indecorous, he was also bombastic and boastful. How he managed to hold down the speakership position for so long must remain a mystery. It is uncertain whether party leaders looked deeper than the surface of his leadership; but the near unanimity of opinion against him by most of his colleagues, past and present, speaks to the poor choice they made of him when they first elected him speaker nearly 10 years ago. It is possible the GAC had been uncomfortable with him for some time, perhaps after recognising his limitations; but they were probably too noble to force the matter. His colleagues, therefore, had to endure him.

    The GAC and the party must now move beyond Hon. Obasa. Their speakership choices have not always been flawless, as evidenced by their election and sustenance of the former speaker. It is, however, time for them to begin seeking ways to match the election of their legislative officials with a clear vision, in fact grander vision, of the dizzying heights where they hope to take and put Lagos. If their vision of Lagos remains lackluster and pedestrian, then they could continue electing principal officers who cannot transcend the ordinariness of their collective aspirations. Lagos has attracted an incredible influx of people from other parts of the country, many of them young but ethically unmoored. The state, therefore, needs men and women in key positions who can think fast and loftily on behalf of the state, without sacrificing the interests of the indigenes. So far, Lagos has not quite transcended its amorphousness; and Hon. Obasa was simply incapably of embodying the hopes and aspirations of a new, bigger, more modern, and cosmopolitan megacity.

    It is disturbing that the GAC and the party have hemmed and hawed over a fairly straightforward matter. Mr Sanwo-Olu himself has kept discretely silent so as not to be accused of having a hand in the removal of his combative nemesis. The problem with Hon. Obasa, however, is not just his politics, as fairly ineffective as that was, nor even his serial indiscretions, as mortifying as they were, nor yet his mistreatment of his colleagues, which was enough to earn him a place in the guillotine, nor even the suspicion that his successor could be overwhelmed by the speaker’s office. What ailed the former speaker so profoundly is what all these damning attributes say of his person and his judgement, in short what they say of his lack of leadership character. That cannot be remedied by any reinstatement, no matter how temporary it is designed to give him a soft landing. And from all indications, given his age and the level he has attained in politics, not to talk of the undignified and ignoble way he has handled his removal, it would be a mistake to give him any kind considerations when he does not even know what that means.

  • Buhari embraces mirage

    Buhari embraces mirage

    Gradually, after many months of reticence or monosyllabic responses to national issues, former president Muhammadu Buhari has begun to find his voice. On January 25, speaking in Katsina at an All Progressives Congress (APC) caucus meeting, he addressed the subjects of frugality and transparency, declaring that he really never learnt to live above his means. He talked about owning only three houses, one in Katsina, and two in Kaduna, one of which he let out to cover his daily and living expenses. He strangely omitted to speak about his retirement benefits and pension, which are sizable. There is no reason to doubt his frugality or that he actually owns only three houses. It is thus really impressive, and despite receiving flak over what he said next in the same Katsina last Wednesday, he must be commended for his physical and financial asceticism.

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    When the former president speaks about himself and his lifestyle, he manages to sound believable and even endearing to Nigerians. But when he speaks about his record as president, or before that, as military head of state, few Nigerians want to give him a hearing. They neither believe what he has to say nor think he has a commanding knowledge of the principles of great governance and leadership. In fact, he exaggerated his leadership prowess when he spoke without blushing that he left Nigeria better than he met it. In his words: “Nigeria’s security and economy improved significantly under my administration compared to what we met in 2015. Things will continue to improve in Nigeria.” His analysis of what he met as a carryover from the Goodluck Jonathan presidency was correct. The situation was indeed dire, which explained why he was elected.

    But when he exclaimed that he bettered the security situation of the country, perhaps his mind was fixed only on Boko Haram, and not the banditry and herdsmen pillage that was birthed and accetuated under his presidency. And when he added that the economy ‘improved significantly’ on his watch, it is unclear whether he was not being astigmatic. The fact, as everyone knows, but which the APC would be loth to admit, is that he ran the economy aground. It is true that he met a troubled economy; but he never improved it. Whatever improvements he thought his administration made were erected on flimsy anchors and borrowed futures. Let him stick to rhapsodising his private principles and endowments whenever he receives guests. They would resonate. As for his leadership qualities, even he is unqualified to speak.

  • PDP and its leadership crisis

    PDP and its leadership crisis

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) never anticipated the turn of events. Its leaders had confidently declared the party would rule for 60 years. They least expected the transmogrification that boxed it into the opposition corner. Now dazed, its leaders have been trying to pinch themselves into reality. But the more they try, the deeper they lapse into odious phantasm.

    The PDP seems to find more crises in resolving the self-inflicted confusion it created for its leadership. As its headship falters, the centre weakens further. Its administration has become a case study in party politics conflict resolutions.

    When the wind of change blew, an adjustment to reality became tedious. The transition to life outside power has been hectic. Left in the cold for 10 years running, the party is yet to put itself together. Its bane is a lack of unity, cohesion, and focus.

    However, the PDP cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand in many states, particularly in its strongholds, where it still has structures and can weather the storm. It will be risky for the All Progressives Congress (APC) to sleep on guard because it is now the ruling party at the centre. The reason more chieftains are defecting to APC is because it is the ruling party. They feel they have prospects of winning on the platform. APC should learn from the PDP’s mistakes and manage its achievements well.

    The founding leaders of the PDP are now on the sidelines. Many of them are old and contending with fading influence. At one point or the other, they were either pushed aside, emasculated, or frustrated out of the party. The majority of the current crop of the party’s leaders – governors, National Assembly members, and national officers – were too junior to the founding fathers in the hierarchical order. Between 1999 and 2003, many of them were SAs, SSAs, council chairmen, and state lawmakers. The party appears to be collapsing because its leaders are neglecting the old vision and agreement that once held the party together.

    The few active founding fathers are pretending as if nothing of such existed because upholding them would be detrimental to their interests. In the process of holding on to personal agendas, the collective interest is threatened.

    It is not a fitting tribute to the memory of PDP leaders, like Dr. Alex Ekwueme, that rotation or zoning of the presidential and national chairmanship slots was discarded by the current handlers of the party.

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    It is a tragedy that the formidable party chaired by progressive leaders, including Chief Solomon Lar and Chief Bola Ige, who wrote its constitution, now appears to be ebbing away.

    The PDP agreed to distribute six positions into six zones. These positions are: President, Vice President, Senate President, House of Representatives Speaker, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, and the National Chairman of the party.

    Also, it was agreed that the offices should rotate between the South and the North. The aim was to foster unity, equity, justice, and a sense of belonging in the heterogeneous country.

    Once those agreements were breached in PDP, lots of problems arose.

    There was a political pollution at the beginning as the Generals who reluctantly surrendered power became the pillars of the edifice. Many of the founding fathers developed an inferiority complex in 1998/’98. After establishing the party, they started looking for an outsider to fly its presidential flag. Even, if General Olusegun Obasanjo was a silent PDP sympathiser, there existed well-known and competent civilians in the party who were qualified to run for President. But the retired soldiers who held the ace insisted on the former military head of state.

    As the ruling party, the PDP was beset by leadership instability. After it gained power, the party slipped into turmoil. As the President became the National Leader, the national chairmen became puppets. From 1998 to date, a spate of 27 years, the party has produced 17 national chairmen. Only one of them, Col. Ahmadu Ali, completed his tenure successfully. Many left the party chair worse than they met it. Today, no fewer than five former chairmen of the party are in the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    PDP’s problem is worsened by its lack of leadership. Party leadership is beyond the National Working Committee (NWC). In this wise, the PDP has not borrowed a leaf from the pre-2019 APC, which, despite being an amalgam of struggling platforms, had a National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a man of immense stature who commanded the respect of all and sundry.

    In the PDP of today, there is no unifier. Its interim leadership does not command popular acceptance. Yet, the search for a credible alternative is problematic. The party’s elders are not in one accord. They are divided by antagonistic ambitions, conflicts of interests, and clash of egos. As the national leadership is bogged down by unresolved squabbles, many state chapters are also battling with sundry crises that appear intractable.

    The stunted growth of the PDP is a disservice to democracy. It robs the country of a critical alternative route and creates a void that cannot be filled by the crisis-ridden Labour Party (LP) and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP); the latter party’s sphere of influence is highly restricted to Kano.

    PDP leaders work at cross-purpose as the platform wobbles towards 2027. Instead of collectively building the party, gladiators are building ambitions on private structures. Cracks are not mended. The organs of the party cannot reach a consensus on concrete ideas and future goals of the party. Many party stalwarts commit anti-party activities. They justify their actions and go unpunished. Thus, there is collapse of discipline.

    Reconciliation in the PDP is not built on altruism. It is cosmetic in nature because the sources of discord are ignored. Instead of facing the reality of partisan feuds and malice rooted in the unresolved crisis of 2022, party leaders are busy chasing shadows. It is ironic that as the Oyinlola peace panel swung into action, the intra-party crisis has escalated.

    Many things are disputed in the PDP. Its proposed convention is disputed. The NEC meeting has been repeatedly shifted. The party has failed to build a consensus on the choice of the next chairman, although the former occupant of the position, Senator Iyorchia Ayu, was shoved aside more than a year ago. The Deputy Chairman (North), Ambassador Umar Damagum, who has been steering the party’s affairs, does not enjoy the support and cooperation of all. He has survived the plots to remove him more than twice.

    Damagum has succeeded in obtaining a court judgment that validates his tenure as the interim leader till December. Yet, concerted efforts are on to pull the rug off his feet. He has to be vigilant.

    The Northcentral chieftains are agitating for the new chairman to come from the zone. There is no agreement on micro-zoning. Aspirants are locked in acrimony.

    The position of the National Secretary is also disputed. Senator Samuel Anyanwu lays claim to it. His challenger, Ude-Okoye, kicks, accusing the former Imo State governorship candidate of impersonation.

    Two weeks ago, their supporters stormed the party headquarters in Abuja to flex muscles. The police described them as thugs who invaded the meeting of the Board of Trustees (BoT) to settle scores. Caution was thrown to the wind. The mob attacked chieftains and no one was ready to claim responsibility.

    Today, the Wadata House is not safe. BoT Chairman Adolphus Wabara and other party elders are keeping a distance from the party’s secretariat till further notice. They are taking precautions. On Wednesday, they relocated to Transcorp-Hilton in Abuja for their meeting.

    The PDP Governors’ Forum has threatened fire and brimstone. It recognised Ude-Okoye as the authentic National Secretary, to the consternation of an equally embattled Senator Anyanwu, who has been reminding the forum about the stay of execution of an Appeal Court judgment. A situation whereby the landlord packs out of his house is serious.

    Echoing the same sentiment and bias, the highest advisory organ took sides in the highly divisive and destabilising issue by throwing its weight behind Udeh-Okoye. This did not go down well with some party youths who rejected the position of the BoT, saying its gerontocratic advice was not binding. The youths pointed out that the tenure of many BoT members had expired.

    If there is a court judgment, the verdict should be obeyed. This conforms with the constitution and the rule of law. However, if there is a stay of execution, it should not be ignored either.

    The proxy war in the PDP should be carefully settled. The partisan rift between former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Rivers State governor and current Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike started during the 2023 electioneering. What the party could not resolve was the zoning or rotational question. Instead of running to their party’s elders at home to seek their wise counsel, the party went ahead with Atiku as the presidential candidate and Ayu as the national chairman. It meant the old agreement, which Atiku and Ayu were witnesses to at the beginning, was violated.

    Younger elements who were not there when the agreement was made but who got to know about it, including Wike and other members of the ‘G5,’ protested. Reconciliation collapsed because the terms of the truce were jettisoned. As the aggrieved governors fought back, the PDP became weakened in some states. The APC saw the cracks and wooed the aggrieved for collaboration. PDP’s loss became APC’s gains.

    As a minister, Wike became a subject of envy, and his former colleagues in the PDP Governors’ Forum and new members of the group lacked a novel strategy for engaging the FCT minister.

    Treading the path of discord is disastrous. Anyanwu is being targeted for political liquidation at the party’s secretariat, being an associate of Wike. The court, and not the party, will determine his fate. Also, concerted efforts are on to pull the rug off the feet of Damagum. This can be done after December.

    As the party warms up for the March 13 National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, there is palpable anxiety among party leaders and members.

    Reconciliation is still the solution. But it should be genuine. It should be erected on the foundation of equity and justice.

  • NCC’s tariff increase: Another misguided step in wrong direction

    NCC’s tariff increase: Another misguided step in wrong direction

    The recent decision by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to increase phone call tariffs has sparked widespread concern and criticism across the country. Such move, which is coming at a time when Nigerians are already juggling  with severe economic challenges, poor take homes against galloping like inflation much demonstrates a troubling disconnect between regulatory decisions and market pricing realities.

    Such timing of this tariff increase by 50 percent on operating tarrifs could not be more inappropriate and insensitive. With inflation rates soaring without any form of immediate reprieve and the purchasing power of the average Nigerian readily and repeatedly diminishing, adding to such economic woes, the cost of essential communication services places an unnecessary  and unfair burden on citizens who rely heavily on mobile communications for both personal and business purposes.

    How do you go ahead with steep increases in tariffs when a number of glaring issues  affecting mobile telephony  are yet to be addressed by the NCC. These recurring problems which stem from NCC’s shambolism as a  regulator are still lingering. So the average Nigerian is none the better since neither the QoS nor the rates are favourable, mobile subscribers who have been plagued with these issues will only adjust to the continuous provision of substandard services from network providers, including frequent dropped calls, poor network coverage, and inconsistent data speeds and consumption. The regulatory body’s inability to effectively address these fundamental challenges raise a number of serious questions about its priorities and regulatory effectiveness.

    The billing methods of these mobile telephony companies have long been a source of frustration for Nigerian consumers. Subscribers are usually piqued with regular cases of unexplained deductions, questionable charges. Shouldnt this be the thrust of the NCC? Shouldnt the leadership of the NCC focus  on these critical consumer protection issues? Isnt it suprising  that it is the issue of tarriff that the leadership of the NCC has chosen to implement? One that will definitely bring about immense  hardship to the subcriber while failing to address these core issues.

    Network providers have consistently hidden under the unveriable claims them running and incurring  high operational costs as justification for various price increases, these are telecom companies that have year in year out declared jawbreaking sums as profits after taxes. Some of these telecom operators prefer to spend more on lush adverts and sponsor reality shows and yet there is little evidence of corresponding improvements in service quality. In saner  climes the NCC as a regulator would first of all seek the kingdom of evidential improvements  before deciding on any form of price increases. The message  the NCC is merely sending to the world is that poor performance will always be rewarded without seeking guarantees of offering better service quality.

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    I have said this before and i will repeat such here, and that is that the the regulatory framework governing Nigeria’s telecommunications sector requires progressive  reform. The NCC’s approach to regulation has been largely dour rather than proactive, it has like Rome’s Nero fiddled while the sector continues to do the forward and backwards dance, it has failed to galvanise the telecoms sector with robust measures that would protect consumer interests while fostering healthy competition among service providers as well as enhance the sector’s strategic place in our economy, not only as a meana for creating jobs but also as a hib for continuous investment. In addition to this, the commission’s monitoring and enforcement mechanisms have time and time proven incompetent in ensuring compliance with service quality standards, yet it seems more focused on facilitating revenue increases for operators.

    Moreover, the lack of transparent consultation with key stakeholders before implementing this tariff increase raises concerns about the NCC’s decision-making process. Consumer advocacy groups, business associations, and other relevant stakeholders should have been given meaningful opportunities to provide input and raise concerns before such a significant change was approved.

    The economic impact of this tariff increase extends beyond individual consumers. Small and medium-sized enterprises, which form the backbone of Nigeria’s economy, rely heavily on telecommunications services for their daily operations. Increasing their operational costs through higher call tariffs could have ripple effects across various sectors of the economy, potentially leading to job losses and reduced economic activity.

    It is worth noting that many other countries are working to reduce communication costs to drive digital inclusion and economic growth. The NCC’s decision to move in the opposite direction raises questions about Nigeria’s commitment to digital transformation and economic development goals.

    The commission should reconsider this ill-timed tariff increase and instead focus on:

    The immediate reversal of this tariff increase would demonstrate the NCC’s commitment to protecting consumer interests and promoting sustainable growth in Nigeria’s telecommunications sector. The regulatory body must prioritize addressing the fundamental challenges facing the industry rather than implementing measures that further burden already struggling consumers.

    Until these critical issues are adequately addressed, any attempt to increase tariffs can only be seen as premature and detrimental to the interests of Nigerian consumers. The NCC must return to its primary mandate of ensuring quality service delivery while protecting consumer interests. The current tariff rates should be maintained, if not reduced, until there are substantial improvements in service quality and regulatory oversight.

    The way forward requires the reversal of such an ugly increase and the establishment of a more proactive regulatory regime, one  that considers the interests of all stakeholders while prioritizing the development of a robust, efficient, and consumer-friendly telecommunications sector. The NCC must demonstrate stronger leadership in this regard and work more effectively to fulfill its regulatory responsibilities, i lend my voice to the reversal of the tarrif hike, it is unjust! It is unfair!! It is the height of regulatory irresponsibility!!!