The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • The more you look…

    The more you look…

    I pity Austin Eguavoen. He is always the fall guy when things go awry with the senior national team. Yet, he is always available to do the dirty job of stabilising the Super Eagles whenever a lacuna exists in the headship of the team’s technical crew. When the team plays well under Eguavoen’s tutelage, the deafening noise would be Eureka. If the team totters, the vexatious song from Nigerians would be to crucify Cerezo, as the former Super Eagles captain’s alias goes. With this scenario in mind, Eguavoen is always a pitiable sight to watch during matches. A patriot, no doubt Eguavoen is. And of course, a thankless job.

    Unfortunately for Eguavoen, he is in a hospital in Belgium recuperating after a successful hip surgery. Otherwise, he would have sat on the Eagles bench against the Ghanaians, only to be insulted with reports about a pending announcement of a new foreign technical adviser, leaving him in the lurch about his role in the new dispensation when the new man assumes office. It is looking like Nigeria is wooing a former Mali manager for the Super Eagles, meaning we have opted for deep knowledge of the game for one of those journeymen in Africa. Yet, we are beating our chests of winning the remaining six qualifiers, with a former Mali manager who isn’t top notch. It won’t happen.

    What Nigeria needs is a complete break from the rustic past, knowing that our players have experienced a geometric progression in their games playing in Europe, by competing and training under the tutelage of some of the best coaches in the world, unlike our coaches and administrators who are crawling in their arithmetic progression. This is the void that has been hunting Nigeria’s growth in the beautiful game. Finidi George partook in a domestic league in one week, only to be seen the next week playing for Ajax Amsterdam in the Dutch league.

    Our sports administrators are bad students of history; otherwise, we may need to ask them the sense in recruiting a foreign manager behind closed doors. Yet they are assuring Nigerians of grabbing the group’s sole qualification ticket to the 2026 World Cup to be hosted by USA, Canada and Mexico.

    When England signed German tactician Thomas Tuchel to take the Three Lions to the 2026 World Cup, it wasn’t done as guesswork. The English FA introduced Tuchel as their coach. They also told us that he would assume duty on January 1, 2025. Deal struck and Tuchel assumed work because his template of how the Three Lions should henceforth play their matches is stuck in his head.

    Isn’t it unethical for anyone to recruit a short term coach to qualify a country for the Mundial, using players who are being owed bonuses and allowances running into millions of the US dollars? What is the wisdom in cutting the players’ entitlements and expecting them to play their hearts out for the ticket? Our players sacrifice a lot coming to play for the country, given the poor quality of pitches in Nigeria. Many of them return to their European clubs injured and lose their shirts. The bonuses and allowances are what they give to their relations and friends for upkeep.

    Imagine what the players went through during the ill-fated game against Libya and the attendant risks involved in the late decision by the Libyans to divert the aircraft to land in a disused airstrip without landing instruments. The pilot of the aircraft, a Tunisian, used his experience when he worked there, to land the big bird safely. Is it not cruel for the players not to be paid a dime, months after this show of shame in Libya?

    The lure of playing at the senior World Cup is the craving for big players, yet they don’t do it playing for their different countries on empty stomachs. Our football chieftains make the tasks of playing for Nigeria very unattractive by delaying the payment of players’ entitlements. Will anyone be surprised that the accompanying officials get paid before they even board the plane? Another Animal Farm setting.

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    In March, the Super Eagles fly out to confront the group leaders, Rwanda, before they welcome bottom placed Zimbabwe. South Africa, Benin and Lesotho are the other teams in this group with only the overall group winners guaranteed automatic passage to the 2026 World Cup. My head on the guillotine, our federation chiefs will wait until when the players assemble in Rwanda before the non-payment wahala is addressed. Possibly, another round of promises.

    It is pertinent to ask our soccer chiefs what the plans for the team’s campaign are? Do these plans include friendly games? Where would the players be meeting with the purported foreign coach? In a special camp setting? Or would the foreign coach be timidly escorted by our sports administrators around Europe? Or would the soccer federation be wise enough to use the period before March to allow the coach watch our players live during matches. Thereafter, he can meet with such players.

    The story from the Dankaro House in Abuja suggested that the NFF technical committee would meet Thursday to decide who the next foreign manager for the Super Eagles would be. Would this body’s member rubber stamp the report sent to them or would they have the audacity to interrogate the shortlist sent to them by the federation? Or would the body immediately announce the foreign manager at 3am as it happened when German coach Bruno Labbadia turned down the opportunity to become the new head coach of Nigeria’s national team, the Super Eagles after NFF’s circular?

    Can we still trust NFF bigwigs and the technical committee members to do a better job with this exercise? Or is this a subtle way of enthroning Bruno Labbadia as the new coach to cover up their reproach? Labbadia walked out on an agreement to be the new coach of the Super Eagles. A team that has very good players like ours need an equally efficient coach to compliment what they do on the field. Who are the members of the technical committee and what are their antecedents in the act of interviewing coaches for such high profile job as ours?

    If the NFF board knew that they were stuck on having a foreign coach for the Super Eagles, they shouldn’t have bungled the recruitment of Labbadia. What magic are the board members expecting from a new coach whose philosophy and tactics of the game are alien to our boys? What Nigeria has going for her in spite of the federation’s shortcomings, is that we have established players in Europe whose video tapes are available to the coach to watch and adjust his game plans to suit their styles.

    Until our NFF buffs see the World Cup as the platform to exhibit the level of the game in Nigeria, going to the Mundial for the Super Eagles will continue to be a jamboree.  Let us hope that the government has approved N3 billion to the body which hasn’t been inaugurated to ensure that Nigeria’s flag is hoisted among the comity of nations during the 2026 World Cup.

  • Critical succuess factors for 2025 budget

    Critical succuess factors for 2025 budget

    On Wednesday, 18th December 2024, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu presented the 2025 Budget proposal in the sum of about N49.7 trillion to the National Assembly for consideration as the proposed 2025 Budget. The Budget which is the second budget of President Tinubu’s administration is a remarkable increase from the 2024 budget of N27.5 trillion. The President calls the 2025 budget, “The 2025 Budget of Restoration: Securing Peace, Rebuilding Prosperity”. Defense and Security, Infrastructure, Health, and Education Sectors have the highest budget allocations, highlighting the strategic priorities of the administration in 2025. as follows: Defense and Security: N4.91 trillion; Infrastructure: N4.06 trillion; Health: N2.48 trillion; Education: N3.52 trillion. Other key focus areas include; Investments in energy, transport, and public works, Human Capital Development, and Agriculture.

    2024 Budget Performance; According to Mr. President:

    •N14.55trn in revenue, meeting 75% of the target as of the third quarter, of 2024.

    •N21.60trn in expenditure, representing 85% in the third quarter, of 2024.

    •75% increase in revenue to the sum of N14.55 trillion

    •85% increase in expenditure representing 85% of its target.

    2025 Budget Assumptions:

    The proposed budget is based on the following Assumptions:

    •Base crude oil production assumption of 2.06 million barrels per day (mbpd).

    •Targeting N34.82trn in revenue to fund the budget.

    •Inflation will decline from the current rate of 34.6% to 15%

    •Exchange rate will improve from approximately N1,700/US$ to N1,500/US$

    •Reduced importation of petroleum products alongside increased export of finished petroleum products.

    •The Federal Government’s expenditure includes N15.81 trillion for debt servicing and a total of N13.08 trillion naira, or 3.89 percent of GDP.

    •Bumper harvests, driven by enhanced security, reducing reliance on food imports.

    •Increased foreign exchange inflows through Foreign Portfolio Investments.

    •Higher crude oil output and exports, coupled with a substantial reduction in upstream oil and gas production costs.

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    •Government expenditure in the same year is projected to be N47.90trn including N15.81trn for debt servicing.

    •A total of N13.08trn or 3.89% of GDP, will make up the budget deficit.

    The basis for Assumptions:

    The Federal Government is basing those projections on the following observations:

    •Projected reduced importation of petroleum products alongside increased export of finished petroleum products.

    •Projected Bumper harvests that will be driven by enhanced security, reducing reliance on food imports.

    •Increased foreign exchange inflows through Foreign Portfolio Investments.

    •Higher crude oil output and exports, coupled with a substantial reduction in upstream oil and gas production costs.

     Critical Success Factors

    The Essence of the “Promise-Based Leadership” principle

    While the above assumptions and targets are highly ambitious; in my view, the high target setting will push the government to deliver the promises made to Nigerians.

     As a proponent of the “Promise-Based Leadership” principle, I urge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to ensure that some key tangible micro-economic and social impacts are achieved by the end of the first quarter of this year, in order to sustain the confidence and hope of Nigerians as they continue to brave the brutal socio-economic situations such as increasing cost of living, insecurity, corruption, unemployment, etc. Indeed Mr. President has restated his commitment to turning around the economy, as Nigerians continue to demonstrate uncommon resilience. But time is of the essence.

    Fiscal Discipline

    In addition to what I call, “Mr. President’s boldness of assertions”, I advocate for the inculcation of what I term, “the practicality of discipline, and the political will of execution”. By this, I mean that there should be an immediate alignment between Fiscal Policy and Fiscal Discipline. Budget performance is dependent largely on Fiscal discipline, without which; increased revenue, increased foreign direct investment, and investment in critical infrastructure will amount to nothing. Without Fiscal Discipline, the strategic visions of government, and action plans will either fail or will not be sustainable. Therefore, it is important that we continue remaining focused on prudence, containing wastages, blocking leakages eliminating procurement malpractices, and fighting corruption amongst other forms of Fiscal Discipline to ensure success

     Total stoppage of budget padding between the Executive arm and the legislative arms of government at federal and sub-national levels is another form of Fiscal indiscipline. For example, according to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC); in the 2021 budget, a budget padding of about N300 Billion was inserted in the Budget, while a budget padding of about 100 Billion was inserted in the 2022 budget by MDAs. Budget Padding must be contained or eliminated, if we are serious as a nation.

    Policy Consultation and Policy Coherence

    In order to consolidate the gains achieved in the 2024 budget and upscale that performance in 2025 so that Nigerians could feel the desired impacts; it is crucial for the government to pay attention to Policy Consultation, Policy Coordination, and Policy Coherence. They are key to achieving the set objectives in 2025 and beyond. To achieve policy coherence it is important to ensure that all existing policies and the policies that will be activated this year are not in conflict with each other, inconsistent, or counter-productive. As we have seen in some cases last year; where Mr. President had to backtrack on some policy decisions; such occurrences are avoidable if there is policy coherence. Policy inconsistencies are major weaknesses to governments, and threats to operating environments (public or private) with the attendant costly strategic, and socio-economic consequences.

     Going forward, there should be more interagency collaborations and policy consultations to ensure that government policies will not clash with other subsisting policies and to also ensure that new policies that will be approved, will not be counterproductive to/ or clash with existing policies – which in most cases further exacerbate the socioeconomic situation of Nigeria and Nigerians. It is therefore important for Ministers and Heads of Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to compare notes through policy consultation and coordination. We must also ensure that government policies either complement each other or add value to the entire policy framework or the overarching strategy of the administration of President Bola Tinubu. That is the only way to ensure sustainable success.

    Impact Assessments and Communication Strategy

    It is also worthy of note that public opinion is very important in a democracy. Therefore, as part of the communication strategy of this administration; in 2025, there should be consistent objective reviews of the impacts of policies, actions/inactions, and other decisions of government on the citizenry, the operating environments, and business climates.

     The feedback from the citizenry and public opinions regarding decisions of government or proposals of government are very important in gauging the impact of policies and governance and guiding the delivery of the mandate given to Mr. President by Nigerians. This is important, not just in the Executive Arm of government, but also in the Legislature and Judiciary. Hence, in 2025, I urge Nigerians to also dedicate time to continue holding political leaders at Federal, State, and Local Government levels accountable to ensure that they continue to deliver good governance.

    National Security

    Talking about insecurity is critical to ensuring territorial integrity and overcoming the socio-economic malaise in Nigeria. This is because the insecurity around the North-Western, North-Central, and also South-Eastern parts of Nigeria is hampering security, the well-being of citizens, food production, execution of major infrastructure projects, and the free movement of people, goods, and services. Insecurity has significantly impacted food security. The northern part of Nigeria is the food basket of the nation. There is a need for quick and sustainable solutions to insecurity. Unless the government tackles insecurity, we are taking two steps forward and three steps backward.

    Safeguarding Revenue Pipelines:

    I also hope that more drastic measures would be taken against anybody, group of people, or entities and their collaborators in government, who are involved in crude oil theft and crude oil pipeline vandalization, they should be treated and prosecuted as economic saboteurs without fear or favor.

    Ensuring the availability of Power to drive the Economy

    The issue of electricity production, transmission, and distribution, should be a matter of national priority for the administration of President Bola Ahmad Tinubu. We hope to see sustained efforts with clear, and tangible impacts in the short to mid-term Power is crucial to catalyze and reinvigorate the productive sector of Nigeria’s economy, and to support the provision of critical infrastructure going forward. Therefore, unless the issue of the availability of electricity is addressed, I dare say that President Tinubu will not achieve his objectives and Nigerians will continue to suffer.

    Efficient and Effective War Against Corruption:

    A sincere, objective, result-oriented, and transparent fight against corruption should be non-negotiable. Regulatory and law enforcement agencies like the EFCC and ICPC should be more result-oriented so that they move from the days of continuous prosecutions without tangible outcomes due to defective investigation, case-building, and prosecution strategy and operations. The fight against corruption should no longer be lip service but actionable, efficient, effective, and more impactful.

    Our Critical Success Factors include:

    •Quintessential leadership at the top

    •Cutting/ containing the cost of governance

    • Prudence in government spending at the top, across, and to be cascaded down the

    structure and system of governance

    •Blockage of leakages and wastages in government

    •Zero tolerance to non-performance across all MDAs

    •Zero tolerance to all forms of economic sabotage

  • Obasanjo’s habitual Gaffe

    Obasanjo’s habitual Gaffe

    “Conscience is an open wound. Only the truth can heal it”. Usman Dan Fodio

    Preamble

    Nothing can be strange in the contemporary world. Whatever is happening in any part of the world today must have happened severally in the past. History is a testimony to this assertion.

    A Moment of Brouhaha

    It was another moment of mischievous brouhaha in Nigeria when the media waves throbbed with the news of a ridiculous mischief by a former Nigerian President, Chief Mathew AremuOlusegunOkikiolakanObasanjo. He was reported to have said that the current Nigerian federal government, led by President MuhammaduBuhari, was championing what he called ‘Fulanization’ of Africa and ‘Islamization’ of West Africa. Ordinarily, such an inconsequential inflammatory statementshould not have been of any concern to ‘The Message’ column. But as a watchful Islamic column, the word ‘Islamization’ which is a coinage of Nigerian Christian media could not have passed by it without critical notice. That sour tasted word shamelessly coated in monotony coming from a man who parades himself as a Statesman could only have surprised those who did not know Obasanjo closely. Here is a man who does not concern himself with anything that is not of personal interest to him. Each time he talks embarrassingly in public, his ignorant disciples only jump to the stage in his defence without knowing his hidden agenda.

    Whenever           Obasanjo is imprisoned by his own conscience, the tendency is for him to look for an escape route by all means. That is the situation in which this onetime Nigerian Army Generalfrom Ogun State, Chief Mathew Aremu Olusegun Okikiolakan Obasanjo,who once fortuitously became Nigeria’s military Head of State by sheer opportunistic providence, now finds himself. Twenty years after this man exited from office as a military Head of State, he was again propelled by the same providence from the status of a prisoner to that of an elected President. Although his two terms of eight years of rule as President added no meaningful value of reverence to Nigeria’s democracy and progress, he still keeps gallivanting around today in a vainglorious euphoria of a former President and Statesman despite his  vain octogenarian age. Because of this man’s political shenanigans, any mention of his name serves as a reminder of letter writing. He is eminently qualified as Africa’s Letter Writer-in-Chief. 

    However, what most observers of this restive but evidently jittery man seem not to notice is a conspicuous but mysterious finger   behind which he is struggling to hide in his desperation to dodge official accountability forhis period of ruling Nigeria particularly thealleged sum of $16 billion earmarked for national electricity during his regime.

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    The President then, Muhammadu Buhari, alluded to that loot when he lamented the reason for Nigeria’s non- functional electricity. That querulous lamentation has since become a spectra chasing Obasanjo’s ghost days and nights and preventing him from sleeping with both eyes closed. As a former President, he knows the implications of Buhari’s lamentation on that money and he has been running helter skelter to prevent or delay an official query on it. Thus, he would rather instigate a national war to prevent a public investigation than wait to be caught in the cobweb of a possible landmark corruption by an institution which he set up to fight that Nigeria’s most abominable epidemics. And having lost out in the political arena where his satanic ‘Third Force’ party has proved to be a woeful failure, the only remaining weapon with which to fight a preemptive waragainst the ruling government is religion. His probably believes that by instigating a religious strife he may get some troops to queue up behind him as mercenary sectarian archers. That was why he had to use a Church as avenue for making an inflammable religious statement of provocation in an attempt to ignite a furnace of religious war by alleging a baseless ‘Fulanization’ of Africa and ‘Islamization’ of West Africa as a Nigerian government agenda under Buhari regime.

    This self-crowned African foremost Statesman has not seen countries in the West African sub-region where Christians

    Before and After

    Before Obasanjo, there had been military rulers in Nigeria. We can still remember General Yakubu Gowon, General Ibrahim Babagida and General Abdul Salami Abubakar all of whom are still very much alive as statesmen. And after Obasanjo’s forceful exit from the Presidency, there has been an elected President who is still alive as an ex-officio. His name is Dr. GoodluckEbele Jonathan. None of these gentlemen has thrown dignity to the winds as Obasanjo has been doing even to the embarrassment of his family.

    The thought of ‘fulanization’ and ‘islamization’ by him as a blackmail strategy to escape the web of corruption is not only parochial it is also childishly naïve. Only disciples of the Lucifer can stupidly go to an open market with such a product with the aim of selling it for fee. Nigerians of today have grown beyond such a crawling level in reasoning.

    Mathew Kuka’s Warning

    One of Nigeria’s most vocal persons on religious matters in the country is Ref. Father Mathew Kuka. As a frontline Catholic Bishop and a strong member of Nigerian Interreligious Council (NIREC), this man who shares the same Christian name (Mathew) with Obasanjo had long foreseen the tendency in certain opportunistic Nigerian elements to use Boko Haram as a cover for their satanic atrocities and he had vehemently warned against it. 

  • Jimmy Carter: An unforgettable global citizen

    Jimmy Carter: An unforgettable global citizen

    The 39th United States President, James Earl Carter junior (October 1, 1924 -December 29, 2024) lived a full life and there is no doubt that his Christian faith influenced his long and exceptionally successful and impactful life. I had wanted to write about the late prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh (September 26, 1932 – December 26, 2024) who died three days before President Jimmy Carter at the age of 92. He too was a man of faith, a Sikh by birth whose simplicity, scholarship and devotion to duty touched the lives of millions of Indians.

    Of course Jimmy Carter’s life and death are of greater significance in terms of reach and impact because of the power of the United States. What is significant in their lives is the longevity; Carter lived over a hundred years while Prime Minister Singh lived over 90 years in a world where the average life span ranges between 50 and 60.

    Jimmy Carter was born in a small village of Plains in the backwoods of State of Georgia in America in what is regarded as the Deep South of the country usually associated with slavery and its enduring legacy of racism, segregation and intolerance. He rose against this background to the height of the American presidency, a position which he imbued with compassion, tolerance and collective governance in which he gave positions of prominence to black people like Andrew Young, whom he made ambassador to the United Nations and gave black people a feeling of belonging and presence in the United States.

    There is something interesting about American history and politics especially as they concern the progress of black peoples in the country. The presidents who made more impact on the lives of black peoples are usually from the Southern part of the USA. Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the USA from 1963 to 1969 was very pivotal in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 which enfranchised millions of Black Americans and gave them a voice in politics. It is not only Democrats that should be commended in this regard .Presidents George H. Bush and his son, George Bush gave blacks prominent positions in their governments but it was President Carter who opened the way although Presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had laid the foundation of Black empowerment.

    I lived in Montgomery county,  Maryland  more or less a stone throw from the White House during  the presidency of Jimmy Carter  and I was privileged to see the influence of President Carter in the unfolding liberalism in the United States even though he himself was regarded as Conservative evangelical Christian from the South which was regarded as the bastion of lingering racial prejudice against blacks.

    His fairness and honesty showed their effect in his foreign policy. He brought the Jews in Israel and the Arabs together  in the Camp David Agreement negotiated over a week between President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978 under the prodding of President Carter. This led to peace agreement and exchange of ambassadors between Israel and Egypt which have endured until today. It also led incrementally to peace between Israel and the kingdom of Jordan. Although President Anwar Sadat was assassinated for this by Muslim die-hards but this peace accord has remained the corner stone for which an eventual peace in the Middle East may revolve.

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    President Carter also signed with President Martín Torrijos of Panama series of treaties in 1977 which eventually led to the transfer of the Panama Canal Zone to the government of Panama in 1999, a treaty which the coming President Donald J. Trump is threatening to revoke because he feels that American shipping interests are not receiving fair treatment vis a vis Chinese shipping.   President Carter also in December 1978 normalized relations with China following the tentative steps of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He realized how important it was for America to have normal relations with the People’s Republic of China despite America’s commitment to the defence of Taiwan.  He also felt proper relations with China would give the US opportunity to have triangular relations with China and the USSR. This step, President Carter in his reminiscence, said was his greatest achievement of his presidency.

    President Carter also signed in Vienna in 1979 with the USSR president Leonid Brezhnev the so-called SALTII treaty proposing a limit of the number of missiles with multiple independent nuclear warheads. Even though the treaty failed to limit the arms race, it however proved that the two superpowers were willing to reopen negotiations on nuclear arms limitations. The treaty was however not ratified because of the opposition of Republicans and conservative Democrats. The invasion of the Soviet Union of Afghanistan shortly after in December 1979 after the abortive SALTII treaty led to a freeze in American-Russian relations culminating in the American-led boycott of the Olympics games in Moscow in summer of 1980.

    Earlier on in February 1979, the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran, a long-time American ally was overthrown and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an anti-American cleric replaced him and subsequently, the entire American Embassy staff was captured and imprisoned within the embassy. This was a terrible embarrassment which the president had to do something about. President Carter was advised by his military and intelligence staff to use force to free the embassy staff. The military air-borne embassy rescue attempt failed miserably with the loss of seven American servicemen on April 24, 1980. This sealed the fate of the president who lost the presidential election to Ronald Reagan, the governor of California who promised strength compared with President Carter’s weakness against American enemies. At the same time, American economy was suffering from rampant inflation affecting the whole world. With his apparent failure abroad and inflation at home, President Carter was defeated in a Reagan Republican landslide in November 1980.

    This was not the end of the Jimmy Carter story. He set up the Carter Centre in Atlanta Georgia and buried himself there turning out tomes of highly regarded books on the environment, peace in the Middle East advocating a two state solution. He was very fair in his assessment of the Israeli/ Palestinian issue unlike what President Biden has done in which he gives the Israelis weapons to annihilate the Palestinians while shedding crocodile tears about the starvation of the Palestinians. President Carter’s centre also went round the world ensuring proper elections and counting of votes so that democracy would have genuine roots in the will of the people. He teamed up with the non-profit organization, the HABITAT, to build thousands of houses for homeless people all over the world. The Jimmy Carter Centre was with other organisations responsible for eradicating Guinea worm disease in Africa and Asia.

    He was also involved in the control and eradication of other bacterial and viral diseases all over the world. He was for 40 years after leaving office, the unofficial face of American diplomacy in Russia, China, North Korea and other places where the official US diplomatic reach was not welcome. He was a man of peace and he won the Nobel Peace prize in 2002. The world has lost a great man and humanity has suffered an irreparable loss.

  • Time and chance

    Time and chance

    Just Like that, 2024 is gone. It went in a twinkling of an eye. When did we start the year that is now gone for good, paving the way for 2025 that rolled in yesterday? In no time too, 2025 will roll out just like it rolled in, 24 hours ago.

    Before then, as it is the tradition, I wish you a happy and prosperous 2025. It is that time of the season that we shout out to our neighbours and friends across the fence or street and from the balcony of our high-rise apartments: “Happy New Year” and the ringing response is usually: “Same to you”.

    The late irrepressible social critic, Dr Tai Solarin, had a different way of doing it. Solarin had a morbid sense of humour which reflected in all he did. Sixty-one years ago on the dawn of a new year like this, he wrote an article published in the old Sunday Times, which in its apogee, had a print run of half a million. The title of that widely acclaimed piece was: “May your road be rough”.

    What manner of man wakes up on new year’s day, of all days, and sends such a message to people? The public reacted in different ways to the article which I first came across in my English class in secondary school in 1973. It was one of the Comprehension we were expected to read and answer questions on in our New Practical English textbook for Form 1 pupils. As minors, I do not think that we actually understood the message in that thought-provoking article. We were just struck by what we believed were the article’s swear words, which many in the public, perceived as a curse.

    Who entitles a New Year message as “May your road be rough”. Only a man like Solarin who thought ahead could do that. His message was only asking his readers to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and be ready to work hard for success. Nothing good comes easy, he was saying. “May your road be rough”, he began. “I therefore repeat, may you have a hard time this year, may there be plenty of troubles for you this year… Our successes are conditioned by the amount of risk we are ready to take”.

     As it was in January 1964 when Solarin wrote that piece, so it is now in 2025 as we embark on another new year journey. Beyond the traditional wishes and resolutions that greet every new year, how prepared are we as institutions and individuals for the tasks ahead? Did we keep the resolutions that we made in 2024? If not, why? Yes, I know, you will blame it on the economy. Was the economy like this in 1964 when Solarin asked us to be ready for the worst in our search for our daily bread?

    He was only preparing us for a day like this, yet he was not a seer. We have boarded the vessel, MV 2025, which will take us through the ups and downs of life. The time to plan for what we wish to do in the course of the year is now. How can we improve our lives? How can we better the economy? The President has laid out his plans for the nation. For the umpteenth time, he promised to serve the people and make life more livable for them. Again, he acknowledged the hardship of the past 19 months, declaring that in 2025 there will be positive changes in many areas of life.

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    President Bola Tinubu, just like Solarin knows that there is no magic wand to success. The road will be rough and things will be tough, but as long as we burn the midnight oil, we will achieve our goals. Success comes to those who work for it. And time is of the essence in attaining any goal. The race may not be for the swift nor battle for the strong, as time and chance go a long way in determining people’s fates on earth. We should be ready to grab the chance that comes our way. No opportunity must be allowed to slip away. Why?

    Not everybody gets a second chance in life. Some are lucky that they not only get a second chance, they even get a third and a fourth. This is why any chance that comes one’s way must be grabbed with both hands, especially at a period like this. The English bard, Williams Shakespeare, put it succinctly: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune…”

    When the tide flows our way, we should be ready to flow with it. It is by so doing that success can be guaranteed. In the face of the prevailing challenges, there is a ray of hope for a better future. The last few months of the just gone year signposted what to expect in 2025. The auguries are that things will work for the good of the nation this year and beyond. As they say, tough times do not last, tough people do. We must remain tough as individuals and a nation to overcome these tough times.

    There are no two ways about it. It is either we take the hard decisions now for the sake of our tomorrow or we do not and remain rooted to the same spot until the reality of our indecision dawns on us in future by which time it may be too late to do anything. Generations yet unborn will not forgive us for that. Let us travel the hard and rough road now for a meaningful and brighter future for our children’s children. After all, a good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children. May you have a prosperous and fulfilling

  • 2025: Beyond ruin and rebirth

    2025: Beyond ruin and rebirth

    As we set out in 2025, shall we aspire to the possibility of rebirth? This minute, our collective persona as a nation manifests in the governor who stole $4.2 million from his state’s coffers and stashed it to fund his vanities abroad, not minding what good such loot could do in resolving the educational, healthcare, and infrastructure woes of his state.

    It is reflected in the shenanigans of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor who is seeking a plea bargain to escape punishment for his alleged conspiracy to perpetrate procurement fraud running into billions of naira, among others.

    It is reflected in the former female Minister of Petroleum, who raped Nigeria silly until we suffered the industrial strokes of scarcity and recession. Yet she frantically fights to walk free and her cronies are eager to let her off with a pat on the back. Thus the protracted drama of her prosecution at home and abroad.

    Lest we forget the governors looting billions of naira via “security votes” and hyperbolic capital projects, outrageous life pensions, among other frills,  even as poverty, policy failure, and insecurity devastate the citizenry and crucial social institutions on their watch.

    Our collective personae flourish in the antics of youths feverishly flying ethnic flags in support of their ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ lawmaker, governor, minister, and ex-CBN governor irrespective of the atrocities committed by them and the criminal charges levelled against them.

    Public officers in the executive, legislature, and judiciary embody our frantic culture of dubious citizenship. They legitimise our culture of being, which enables and justifies a public officer’s immediate descent into a basement of opportunism right after emerging as an elected representative.

    The latter locks himself or herself in that amoral cellar, against the ethical rungs and wise counsel of sterling statesmanship. As the citizenry sinks in wretchedness, he embarks on a quest of inordinate acquisition and counts his spoils in material possessions.

    He is, however, a mere fragment of our bigger cultural dilemma. Think of him as the pointed end of the spear of in our coliseum of greed, feverish pillaging, and criminality. Think of him as the trigger in our gunnery of violence, ethnoreligious carnage, and sexualised menace.

    In concert with like personae prowling Nigeria’s corridors of power, he reinvents with creative malice, the penetrative outcrops of our national maelstrom. Optimists would call them salvageable ogres from our primeval wild but their cruelty attains jarring resonance thus stifling the possibility of rebirth.

    They are our decadence. Our disease. Like the millions of citizenry they supposedly represent, they are products of our moral void, the sickly stems bearing our poisonous petals. Little wonder we suffer a carnage of incarnations.

    Yet even as we have rightly identified their emergence as an affliction of the eye and disease of the mind, our chances at healing are hindered by chinks in our surgical armour: the fissures of ethnoreligious bias, illiteracy, willful degeneracy, greed, poverty, savage ego, and sheer malevolence.

    These constitute severe impediments to our healing. Thus, as usual, we corrupt the debate on our complicity. We should be discussing and taking decisive steps to rid governance of their savage afflictions but they continually hoodwink Nigerians into a thick emotional fog over several issues of governance and nationhood.

    At the slightest prompt, the citizenry engage each other in intense bickering, often in defence of their ethnic brothers and sisters, irrespective of the latter’s misdemeanour. The people fall for their gimmick, threatening war and secession from the Nigerian enterprise in solidarity with their dubious representatives.

    Read Also: I’m focused on building a model nation for future generations — Tinubu

    It’s a familiar scene, a Nigerian reality that often resounds like the fable of the doomed Odysseus and the labouring ships. In the backdrop of these shameful proceedings, the argument persists in academia, social and political circuits, that the future is blurry and bleak due to youth absence in politics. But the youth had been in politics as armed thugs, assassins, arsonists, and internet trolls for several years.

    Lest we forget our more “youths” in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, controlling the country’s ruling and opposition political parties.

    Their clannish pride bequeath the country’s leadership to their wards to sustain their legacies even as they draft boondocks young as cannon fodder and enforcers of their never-ending cycle of sleaze and mayhem.

    But the youth are hardly the prey they are thought to be. They are often willing participants in a dehumanising ritual of violence and bloodshed.

    This minute, the image persists of the nation’s youth as dispensable tools of specific and random politicians. Unlike the artist’s immobile masterpiece, sculpted in bronze and stone, such youths evolve like plasticine, easily malleable and amenable to devious plots.

    Some have attributed their afflictions to structural banes and the perverse culture of citizenship by which they are weaned and ushered into adulthood.

    In the wake of plausible and often far-fetched analyses, too many ‘patriots’ conveniently absolve themselves of blame. Some propound the tragic theory of Nigerians as being innately incapable of self-determination and self-governance.

    These arguments have over time attained a language of their own and thus evolved as a dialect of dissent and exaggerated self-abnegation. The nation’s elite frequently marshals clashing precepts as solutions and in condemnation of the status quo according to their biases.

    A more damning view identifies the youths’ persistent claims of victimhood as a consequence of their sense of entitlement. Between hyperbole and informed sophistry, Nigeria suffers the affliction of intellectual miscreants and promising youth-turned-fetal-adults.

    The coordinated tragedies afflicting our consciousness daily, append the only real structure to our lives as impoverished Nigerians. From burdensome realities of fast-slipping youth, and recurrent rites of bigotry to the ethical quandary of coping with strict moral codes of adulthood and ideal society, our lives obscure in purpose and meaning. Thus the scorning of ethics by the youths for fast, illicit riches even as ripples of their actions keep hundreds of millions more in binds of despair.

    Consequently, the revolutionary dissent that sprouts from oppression is pitiless and unbending. It radically splits our world into ‘insensitive ruling class’ and ‘clueless lower class,’ ‘elite’ and ‘downtrodden,’ ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ It fosters even more fragmented discord that continually pits Nigerian Christians against Muslims, Hausa against Igbo, Igbo against Yoruba, and Itsekiri against Urhobo.

    While this piece too may resound as hackneyed howl and lamentation, it needs to be said that our ultimate solution subsists in our capacity for introspection and change that comes from within.

    Can any of the existing political parties foster a progressive nation? Pundits aver that they are programmed to a recurring cycle of self-destruct and rebirth while showing occasional flashes of brilliance and daring against familiar odds. But it’s all smoke and mirrors.

    Greening the Nigerian pasture is not achievable in a sprint or marathon. Think of it as a cross-country run. It is not a race winnable in four years. But who cares?

    As we advance, President Bola Tinubu’s administration must rid Nigeria of a culture of public governance dependent on administrative corruption and lifeboat solutions. To truly empower the citizenry, his administration must actualise a stable electricity supply and a better road and marine infrastructure; revive the agricultural economy, and ensure that all the refineries deemed to be currently working are not eventually sabotaged.

    Systems thrive by their human elements thus Nigerians humanise our systems and dehumanise them. The President must also be wary of the human factors that hinder the successful implementation of most policies and Social Intervention Programmes (SIPs).

  • Should your wealth actually impoverish others?

    Should your wealth actually impoverish others?

    Respect to Jimmy Carter, peanut farmer, American president, Nobel Peace Prize winner who died at 100 on Dec 29. He helped end apartheid, brought about the Camp David Accords, authored 32 books. His marriage mantra ‘Never go to bed angry’ kept his marriage 80 years or so to Rosaline who was co-founder of the Carter Centre. May he RIP.      

    The world should reset its worshipful attitude and misplaced applause to mega-rollover lottery winnings especially as many participants are needy. The world must treat rollover lotteries as ‘failed and incomplete’ if not actually ‘misleading and fraudulent’.    

    As we embark on 2025, the world is faced with the moral and economic question of ‘Should your wealth mean many other people’s poverty’? This is a profoundly relevant question when so few people have so much while so many others cannot guarantee just one meal.

    Look at most lotteries. The ‘rollover’ lotteries mean random numbers can be drawn from the one million computers. If the number of a purchased ticket is not picked during the draw, then no one wins and the pot is rolled over to the next draw with the money added to the available fund for the next draw. We say ‘there was no winner’ when in actual fact we should say ‘we were all losers’.

    The old raffle draw method was sensitive to the needs of the people as it used only sold ticket numbers. So, there was always a winner – unless the winner had lost the winning ticket. Not for the first time the lottery, having been rolled over several times was in excess of $900m -1billion in the USA recently. The US has its plenty living in poverty, the dirt poor and the street people and those afflicted by drugs. Imagine if that $1b winning had been won not by one person but was won by 1,000 people each receiving $1m or 500 people receiving $2m each or 10,000 people receiving $100,000 each. Or even 100,000 mostly poor and low-income citizens, the majority of ticket purchasers, winning $10,000 each from the same lottery system.

    Read Also: University don raises the alarm over alleged extortion of customers by IKEDC

    Studies have shown that the megadollar winners often end up unhappy in their lucky win but broke financially, broken in spirit and battered by constant demands, sometimes fraudulent, for assistance by their insatiable fellow mankind members.

    Most winners under these circumstances of excessive wealth awards are actually happy to have spent all such money and be ‘poor at last’ or at least revert to before the winning point and again lead ordinary ‘complaining’ lives again as in their pre-winner life. Sudden wealth has its own burdens and difficulties and this is why many big winners keep their anonymity so as to protect them from being targeted for loans et cetera.

    Nigeria has its own lottery system and must recommend a focus on more realistic winning pots with more frequent and more widespread winning formulas. ‘Every single lottery should draw and redraw until we have a winner – no rollovers’. If a winner does not step forward, it should be easy, after a standard grace time e.g. 48 hours, to promote every other ticket drawn upward one step until a winner or winners step forward and are identified and rewarded.

     Another example of the ‘should your wealth mean other people’s poverty?’ is in ‘The Minimum Wage’ across many countries relative to another yardstick and not just Civil Service Structure.

    We must compare and categorise the minimum wage to the total Salaries and Perks and Pensions of serving politicians in the same government or private sector organisations. There is already an existing index for this calculation or ratio in regard to private sector salaries – the CEO: Worker Pay ratio. In Nigeria we need the current ratio for the minimum wage: Politicians pay ratio to be improved if we are to better distribute our lean purse and lift our citizens out of poverty.  Liveable wages are a requirement of lifting the working class and their immediate families out of poverty.

    As Nigeria enters 2025, we must prevent Nigeria being bled to death this year through already well-known paths in politics and governance and contract inflation. Theft kills Nigerians especially the massive theft, in N100s of billions, more than US lottery mega winners, which still robbed us well into 2024 with the most recent in court for N80b and also recent forfeitures of N12b+. These cases demonstrate government’s almost complete lack of pre-emptive ability to fight and prevent this maximum extortion from the Nigerian citizen’s purse. This is best exemplified by unpaid salaries and pensions, non-metering of oil wells, low electricity supply, criminal band ABCD structure ‘buy more pay more per unit’ defying capitalist economics of ‘buy more-pay less’, and our oil and refinery products theft and underreporting.            

    To find true honest Nigerians in sufficient numbers to run government agencies cannot be impossible. How do we keep them honest in office? PREEMPTIVE EFCC MONITORING!  

    The best way to carry Nigeria safely through the economic troubles of 2025 is to recite and obey the National Anthem, the Pledge and the Rotary FOUR WAY TEST daily.

    FOR THE NEXT 365 DAYS, DAILY BE FLH- FAITHFUL, LOYAL AND HONEST and OF EVERY ACTION ASK, ‘Is it the TRUTH, FAIR, BUILD GOODNESS & BETTER FRIENDSHIPS & BENEFICIAL TO ALL CONCERNED?’

    IF SO, GO AHEAD. IF NOT STOP…FOR NIGERIA 2025’s SAKE.Safe 2025 Journey… AMEN!

  • 2025: Pivotal year for Tinubu, Nigeria

    2025: Pivotal year for Tinubu, Nigeria

    Nigerians are a very religious people. Not surprisingly, a tradition has developed over the years in this country where prophets, priests, seers and others of that tribe, unleash a torrent of prophecies concerning the new year. With the benefit of hindsight, one can say some of these predictions fairly captured the general tone 2024 took. Others were wide off the mark. But don’t expect that failing to stop some from approaching their clouded crystal balls again.

    You don’t need to be a soothsayer to know that 2025 would a pivotal year for President Bola Tinubu, his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the opposition parties and Nigeria as a whole. There’s much that happened in the closing weeks and months of the last year that gives you a sense of how things might pan out over the next 12 months.

    The big story for the 2025 would, again, be the state of the economy. In 2024, Nigeria grappled with the fallout from Tinubu’s economic reforms. The fuel subsidy regime that had become a permanent feature of our national life was terminated abruptly. It wasn’t exactly surgery without anaesthesia, rather the painkillers – now popularly referred to as palliatives – felt more like placebos.

    For much of the year all the talk was about economic hardship as citizens battled an inflationary spiral that didn’t respond to anything the Central Bank threw at it. The cost of moving goods and people hit an all-time high. Hopes that the commencement of operations by the Dangote Refinery would bring some relief, proved to be massively exaggerated.

    But as the year wound to a close, the unexpected resuscitation of the old Port Harcourt refinery, produced a very rare phenomenon – a drop in the price of a popular commodity. Before our very eyes, the arguments of proponents of full deregulation of the petroleum sector began to manifest. Dangote Refinery and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) were soon locked in a price competition that brought pump price of petrol to less than N1,000 per litre in major cities.

    More good news came last Monday with reactivation of the 125,000 bpd Warri Refinery. Some time in this new year, Abdulsamad Rabiu’s BUA Refinery and the new Port Harcourt refinery are expected to come on stream. This is expected to further sharpen competition for market share, leading to a drop in prices benefiting motorists.

    Read Also: Warri refinery restoration, New Year gift to Nigerians – Gov Okpebholo

    It doesn’t end there. The rise in local refining capacity means Nigeria is effectively now an exporter of refined petroleum products. Dangote is already sending its products to different parts of Africa and beyond. There were reports last year that the coming of this 650,000 bpd facility would be bad news for some refineries across Europe as they were likely to lose customers, eventually leading to them shutting down.

    This is a remarkable turnaround for a country which for many decades was enslaved to imported petrol. It is especially cheering that facilities which many had dismissed as junk have been substantially recovered, such that it can be said that not all of the billions of dollars invested in turnaround maintenance were totally wasted.

    Events in the petroleum sector are a welcome departure from much of the gloom and doom of the past year. They just help everyone to see the possibilities for economic prosperity that lie ahead.

    It would be hasty to think that the refineries alone would change the fundamental issues dogging the economy. Much will rest on the fortunes of the naira against the dollar and other major currencies. The consensus is that CBN tweaking alone won’t strengthen the currency. Rather, producing for export as well as attracting foreign investment would do the trick.

    The last set of figures from the government showed that our foreign reserves had crossed the $40 billion mark. This is the highest it has reached for years. Still, we can do better. A weaker naira might be good for exporters but it’s also bad news for local business whose inputs are largely imported. It would be the challenge of the managers of the economy to get the rate down to a level that’s satisfactory for all sides.

    One of the great disappointments of the past few years has been in the area of agriculture where it is generally acknowledged the country in punching below its weight. The scary headline inflation rate has been largely impacted by high food prices. Aside smuggling, food inflation has been fuelled by insecurity across the nation’s baskets. Until farmers feel safe enough to return to their lands not much will change.

    The government understands this much. That’s why security has received the highest allocation of funds in the 2025 budget. Tinubu has vowed in recent speeches that his government would take back every inch of Nigerian land occupied by non-state actors as well as stamp its presence on all ungoverned spaces.

    Hopefully, he would match his words with action as security is crucial to the nation meeting its agricultural and crude oil production targets.

    Concerning, the wider challenge of insecurity, some progress was made in 2024. With the exception of the Lakurawa terror group which suddenly emerged in the Nothwest, attacks by Boko Haram in the Northeast have been muted or virtually non-existent. Beyond a few attacks in Benue and Plateau, this season has been relatively devoid of bloodshed in such theatres as Southern Kaduna. Such gains need to sustained while ensuring kidnapping becomes a rare story.

    On the political front, it promises to be an intriguing year for Tinubu and APC. By May 29, he would be at the halfway mark of his four-year tenure. How his administration is perceived at that point could have a bearing on his fortunes at the 2027 elections. This is moreso considering that his political foes have been scheming from day one to deny him a second term.

    At the height of the challenges arising from his economic reforms many suggested they would have a negative impact on his political fortunes. I have, however, argued that time is the president’s greatest ally. His smartest step was to move quickly on the most painful reforms at a time far removed from the next polls. If his policies produce positive results voters would have forgotten the pain come 2027. For every success story delivered, his stature becomes more muscular.

    The reverse is the case for his rivals who can only watch from the sidelines while he pulls all the powerful levers of the presidency. Tinubu is either a very lucky man or a truly visionary politician. With fuel subsidy he pulled off what all his predecessors were too scared to touch. He did it and the heavens didn’t fall. Miraculously, Nigerians who largely resisted it in the past meekly fell in line.

    Under him, refineries that the likes former President Olusegun Obasanjo swore can never work, are roaring back to life. He is on the verge of scoring a major coup with the tax reform bills despite desperate opposition from entrenched interests. He is pressing ahead with landmark road projects like the Lagos-Calabar and Badagry-Sokoto highways.

    For the opposition parties this year would be make or break. Elements from across their folds are supposedly working on a so-called ‘mega party’ with the sole aim of ending Tinubu’s reign. Nigerian history is replete with attempts at forming some sort of ‘mega’ party or the other. In the end what was delivered was a damp squib.

    In reality, an opposition ‘mega’ party already exists in the form of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with presence across the country. But those scurrying around to create a new contraption are by their action passing a vote of no confidence on it, and rightly so. This once dominant party is today so riven with factions that it would be a pitiable sight if its troubles are not resolved soon. The indications are that, given the egos at war, they won’t be resolved soon.

    Still, PDP would be a platform at the next election along with whatever new thing is being cooked up. From the Second Republic until now it has been established that a fractured opposition can never unseat a focused Nigerian incumbent. The 2023 presidential election outcome is the most recent confirmation of that fact of life. So good luck with the mega party and similar wild goose chases of this new year.

    In the meantime, a very happy new to one and all, to the political and apolitical!

  • Why we must probe Buhari’s zealots

    Why we must probe Buhari’s zealots

    Many Nigerians believe President Buhari, a veteran of war, lost the war against insurgency because of his mismanagement of leakages in the armed forces. Generals whose primary duty is the defence of the territorial integrity of the country lost focus and started competing as to whom among them would build the biggest university in his village. While the president remained indecisive, the war rapidly spread from its Middle Belt epicentre to the Northwest with the insurgents repeated threat to take over the president’s Katsina State driving many to seek refuge in neighbouring Kano State. With increase in daily harvest of death and seizure of victims’ land by immigrant herdsmen while the president writhe his hands, many, including governors of affected states, could not resist suspecting the president was complicit in the tragedy that befell their people.

    But President Tinubu made it clear during his last week chat with some selected journalists that he was not going to waste his time on probe, because of his respect institutions. President Tinubu, it must be admitted, knows what he is doing. He is in charge. As one journalist puts it after the presidential chat: “the president is in control”.

    But if you ask me, I will say beyond President Buhari’s mishandling of the insurgency war, associated suspected leakages and even the economy, I will say one area that calls for urgent probe is acts of impunity, which has come to define not only current political actors but the successive leadership of our country from Zik to Balewa, Ironsi, Gowon, Babangida Obasanjo and Buhari.

    A journey through memory shows acts of impunity has been tragic for political actors and the nation. Zik and Balewa’s act of impunity in interfering in the affairs of Western Region in 1962 led to the death of the Prime Minister, the collapse of the first republic and the subsequent civil war. Shehu Shagari as interior minister, in total disregard for the constitution, also ordered the deportation of Dingle Foot, a British lawyer, representing Awolowo and his 26 fellow accused, from the airport despite having a license to practice in Nigeria.

    NPN’s 1979 victory secured through Obasanjo’s act of impunity was short-lived. The party’s 1983 victory, secured through Walter Ofonagoro’s warped theory of “landslide and sea slide victory in opposition strongholds” was also short-lived as violence in Ondo and Oyo states forced the military to return to power.

    Once again, besides politicians who hardly learn from history, the major casualty was Nigeria’s thriving economy where Nigeria Airways had a fleet of over 30 aircraft and where the naira was stronger than the dollar. By his own act of impunity, Obasanjo destroyed an inherited healthy economy built through Gowon’s five year development plan and midwifed by pre-independence Nigerian visionaries including Obafemi Awolowo, Anthony Enahoro, Aminu Kano, Edwin Clark, J.S Tarka etc.

    Ibrahim Babangida came in 1985 and in share act of impunity, hilariously declared himself president without elections, decreed two political parties, frittered away billons on building party headquarters, introduced Structural Adjustment Programme(SAP) that opened our country to imported goods that eventually killed our budding industries. He went on to annul the 1993 election won by MKO Abiola and whimsically imposed a short-lived interim contraption called Interim National Government. His perfidy signaled the end of his military and political career.

    Obasanjo who claims to only listen to God as president was no respecter of constitution, institutions or political office holders. He supervised rigging of elections, masterminded removal of party leaders and impeachment of governors and National Assembly leaders.

    Read Also: Presidency blasts Bauchi governor over remarks on Tinubu

    But if we must stop the vicious cycle, we have to start with Buhari’s era. Of course, Buhari unarguably is a patriotic Nigerian. He fought a war to keep Nigeria one, walking on foot form Makurdi to Port Harcourt. He served three years in prison for standing on the side of Nigeria against apostles of IMF and exporters of wheat.

    But like most of us, he no doubt, has his personal weaknesses. For instance, he has been accused of being a slave to his religion, of cronyism and provincialism and distrust of politicians. But this was a leader who in the night of many knives was betrayed by his close allies including IBB who after a consensus on policies thrust for the nation, turned around to accuse him of ‘arrogating to himself absolute knowledge of problems and solutions’.

    He also fears politicians. He had picked Edwin Ume Ezeoke, as VP candidate during his first shot at the presidency in 2003. He was however abandoned in court by Ume Ezeoke who went to join the winning party. In 2007, he picked Dr Chuba Okadigbo, a second republic senate president as VP candidate. The story was not different. Okadigbo abandoned him in court and sought accommodation with the winning PDP.

    In 2011, he picked Pastor Tunde Bakare. He was to realize too late that Yoruba as discriminatory voters, are hardly influenced by tribe or religion in a nation where Christian Bishops, Muslim Imams and traditional worshippers coexist within a family and are in fact intolerant of pastors with extreme views. Even while without “political structure, he vaulted on the back of Bola Tinubu” to power in 2015, even as Tinubu remained an outsider during his eight year presidency.

    But the act of impunity by those crusading zealots who falsely swear by Buhari’s name while serving other tendencies in his government and others who exploited his human’s frailties, is the reason why incorruptible Buhari, perceived to be above board, and whose military background was thought to have prepared him for war against Islamist Boko Haram, ended up presiding over an administration defined by corruption, that deepened  ethno-religion cleavages between  Christians and Muslims and left a legacy of kidnapping, mindless killing and insecurity.

    Topping our list is Defence Minister, General Mansour Dan-Ali. His unrestrained comment: “If those routes are blocked, what do you expect will happen? These people are Nigerians and we must learn to live together with one another. Communities and other people must learn how to accept foreigners within their enclave. Finish!” as response to the killings of over 70 farmers in Benue only emboldened immigrant herdsmen to visit more violence on innocent subsistence farmers in the north; it similarly set the tenor of response of  Mansour’s men to the demand for justice by victims of herdsmen who took over their land.

    It was perhaps this denial of justice by Nigerian security forces that   occasioned former Minister of Defence,  General Theophilus Danjuma’s 2018 clarion call on his people: “ rise to protect yourselves from these people; if you depend on the Armed Forces to protect you, you will all die”;  this ethnic creasing must stop in Taraba, and it must stop in Nigeria”. 

    There is also Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice. As against the pursuit of justice for victims of herdsmen violence, he focused on sting operations to capture and fly Nnamdi Kanu from Kenya to Nigeria for “inciting violence through television, radio and online broadcasts against Nigeria” and DSS’ midnight invasion of the residence of the Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo, because “he and his group, in the guise of campaign for self-determination, have become well-armed and determined to undermine public order”.

    While Malami was urging Buhari to sanction those who violated non-existing pre-independence grazing routes in the south, he was silent on the 415 grazing reserves established by the northern regional government in the 1960s “which have succumbed to pressure from rapid population growth and the associated demand for farmland, overrun by urban and other infrastructure, or appropriated by private commercial interests.”

    We can add to this list Garba Shehu, who has nothing against the setting up of 10,000 strong Sharia Hisbah police corps by northern Sharia governors who believe their priority was to arrest anyone sporting “indecent dress” but was fiercely opposed to the Southwest ‘Amotekun’ security outfit, or  “whatever name they call themselves”.

    That he picked up a quarrel with the late Ondo State governor, Rotimi Akeredolu for ordering criminal herdsmen out of his state’s reserved forest, but was silent Taraba Emir of Muri, Abbas Tafida’s  30-day ultimatum to Fulani herdsmen to vacate his forest in July 2021, speaks volumes about his true intentions. .

    We also remember Isa Pantami, who as the Director General/CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) was charged with developing the ICT infrastructure to counter Boko Haram despite opposition of well-meaning Nigerians. As it turned out, his promise to disrupt communication activities of insurgents had exact opposite with terrorist coordinated attacks on railway, airports and military formations and seamless negotiation of ransom with victim’s relatives.

    Impunity by our leaders and political actors has continued to be the bane of our society. We can therefore not delude ourselves by deciding to focus only on today because yesterday was gone. Today is but a reflection of yesterday. Today’s social dislocation, economic hardship, economic anarchy, unhealthy ethnic rivalries are but offspring of yesterday’s impunity of forced centralization. We have to decide the tomorrow we want today. Otherwise tomorrow when scores of other Emefieles with 11.4 billion slush fund and 775 duplexes and the likes of Bauchi’s Bala Mohammed Bello who is currently mobilizing to take over power in 2027 after telling us that all AK-47 wielding Fulani immigrant herdsmen are not only Nigerians but have the right to protect their cows against Nigeria’s subsistence farmers.

  • 2025: Who needs a crystal ball?

    2025: Who needs a crystal ball?

    With the clock slowly ticking as humanity makes the final approach into the new year, one can only imagine the bucket list of supplications that would be dumped in heaven’s gate in the year that one lone individual – Donald Trump – has promised will be defined, strictly, by himself alone. With his inauguration barely three weeks away, Trump, courtesy of his MAGA/America First doctrine, has sufficiently served notice that the year, either for good or for bad, will be like no other –in global trade, diplomacy or immigration for America and the world.

    Take this example: Trump in his ruffling showmanship thinks Panama Canal could well be America’s to be taken at his whim: “Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal,” the US president-elect had posted in his cryptic Christmas message – adding “Welcome to the United States Canal!”

    Not done, he actually thinks Canada should be America’s 51st state with its prime minister, Justin Trudeau as “governor” so he could better harvest the boundless prospects of his Greater America.

    And then his remaining nemesis, China, which he conceives as the beast; he insists that the Orientals need to be brought down by punitive tariffs so his America – his White America, could relive the once great dream. As for the rest of the world, they could as well stew in their juices at least to the extent they do nothing to imperil his empire’s grand ambitions. It is after all, Trump’s world.

    I wager that such far-flung issues will be the last thing in the mind of Nigerians as they troop to their religious houses as they are wont to do in the annual ritual of countdown.  Surely, there must be far more immediate things on their plate – from the monstrous principalities of hunger, the ravaging inflation, not least the engulfing atmosphere of insecurity, than the overblown anxieties over the now-familiar eccentricities of America’s wayward returnee-president.

    Read Also: Presidency blasts Bauchi governor over remarks on Tinubu

    However, if one understands those last minute sieges on religious houses by Nigerians as an intrinsic element of transition; the army of religious leaders of every shape and hue ever so available and so eager to cash out on the anxieties through hare-brained prophecies can only be part of troubling culture of citizens’ penchant to outsource their responsibilities.

    Nigerians had better watch out for them as things are already bad enough without the cheap, opportunistic zealots needlessly raising their hopes, (which is not necessarily a bad thing so long as these are grounded in plausibility and undergirded by the lessons on hard work), and stoking their fears.

    Hours into 2025, a section of Nigerians, ever so implacable, could easily write a book about the hardships in the 12 months and how the Tinubu reforms have compounded the pains of the people. If they have not succeeded in painting the past – the same past they only a while ago decried – in glowing colours solely on the grounds that the man running the show, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is the one they would love to hate, it has not been for a lack of organised effort. In their efforts to de-market the administration and its policies, they have left little to imagination.

    For a Bola Tinubu administration that neither pretended that the pains of adjustment would be easy, nor that the problems that have endured for decades would lend to quick-fixes, what we have seen, largely from its army of critics, are the same wearisome fixations with tired orthodoxies that created the mess in the first place.  Even those who agree that the reforms being undertaken by the Tinubu administration was not only inevitable but necessary, merely argue that only they could do a good job of it.

    Take Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate in the 2023 presidential elections. Asked on a television programme as to what he would do differently on the subsidy issue, the same individual, who had earlier depicted the oil subsidy as organised crime with a pledge not to allow it beyond the first day of his presidency, could only mouth some incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo of an ‘immediate-effect palliative pills’ to be administered on his first day in office to cushion its pains! Talk of political opportunism having no better name or description!

    The same with the ongoing tax reforms; the vocal few sworn to oppose the four bills have since told Nigerians that they couldn’t be bothered to read it! They would rather have the proposals killed before the benefits of appearance on the floors of the parliament.

    In the books of the man leading the charge, Senator Ali Ndume, the gadfly from Borno, leadership, a la democracy, is doing what the people want, simplicita!  In other words, it is not about doing what is good for the people!

    Summary: President Bola Tinubu should be leading from behind on a major pillar of his administration’s reform agenda if only to convince his ilk that he, the president is a democrat! Coming from an individual who has been in parliament in the entire life of the current republic, it is sadly a reflection of how unschooled he appears to be on the subject of leadership.

    This obviously takes us to the prognosis of the coming year. That the outgoing year has been a particularly difficult one is no exaggeration. In the same vein, it is neither useful nor does it make sense for anyone to understate the enormity of the challenges awaiting Nigerians in the coming year. Without any doubt, there is a lot to be concerned about. The revenue side, for instance, might seem encouraging but so also has the debt been growing. While it might well be the case that Nigeria has no debt but revenue problem, the managers of the economy will certainly will do well do pay attention to its management.

    The other is the monstrosity called inflation. Again, if I understand Yemi Cardoso and company at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) so well, it has to be fought ruthlessly. However, much as the CBN is already doing a yeoman’s job to tame the monster, the problem, particularly the food component of it, would appear far more than the monetary tools can effectively wrestle. This is where the federal government needs to do more. The current expectation of bumper harvests is no doubt a good testimonial to the efforts to stabilise the food inflation. Yet, one must hasten to add the other lacuna that has remained somewhat intractable is a reliable and efficient system of logistics on which our hordes of farmers can count on. Clearly, if Lord Frederick Lugard understood this imperative in the last century, one finds it hard to understand why successive governments could not understand its place in the scheme of things.

    Here’s my candid advice on the matter: our old, disused rail network might seem obsolete for moving people in this day and age; there can be no denying its utility in moving cattle and produce particularly in the circumstances that the country has found itself. With good thinking, right investment and proper management, Nigerians might yet discover the gold on those old tracks.

     Here’s wishing Nigerians a happy new year!