The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • The statesman president

    The statesman president

    The hallmark of a good leader is the ability to do what you have to do at the time it ought to be done – Tinubu

    AFTER a long lull, the Presidential Media Chat (PMC) returned on Monday, with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the hot seat. Tinubu is no stranger to crossing swords with the media. He likes to talk and sell himself and his ideology to the people . But he does it with tact. He does not just go into a talk for the fun of it. It is for a purpose.

    If Tinubu chooses not to talk, it must be for a reason. Many may not know this and you would find them joining his detractors to insinuate that he is running away from a debate. Run away from a debate? Then, they do not know who the man Tinubu is. His maiden PMC should by now have cleared all their doubts about his ability to hold his own in a conversation.

    From the start to the end, the President was in charge. He took all the questions in his strides. He did not dodge any; he even went out of his way to answer certain questions, to the shock of his interviewers some of who looked askance. Their looks said it all: “Is this the same Tinubu that we have known for years?” The President carried the day, with the way he tackled the issues and comported himself. He concurred when he was told by an interviewer that he could not assess himself.

    Even though he argued that he could mark his own script, he was quick to recall the advice against self assessment and grading when he jokingly told another interviewer that he had been cautioned against “assessing myself”. There was no dull moment during the hour-long chat. He caught the questions as they were thrown at him, as the Yoruba would say. He spoke frankly and with candour. It was vintage Tinubu. It was no holds barred. The President was down-to-earth and courageous in his answers.

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    Of course, many may not like some of his answers because he was forceful and bold to a fault. Call it audacity, if you like, but one thing you cannot take away from him, is that Tinubu was presidential in his outing. He spoke like a true leader with the love of his people at heart. Everything he said centred around the people and his desire to meet their expectations. He knows that some of his actions so far have been hard, but according to him, they are decisions to be taken to secure the future of our country.

    Nigeria has been adrift for long. The President is not interested in what happened in the past. He is interested more in the present and how to make things work for a better future. “We were deceiving ourselves”, he said in his opening response to a question on petrol subsidy removal. “We cannot continue to give away subsidised fuel, while neighbouring countries benefit at our expense, like Father Christmas. I have no regrets about removing the subsidy. It was necessary. We cannot spend the investments of future generations today”.

    To him, the pains of today’s removal of petrol subsidy will be tomorrow’s gains of a better and improved livelihood for the masses who have for ages borne the brunt of the poor management of the economy. “Yes, we have taken wrong turns in the past, but I am focused on creating prosperity for Nigeria. We must think of tomorrow, starting today”, he said.

    Some analysts would say he courted trouble in some of his responses. They would have preferred that he remained politically correct by exercising restraint on controversial issues like the Tax Reform Bills which northern governors are kicking against. Tinubu is not known to do things in half measures. It is either he believes in something or he does not. Once he makes up his mind about a thing, he pursues it to logical conclusion. He has seen the good in the proposed tax reforms, which he said, are “pro-poor”.

    “The tax reform is here to stay. It is to widen the tax net so that we can have more people paying… Tax matters are subjects of debates and negotiations…”, the President said. He might also be taking up on his reaction to the stampedes in which over 60 persons were killed in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, Okija in Anambra State, and Abuja. While condoling with the bereaved families, the President blamed the incidents on indiscipline and lack of organisation.

    “Losing lives in such a manner is tragic. Organisers need to ensure proper discipline and organisation in society. My condolences go to the affected families… I understand the importance of proper organisation to avoid such mishaps. It is critical that if you do not have enough to give, you do not attempt to publicise it or create chaos. This incident is a grave error on the part of the organisers, and we must learn from it”, Tinubu.

    The President can be brutally frank. That is his nature. But it does not detract from his humaneness and compassion. He is a known giver and he does so unstintingly without looking at the personal cost to himself. As the father of the nation, he might have spoken from the point of pain of losing people, his children so to say, at a season like this. A season of love, care, giving and sharing. But what has happened has happened. What we should be thinking of now, as he said, is how to avert a recurrence during future festive seasons.

    As the President said, the incidents should not ‘kill the joy of the season’. He has revived the PMC, with his incredible performance. He ended the chat with a message of hope. Urging Nigerians not to despair in the face of the prevailing challenges, the President said: “Year 2025 is very promising. I’m here to serve. I seek your cooperation at all times; I seek your understanding. I’m aware of the trouble you’ve been through. But it’s just 18 months since I’ve taken over the reins of government… The promise is there… Tomorrow will bring a glorious dawn”.

    The President’s optimism is infectious. Things can only get better after all the toils and turmoils of the past years. Despite all the stress and strifes, there is still cause to cheer. So, compliments of the Season, dear reader.

  • A taxing conversation

    A taxing conversation

    Of all the candidates who ran for president last year, not many would have tagged the All Progressives Congress’ (APC), Bola Tinubu, as disruptive. A leading light of the ruling party during Muhammadu Buhari’s eight-year rule, he was seen as part of the establishment. Running for office he promised to continue from where his predecessor stopped. If he won, it looked like Nigerians were going to be served more of the same.

    But with his very first speech on Inauguration Day, he upended a way of life with his “subsidy is gone” declaration. In short order he would launch the naira floatation – triggering an unprecedented costing of living crisis.

    Just as the nation was coming to terms with the economic changes, his administration brought before the Supreme Court a suit that gave financial autonomy to local government areas across the country. These administrative units had long suffered under the oppressive thumbs of governors who exercised control by doling out crumbs to them from the joint state-local government accounts.

    This was the point at which many began to take notice the government wasn’t about business as usual. Governors who for decades ruled their states like emperors, suddenly found themselves restrained from fooling around with billions that was theirs to play with hitherto.

    Many ran their councils with ad-hoc committees packed with specially chosen yes men who did nothing more than paying salaries. Elections for chairmen were unheard of in many states and where they held, mere sham events to fulfil all righteousness. So, the Supreme Court judgment was a massive jolt to their systems.

    Based on that judgment they have been forced to hold elections in order for their local governments to receive allocations from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). While many have done this grudgingly, others have gone a step further – looking for ways to circumvent the judicial stumbling block that now restricts their access to LG funds.

    In Anambra, for instance, Governor Chukwuma Soludo, came up with a law that requires councils to pay a portion of what they receive from the centre into their joint accounts. Some of his colleagues are still working on ways to retrieve the power they lost.

    It is against this backdrop that the administration dropped its bouquet of tax reform bills into the mix. About 14 months in the making, these legislations were some of the earliest initiatives embarked upon by the government; that gives a sense of how much Tinubu prioritised this area as part of his legacy.

    The package includes four main bills: the Nigeria Tax Bill, the Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill, and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Bill. Each of the legislations addresses specific aspects of tax administration, compliance, and enforcement.

    The bills are supposed to ensure uniformity in tax revenue administration across Nigeria, eliminate double taxation, use taxation to encourage private sector investment in critical industries and boost disposable incomes through targeted tax exemptions.

    The poorest in society are key winners under the new arrangement. Individuals earning below the minimum wage are exempted from the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax. Similarly, small businesses with annual turnovers of N50 million or less would be exempt from paying taxes.

    If passed into law, the bills would reduce corporate income tax rate from 30% to 25% over the next two years as a way of alleviating financial pressures on businesses and foster investment.

    The bills propose a significant shift in VAT revenue distribution, allocating revenues based on the states where goods and services are consumed rather than pooling them centrally for redistribution. This, unfortunately, has become the main bone of contention.

    The committee that worked on the reforms argues that their proposals are fair and align better with VAT’s nature as a consumption tax. The current law favours states like Lagos and Rivers which play host to the headquarters of large corporations. But it also sustains inequitable arrangements where those that contribute the most get only a fraction from the pool, while state chipping in the least get much more than they put in.

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    Most people who have taken the trouble to read through the legislations or even familiarise themselves with summaries, admit that while not perfect, the bills are a massive improvement on what we currently have. Of course, they challenge states which are currently content with heading to Abuja for the monthly handout from FAAC, to do more about boosting economic activity in their domains.

    But, surely, no one can quarrel with tax exemptions for the poorest of the poor, or cuts for struggling families. Fair minded persons cannot be against reducing the taxation burdens on MSMES and other companies.

    In other words, of the four bills, opposition has been most vociferous around that dealing with VAT. But rather than isolating it and looking at ways of addressing whatever inequities it may contain, vested interests who want to maintain the status quo would rather all four legislations are stopped in their tracks in the name of having further consultations.

    Bear in mind that such discussions have been going on over the last 14 months. Among those consulted were governors who at a recent meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) made the controversial demand to the president. It was met with a resolute pushback from Tinubu who asked them to take their concerns to National Assembly hearings.

    It was the appropriate response as the parliament is the place for lawmaking and any adjustments can be made there. But what is interesting is that many of the opponents of the bills are not even ready for a discussion, or for the normal give-and-take involved in lawmaking. They just want the reforms shut down for the most specious reasons.

    What I find most exhausting is that, in typical Nigerian fashion, what should be discourse about the economic wellbeing of citizens has been reduced to a political shouting match about plots to disadvantage one region or the other.

    The most hysterical voices have come from parts of the North. Ali Ndume, senator representing Borno South district, was already foaming at the gills even when he hadn’t read a line of the proposals. His governor, Babagana Zulum, would be even more zealous in his outcry, claiming the state would be unable to pay salaries and that certain federal agencies would close down due to lack of funding.

    These allegations have been sufficiently exposed as baseless. Those who made them haven’t been able to provide any section of the bills to back their tales by moonlight. The deliberate injection of falsehoods and innuendoes into what should be a sober conversation just speaks to the hidden agenda of these forces.

    One of such lies is that the entire ‘North’ is against the reforms. Nothing can be further from the truth. There is no ‘Northern’ consensus over the matter. Just as you have the governors voicing their concerns, many influential and respected voices in the region – some of them ex governors – have spoken out in favour of the bills.

    The North is not prostrate and has its own economic strengths in trading and agriculture. Niger State Governor, Mohammed Bago, is quietly showing what can be done in this area, while his less imaginative colleagues are crying wolf. This region was known not only for agriculture but also for its textile mills: all that is now history.

    Through the years these could have been revived. But in the intervening period leaders were more content with federal revenue sharing and any attempt to shift them from their comfort zones became occasion for scaremongering. It is for the leaders of the North to harness its strength and return the zone to the economic power house it once was.

    Let’s not forget that Tinubu as governor once had federal allocation for the state seized by President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime in a dispute over local government creation. His saving grace was the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). All states may not have the advantage of Lagos, but they can start somewhere. Perhaps they should ask their Enugu State counterpart, Peter Mbah, how he’s quadrupled revenues in his short time in office.

    No doubt, much of the brouhaha over the tax bills is fuelled by the fear of the unknown. But we cannot expect change by doing the same things they haven’t moved us forward. We should ask governors if the current tax revenue arrangements were so great, how come they are not flush with funds for development?

    Everyone talks about reshaping the fundamental structure of the economy to make it less dependent on oil. Any reforms that can help us move into that brave new future where shocks in the international crude market don’t become a source of constant national palpitation should be embraced. That’s why ethnic jingoists and alarmists must not be allowed to frustrate the tax reforms.

    •This article was first published on December 11, 2024

  • The global erosion of moral values

    The global erosion of moral values

    The decline in moral values is a universal problem, although the extent and causes of decline vary slightly from country to country and from generation to generation. For example, a recent Gallup poll showed that Americans’ poor ratings of the state of moral values in their country have fallen to the lowest point in Gallup’s 22-year trend. The study showed that 54% of adult Americans rated moral values in the country as “poor”. It was the first time that the majority has expressed this level of concern about the erosion of moral values in the country.

    Americans are not alone. Recent survey data published in Nature magazine also showed a declining trend in moral values. The survey data were collected from 12 million people between 1949 and 2021. Like the Gallup findings, the results showed that the decline in moral values was at its worst level in the most recent study.

    I cite these international polls as a backdrop for understanding the erosion of moral values in Nigeria, even in the absence of survey data on the subject. In all the studies, the decline is traceable to escalating social, economic, and political problems as well as environmental pressures across the globe. These problems are interconnected. For example, poor governance can trigger economic problems, which, in turn, can trigger social problems. Similarly, environmental pressures, such as climate change, can cause economic hardships, which can also trigger social problems.

    I will discuss these problems only as they relate to Nigeria. Although there are no statistical data on the decline of moral values in the country, all adult Nigerians I have interviewed on the subject have one complaint or the other about moral values, especially when discussing the behaviour of youths. To be sure, there is no one definitive answer to why moral values are declining in Nigeria, but there are many factors at play.

    Since the beginning of the military era, starting with the Majors’ coup of January 1966, the shock of deaths gripped the nation like never before; it escalated with the pogrom in the North and peaked with the civil war. It was the beginning of the devaluation of human life on a large scale. With the advent of civilian rule in 1999, political tensions increased, especially around election time, with thugs maiming and killing voters. There have been cases of political assassinations as well.

    These political killings were complemented by insurgency, led by Boko Haram, the terrorist group, killing and destroying property at will. More recently, cattle herders began their onslaught on farmers and their farmlands, while cattle rustling, banditry, and kidnappings took their toll on various populations. The political implications of these killings went beyond setting one ethnic group against another. They also laid the foundation for trust deficit in government as it did not meet citizens’ expectations of resolution of the wanton killings.

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    However, a much worse political problem, which reached its peak during the last presidential election, is political polarisation, which set political parties, ethnic groups, and different religious organisations against each other. The polarisation continues till today, setting  up an environment in which divisive rhetoric and actions breed a breakdown of social cohesion and shared moral values.

    What is worse, large scale political corruption, which began during the military era increased exponentially with the advent of civilian rule in 1999. Today, corruption has become endemic and normalised by various government institutions and their agents. Corporate bodies and business enterprises have also doubled down on corrupt practices.

    Corruption has institutionalised the drive for materialism, leading to various unethical practices. For example, restaurant owners and roadside hawkers have devised their own methods of cheating their customers. The story has been told of plantain chips “chefs” who mix clinging nylon film with vegetable or palm oil to make the chips remain hard and crunchy for a long time! There are fake wine and soda (soft drinks) factories. There are Yahoo Boys, who specialise in cyberfraud, with a subset (Yahoo Plus) engaging in ritual killing for quick money. And there are email and social media platform hackers, who use your account to solicit funds from your contacts as well as fake old friends or distant relatives, who send SOS messages or call for money to get out of difficult situations.

    These political and economic developments have been aided by globalisation and social media. Globalisation exposed Nigerians to political practices, cultures, and values that challenged local traditions and moral values. For example, classical juju music tradition popularised by Ebenezer Obey and Sunny Ade (born in the 1940s) gave way to new genres of music amplified by Burna Boy, Wizkid, Davido, and Kizz Daniel (all born in the early 1990s). These imported practices were spread by social media, which were used to amplify negative behaviours. Following American influences since Trump’s run for President in 2016, social media have been employed in partisan politics to distort information, misinform, and create negative perception of political opponents.

    These developments have taken a toll on moral values, creating a cultural shift in which social norms began to shift radically. Nigeria is in the throes of this shift. Unemployment, underemployment, and a surrounding culture of excessive materialism of politicians have driven today’s youths out of their parents’ moral zone. The model for our youths is dead, where parents help their children to cheat in JAMB exams or beg for their children’s admission to higher institutions; where teachers sell their crap notes or dumb books to their students for money, ask female students for sex in return for grade or ask students for a fee to assess their dissertation; and, above all, where politicians put self interest above public good by diverting public funds into private pockets.

    To be sure, moral values are not static. It is also not uncommon for different generations to have different values. There is, however, a problem when a society is sharply divided on the scale of values. Such a division is fast becoming a serious issue in Nigeria today as elsewhere.

  • Dying for food: Preventive planning, patience, discipline

    Dying for food: Preventive planning, patience, discipline

    As some of us celebrate Christmas today, many are in mourning from accidents or illnesses which may not have been preventable. We also join in our Christmas prayers the families of the victims of these tragic palliative-related stampedes.  Dying for food is a terrible result. Being crushed to death by one’s Fellow Nigerians is not deserved after surviving poverty inflicted by the economic hardship precipitated by 50 years of unchecked theft by the ‘Collective Thieves of Nigeria’ causing ‘The Poverty Disease’ in 80% of Nigeria’s population.

    Every problem has immediate and remote causes. Yes, we are outraged at the organisers not planning against this problem. They watch TV, where the Immigration recruitment deaths and several other tragedies should have been learnt from. Buhari and Idiagbon introduced War Against Indiscipline, WAI, to get Nigerians queuing up. Yes, the organisers did not expect to pay for crowd control but they must include it as a budgetary line item. Life is irreplaceable. Yes, they have done massive charity before without mishap.

    Remember it was not the organisers but some members of the crowd who broke the rules of ‘lining up’ or ’Queuing Up’ or ‘Wait Their Turn’ WTT. Organisers failed to anticipate and prevent. Nigerians never want to WTT when entering or exiting religious premises be it church, school, transport or office. The two-lane traffic merging ‘after you’ or ‘one car follows after one car from the other side’ law is anathema in Nigeria.  They will argue and push forward. Yes, organisers, morally and maybe criminally, failed to rehearse staff for ‘the Management of Worst Case Scenarios’.  A crowd should have been anticipated.  Nowadays we run a gauntlet of poor urchins, calculating adolescents and thugs.

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    Proper organisation is not new, does not need a computer and is not nuclear physics. All large bodies require to be subdivided to avoid some people being cheated of time or position. Even army organisation demands segments of increasing numbers from 4-10-14 in the basic team, squad, platoon etc.

    In the Bible, when  Our Lord Jesus, as recorded by Mark,  fed the 5,000, he directed his disciples to get the 5,000 people to sit down in ‘groups of 50 and 100’ while Luke writes they sat in ‘groups of 100’. Crowd management is part and parcel of planning of large functions historically. Examples of poor crowd control are instructive and include the Hillsborough football fan disaster which claimed 97 lives. The losses – Oyo State we lost 35 mainly children, 22 in Anambra and 10 in Abuja are unacceptable. Now, it must not be forgotten that the organisers usually start with pure intentions-charity and love of neighbour, though some are ‘cheap publicity and the funds source is sometimes political of corrupt. They usually were never and will never be villains. St Vincent De Paul is a worldwide Catholic charity of parishioner members using parishioners’ own locally generated funds to assist local poor sick and needy patients every single week. The funfair tragedy provider, a separated Queen of Ife, was to be joyful for 5,000 children. The philanthropist in Anambra was pure of heart and a regular giver. Some other organisers are political or personally purely self-serving and self-advertorial. Sadly, the victims are never the ones guilty. They are the victims of other Fellow Nigerians’ collective, arrogance, haste, greed, and refusal to obey ‘WAIT YOUR TURN’ and ‘PLEASE LINE UP BY NUMBER’ and ‘FIRST COME -FIRST SERVED’. CCTV would have identified the citizens who precipitated the stampede. The investigators must obtain all video evidence, construct a timeline and identify instigators. 

    Personal will, patience, responsibility, being one’s brother’s keeper are key. In the late 60s and 70s, Ibadan was known for obeying traffic laws especially ‘Give way to traffic on your left at roundabouts’. Today, if you stop to allow anyone else to pass anywhere in the country, you will be horned at, verbally abused, ‘waka-finger’ signed – an actual curse on self and family- and immediately overtaken on both sides by okadas and the cars behind you which will screech to a mega horn-blaring halt when they find the person, the children, the pregnant woman or the elderly person or the obstruction crossing the road for whom or for which you had stopped. As if that is not enough, during the act of overtaking, you will hear ‘Go get a driver’, ‘Woman, make your man drive for you’. ‘I beg, no enter road again!’ 

    Crowd control is a recurring problem in Nigerian life and even at public functions with large security presence. Witness the number of pseudo-security and VIPs milling around the president on arrival in Lagos. Sometimes one cannot see the Nigerian president because of the crowd around him. Similarly in public funerals. There is little or no organised effort to restrict access or limit access to secure areas.

    Citizens resist good things and misplace blame for failures. Many vehemently mistakenly blame INEC for every election fault forgetting that it is the thugs and political parties’ adherents killing and causing mayhem. America with its 500million guns owned by civilians just had a violence-free election. Our citizens too frequently drown from not wearing simple life jackets. We in Educare Trust fought to make lifesaving seatbelts, crash helmets and life jackets normal. They were not 30 years ago! There was even resistance from commercial users. Today lifejackets are still resisted-what can be more obviously preventable than life jacket? 

    Merry Safe Christmas 2024.

  • Kemi Badenoch and her father’s ‘Voice of Reason’

    Kemi Badenoch and her father’s ‘Voice of Reason’

    Kemi Badenoch, Britain’s Leader of Conservative Party and the Leader of Opposition, has gone through severe stress and strain since she first described Nigeria as a country plagued by “fear, insecurity, and corruption”, while reflecting on challenges of growing up in Lagos. She was accused of the denigrating the country of her parents.  Not even David Cameron who back in 2016 described Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt country” received the type of criticism that trailed what some considered as an unpatriotic assault on Nigeria.

    But if Badenoch, whose brand of ‘saying it like it is’ and promises to tell ‘hard truths about her country’ does not feel intimidated by a section of the British press who described her as “ever-out-raged Kemi” and a “passionate defender of free speech – apart from any criticism of her” (John Crace Feb 19), she is not going to be cowed by some self-proclaiming patriots, Nigerian journalists whose tantrums include describing her as one “who gets banana brain with bad parents without home training”; outbursts  that will have no effect on her future electoral fortune.

    But more unrestrained attack has since followed her declaration during an interview with the Spectator two weeks back that she identifies more with the Yoruba group than the people from northern Nigeria. This is the natural order of things. Our first allegiance is to our families through whom we acquire through a process called political socialization, the process by which the norms and values of our tribe that “are associated with performance of political roles and values guiding standards of political behaviours are learnt mainly through parents.

    “A man is born into his political party just as he is born into his probable future membership of in the church of his parents”. (Babawale 1999). We will see how this played out with Badenoch shortly.

    Tragically, most of our politicians who are below 65 years of age who at best can be described as ‘new breed’ politicians’  who have been misled by their military role models that one can be a Nigerian first without first being a good family man or a good representative of his people. And sadly, it is futile preaching to the converted in view of empirical evidences all around us.

    We have Chief Obasanjo who, after deriding his people by boasting he would rather be a Nigerian leader than a Yoruba leader, went on to become a military Head of State and two-term elected president with little or no contribution from his people beyond ensuring he lost at his ward and polling unit.

    We have General Theophilus Danjuma, Nigeria foremost philanthropist who spends money like water on account of having secured an oil well because he is first a Nigerian.  We have David Mark, who as a self-proclaiming Nigerian was in the senate for close to 20 years despite being a sworn enemy of those who fought and died for democracy in 1993. 

    Of course, there are scores of other Nigerian billionaires who made their fortune from the state because in Nigeria, it is literally possible to climb the palm tree from the top.

    But these aberrations should not make us become ashamed of our tribes. Since in the real world, studies have shown that you cannot love Nigeria without first loving your family or by first becoming a good representative of your people, no Nigerian should be ashamed to see herself or himself as a proud Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani, Igbo, Ijaw, Urhobo, Ibibio, Munchi etc. man or woman.

    Kemi Badenoch who identifies herself as a proud Yoruba woman, by virtue of her political socialization, is a chip of the old block. She is a thorough daughter of her father Olufemi Adegoke, a medical doctor who, before his death two years back, was unarguably a good Nigerian despite his life-long struggle like most of his Yoruba compatriots, in the forefront of returning Nigeria to the abandoned path to freedom through restructuring.

    Badenoch’s ‘Voice of Reason’ (VOR) is a grouping of eminent Nigerians of Yoruba descent, who is accomplished professionals, academicians, entrepreneurs, business men and women and persons with private and public service experience

    The over-arching objective of VOR is the enthronement of a regime, or structure and culture of developmentally-oriented values and conduct of leadership, followership and governance of Yoruba land and specifically within a broader framework of Nigeria’s unity and all-round national development.

    VOR’s objective  include working for a new, equitable and efficient structure of governance in Nigeria; putting pressure on the central government to take appropriate steps towards meeting  the earnest yearnings of majority of Yoruba people for a restructuring of Nigeria; and impressing it on the central government that restructuring is the best and most peaceful path to national harmony and nation-building; enhancing the quality of stewardship, accountability, human asset development and mass wealth creation dynamic in the southwest geo political zone.

    VOR members committed themselves to keeping VOR strictly non-partisan.

    VOR argument for restructuring was anchored on the understanding among people of Nigeria and the departing colonial authority at independence and after independence that “the regions represented a group of people who had long standing affinities based on ethnic, linguistic, economic and through relationships.

    Kemi Badenoch’s father-led VOR believes for development to take place, we must first have a country and to have a country, the national question must be resolved. From the views of Yoruba leading light and those of the leaders of other Nigerian ethnic nationalities, there appears to be unanimity of purpose on issue of restructuring, in spite of their different political orientations. The followings attestations seem to confirm this:

    Lack of restructuring “is the cause of secessionist’s agitation – (Prof Banji Akinoye, Emeritus professor of history and prominent Yoruba leader).

    Restructuring will give sovereignty to states on education health, mineral resources (John Nwodo former president of Ohaneze).

    Break the myth of leadership in Nigeria. Give us a true fiscal federal constitution by the people and for the people and watch this land thrive in great leadership…This centralized governing system is all about the rule of men. Give us the rule of law, to be enshrined in the people’s constitution where no saint or devil is above the law (Prince Olagoke Omisore, The Conveners of Voice of Reason 2014).

    The current federal structure is unbalanced, unfair, over-centralised and therefore unstable. We firmly support the demand to restructure the federation with appropriate devolution of powers to the federating units and a commensurate revenue allocation formula” – (Prof Jerry Gana, national president, Middle Belt Forum).

    As presently constituted, it is unwieldy and a contraption for annihilation of the Middle Belt, our cultures and aspirations – (Dr Bitris Pogu)

    Restructuring must not be seen as a demand for a previously unknown Nigeria. What we demand is a return to a Nigeria we have had before, a Nigeria that worked for human progress and development – (Obong Victor Atta).

    “I am all ears to hear how the people will convince the powers-that-be on restructuring. Change begins with restructuring – (Alfred-Diete-Spiff ((Amayanabo of Twon-Brass and first governor of Rivers 1966-1976).

    “If rapid political progress is to be made in Nigeria, it is high time we were realistic about its constitutional problems; Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no Nigerians in the same sense as there are ‘English, Welsh or French. The word Nigerian is a mere geographical expression to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria from those who do not” – Chief Obafemi Awolowo in Path to Nigeria Freedom (London, Faber and Faber 1947) p 478.

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    “What Nigeria needs is a change that will make politics less attractive, make each state to develop at its own pace and do away with all shades and shapes of criminality – Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, founder of Afe Babablola University.

    There is an urgent need to restructure and reconfigure the country in a way that would suit all sections of the country – (Prof Wole Soyinka Nobel Laureate).

    We should adopt a restructured true federalism which I believe will provide the best basis for the realization of the Nigerian nation that we all desire, a stable, united and socio-economically fast developing country with a correspondingly accountable and citizen-empathetic leadership – (Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Commonwealth Secretary General).

    The constitution of this country must be restructured towards true federalism. If it is not restructured, there will be no room for development. A country must exist before development. This country cannot exist without restructuring” – (Chief Ayo Adebanjo Afenifere leader).

    “I hope to live to see the day in a properly federalized and restructured Nigeria, the return of the groundnut and cotton pyramids to Kano wrapped with colourful hides and skin, huge cocoa plantations to the west, the palm oil and kernel industry to the east and the appearance of yam skyscrapers in Makurdi, Gboko and Jalingo” – General Ipoola Alani Akinrinade, civil war veteran.

    For close to 60 years we have groped in the wilderness.

    Voice of Reason (VOR), believing all the above Nigerian stakeholders cannot all be wrong, is today making a case for a return to the path to the Nigerian freedom we abandoned in 1966.

  • Samuel Ayodele Olowosulu (1941-2024)

    Samuel Ayodele Olowosulu (1941-2024)

    This is a day I had been dreading for some three years. 

    By his 80th birthday, on August 21, 2021, he had lost his sight. Thereafter he was frequently in and out of the clinic for emergency treatment.  But he fought on bravely, his body wracked by pain, but his sharp mind, his acute intelligence, and his engaging sense of humour unimpaired.

    To those who can only judge by appearance, the end seemed imminent.  But God works by a schedule that we cannot fathom.   And so, God kept Samuel Ayodele Olowosulu, my friend, counsellor, confidant, my brother from another mother, loving and dutiful husband, doting grandfather and great grandfather:  God kept him with and among us for another three years and three months.

    And then at the appointed time, God called him home, ending his pain and freeing him from the burden of memory.  Glory be to God.

    I knew and related with Samuel Olowosulu for much longer than most can claim – longer, I say with all due respect than even his grieving widow, Christiana.  We first met in 1957, as pupils in Class 7B, at St Andrew’s School, Kabba, under the tutelage of the late Mr J O Oluhaiyero.

    Some four months after we left school, fate brought us together under the same roof, he as a fresh employee with Rural Water Supplies in Kano, and I  as a vacationing student from secondary school in Zaria.

    Since then, we have been inseparable.  I spent my holidays with him, and he took good care of me from his slender resources, not minding that I was having the benefit of an education that he never had.  He was always a gracious, provident host.

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    Samuel Olowosulu lived a life of purpose and lived it well.  He lived a life of honesty and decency.  He retired from the civil service as head of a vast network of government stores that maintained equipment supplying water to the towns and rural areas of Kano State.

    Everyone vouched for his honour and integrity.  Not the faintest whiff of scandal ever cottoned unto his name.

    Whenever expatriate Nigerians in the United States meet, they talk invariably about the situation back home, and about the projects they are undertaking in preparation for their return, or just to make their visits comfortable.

    Tales of deception and betrayal are usually the stable of such discussions.  One after another, they would recount how the funds they sent home for building a house in the village or running a farm or some cottage industry were appropriated by the recipients, who would then use the funds to execute their own projects or to finance a prodigal lifestyle. 

    Fake pictures would be sent to the remitter to show how faithfully his funds were being deployed and his instructions carried out. But it was a scam through and through.

    So, when I told some colleagues that a friend and former schoolmate was supervising my building project in Nigeria, they shook their heads in sorrow and pity.  They said, drawing on the many tales of woe they had heard, that I would regret it.

    “No, I won’t,” I would retort sharply.  “On the contrary, I am counting my blessings.  And I would cite just two examples of how beautifully things were working for me.

    When we finished the decking, we had 60 unused bags of cement left. I knew absolutely nothing about the surplus.  Samuel Olowosulu returned them to the supplier for credit, with the understanding that at the next phase of construction, the supplier would send us 60 bags of cement, regardless of whatever price fluctuations might have occurred.

    After the work crew had helped themselves to the detritus from the scaffolding, he sold what remained for N35,000 and lodged the proceeds in the project account.  He deployed his advanced skills in storekeeping and project supervision to keep the work flowing.  His bookkeeping was exceptional.  He accounted for every kobo, though I rarely asked him to.

    You would never know that his formal education terminated in primary school.  Yet among his children can be counted a professor of pharmacy, and a professor of mechanical engineering.  He took advantage of every opportunity to improve himself through study and reading and learning, to the point that he spoke the English Language far more fluently and competently than many of today’s university graduates.

    His written English was just as competent, enhanced by his exquisite handwriting.  His overall grooming was impeccable.

    That is the man whose beautiful soul we are commenting to our Maker today (December 13).  We mourn, for his was of us and his memory is priceless.  But we also rejoice and celebrate, for he lived a life of honour and dignity and love and decency; a life of service to country and community and to family and friends.

    Hail and farewell, Samuel Ayodele Olowosulu.  Friend, counsellor, confidant, brother.

  • A fowl story

    A fowl story

    It is intriguing that a fowl story should grab the Nigerian imagination at Christmas. Yet, it is not just about fowl alone, it is about killing but no one human is dead. We do not speak about fowls at Christmas without bloodshed. The bird cries as we hold its two legs, its wings flap with fear, its neck nervous at the invitation of a knife. Humans gaze with murderous appetite. We imagine the succulence of its thighs in a tomato stew, in pepper soup, in the ability of its thighs, wings or breast to lie beside a plate of jollof rice – not Ghanaian – in a parody of a décor.

    Yet it is no Christmas story. No buntings or decorated lights or corals in the air. We could say it is a foul story. It is the story of life and death, which is the story of a fowl anyway, especially at Christmas. But in this case, a human, not the fowl, was destined for the grave. We could call the story death by fowl. The human was going to die for stealing a fowl, and eggs to boot.

    Like many a Nigerian story, it is not as it seems. Ultimately, the law like a folktale tortoise comes into the tale. The law is a constant tragi-comic character in the Nigerian narrative. The fowl tale, especially this one, is typically Nigerian. The only thing left out of it – happily – is the rigmarole of political party, or tribe or faith. It gives us the convenience of fighting without God and without tribe.

    But government and law are involved, so we cannot run away from the hoopla that we love: to fight each other. This time, while we are not having tribe or the other’s God to fight, we have a new one: a chicken fight. The chicken fight usually is a fight in which cocks go at each other and the winner wins a prize for the owner. In this case, the law is the one in trouble. The law has taken a side in this chicken duel.

    Why should a judge side with the fowl against the human being? The chicken will die anyway and soon. But why sentence a boy of 17, Segun Olowookere, and another boy, Sunday Morakinyo, to death because they stole a fowl?

    They robbed a police officer, allegedly. They shot no gun, if they had a dane gun, allegedly. They did not slash any throat, if they had a cutlass, allegedly. So, do you go to your maker for stealing a mere chicken? You don’t steal a fowl for the sake of it. Only the hungry do that, and a fowl does not go beyond a family meal, or two. Even the bible allows you to steal if you are very hungry, but on the proviso you are not caught. If you are caught, you will pay sevenfold. But sevenfold is not the same as death.

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    But the boys have said they did no such thing. They did not steal anyone’s fowl. The police forced a confession. The two boys never knew each other until they were framed together. But that is a moot point now that both of them served 10 years already, more than the life of a fowl, and more than the lifetime of a digestion.

    At Christmas, it is often the fowl that is on trial. What’s on trial in this case is the law and the police. Some lawyers have said that the court had no competence to try it. Some said, they followed the law, and it was the case of armed robbery. Armed robbery with a dane gun and cutlass in the 21st century? No shots fired. The irony, a dane gun against a police officer who operates a modern gun? Yet, the dane gun man triumphs. He does not even fear that when he wants to rob, it should be a police man. It is a robbery as impunity, even as robbers go. Robbers assault the weak, except Anini and Osunbor are their ancestors. Even they waged modern warfare. I wish we can hear the policeman’s account. Did they steal his modern gun, too? No story has indicated that. Or did he run a home without armoury? He might have shot them after they had “chickened out.”

    Some lawyers say it was legal. That pains. Law can be cruel. History gives us examples of bad laws that sustained civilisations. Law condoned slavery, enthroned bigots who fattened on slave labour, endorsed colonialism, Nazism, collectivism, the Chinese purge, the Benin massacre, murder of blacks. Law still deprives women of inheritance. We are not right just because one is on the right side of the law. As Thoreau notes, “the law never made anyone a whit more just.”

    And the law has been a bait in these parts. We are seeing it with the elder and younger Obidients in an inter-state duel. We saw it in  the past election, when some wanted to upturn the Supreme Court justices into ciphers of their own perverted consciences. They wanted to turn Abuja into special vote, capsize minority to majority, so it may turn their loss into a grace of victory for them.

    Nor did it start in this republic. Remember in the First Republic when Justice Sowemimo said his hands were tied? Or before then when the Western Region crisis threw up two premiers and one governor at the same time? When the Supreme Court under Adetokunbo Ademola ruled in favour of Awolowo’s AG faction, their jubilation was cut short when the Privy Council – then the real Supreme Court – ruled from London in favour of Akintola. Just before the news broke in Nigeria, the AG shot itself in the foot by changing the law and annulling their own judicial victory and legitimating Akintola. The farce is compelling. So, as some say in Nigeria, no be today.

    But the foul story found mercy when the dancing governor of Osun State suspended his comedy and bestowed pardon on the boys. It seemed, like Sowemimo, that the judge’s hands were tied, and also sought gubernatorial mercy to untie them. As Shakespeare says, “all is well that ends well.” But first, we have to account for the 10 years the fellow spent behind bars. Time, we all know, is a great healer. But on the hand, “You can’t kill time without injuring eternity.” A Thoreau quote again.

  • A coup as revenge

    A coup as revenge

    It was an evening at the highbrow Metropolitan Club in Victoria Island and it was a surprise bash for a man of success. It was not just a party. It was an 80th birthday appreciation.

    The organisers intoxicated the soiree with a unique style. It was a coup. Chief Biodun Shobanjo had obeyed his wife, Joyce. She said he should dress up, which invoked an inevitable signature: a bowtie. He followed her out of the home. He walked, as he himself confessed later, like “an innocent lamb to the slaughter.”

    All the coup plotters were at the ready.  But the main plotters were known as the Shobi Collective, apparently led by Udeme Ufot, managing director of SO&U.

     But the chief coupist was not a man. So, when Chief Shobanjo strolled into the Met’s hall, everyone lined up on the aisle, to his amazement. It was a soiree of subversion. At first view, he saw everybody and nobody. Everyone shielded their face with a fan-like mask bearing his picture. So he saw everybody but the only face he saw was his own and many of him. As he walked from person to person, we took off our veils and he hugged coup plotter after coup plotter until he greeted everyone who attended. It was a parade of industry mavens, professionals, mentees, friends and associates.

    Enter Aremo Segun Osoba, Chief Segun Osunkeye or Mr. Nestle, industry icons and a few media names like Yemi Ogunbiyi, John Momoh and Thisday’s Eniola Bello.

     But the most striking parade was of his mentees, men and women who have risen to become industry hefties.

     They lined up, including Ufot, Funmi Onabolu, et al.

     It was a soiree of tributes from Momoh to Osoba to Osunkeye, and no story stirred the audience like the story of Ufot’s wife, Professor Dorothy Ufot about Shobanjo effect on their lives.

    The professor was a youth Corps member who paid frequent visits to Insight Communications, Shobanjo’s firm.

     The boss noticed and wondered what the young woman was looking for. He learned her then boyfriend Udeme had applied for a job at the company. She had vowed never to leave Lagos, and if their relationship was to continue, Udeme must work in Lagos.

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    So, she visited Insight for insights into his boo’s prospects for Lagos. The day Udeme landed the job, “we celebrated,” she said to laughter and applause. She is also a SAN and teaches law at BAZE University. Before she left the stage, she attributed her husband’s success to God and the celebrant.

    Who was the chief coupist then? The Shobi Collectives pointed a finger at the woman sitting beside the celebrant. His wife Joyce, that is.

    In calm humour, Shobanjo said: “I thought I knew my wife,” and all laughed, but she had led a plot. But the irony was on Shobanjo himself, which was a story barely hinted at that evening.

    Shobanjo was himself a master coupist who turned the industry upside down with a disruptive mould of doing, a generation of rebellion and imagination when he set up Insight and broke away from GrantCommunications,  and tradition.

     One of the items on the programme was called Payback, which was a presentation from the Shobi Collective.

     The real payback was the coup his men unfurled against him.

    He counted himself lucky that he was hearing such glowing tributes while he was still alive, although he promised he would still be around for another 20 years. A centenarian loading…

  • AGF’s threat to governors

    AGF’s threat to governors

    Warning by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi of dire consequences awaiting state governors enacting laws to tamper with local government funds says a lot about all that is wrong with this country.

    The AGF was piqued that some of the governors were prodding their state Houses of Assembly to enact laws to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling divesting local government funds from their stranglehold. He has threatened impeachment for governors standing against the financial autonomy of the local governments (LGs) and prosecution of elected local government chairmen engaged in similar misdemeanour.

    Fagbemi did not name state governors involved neither did he disclose the quarters from which the impeachment proceedings will be initiated. But his warning may not be unconnected with a recent declaration by Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State while signing the state’s Local Government Administration Law that “absolute autonomy to the 774 local government areas in the country is impossibility. In fact, it is a recipe for humongous chaos”.

    In a paper at the 2024 Conference of the Abuja chapter of National Association of Judicial Correspondents (NAJUC), Fagbemi said he was “aware that some states have embarked on promulgation of legislations which appear antithetical to the tenets or tenor of the judgment of the Supreme Court”.

    According to him, by the July 11, 2024 judgment of the Supreme Court granting financial autonomy to the LGs, it amounted to misconduct and impeachable offence for governors to tamper with local government funds. And since council chairmen do not enjoy immunity, they stand to be prosecuted for misappropriation or misapplication of LG funds, he further warned.

    This development is worrisome. The apex court had in that landmark judgement declared “a democratically elected local government sacrosanct and non-negotiable” and that the use of caretaker committee amounted to a state government taking over the control of a local government in violation of the 1999 constitution.

    The policy court further ruled that the state government has no power or control to keep local council money; local councils are entitled to local government allocation. “Justice in this case demands that LG allocation from the federation account should henceforth be paid directly to the LGs”, the court further ruled with an injunction restraining the defendants or their privies from spending LG funds.

     It is sad that in spite of the unambiguous rulings by the apex court ousting the powers of financial control over LG funds from the governors, some of them still embarked on a perilous voyage of seeking avenues to circumvent that judgment.

    But the development should not be entirely surprising given the high-wire politics in which local government administration has been enmeshed- politics that has left the third tier of  government a ghost of its former self unable to discharge on its statutory duties.

     If governors prodding their state Houses of Assembly to enact laws to get control of LG funds are not unsettling enough, the suspension for two months of chairmen and vice chairmen of the 18 LGs in Edo by the state House of Assembly strikes as a direct attack on the autonomy of the councils.

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    Their suspension followed a petition by the governor, Monday Okpebholo to the House of Assembly alleging refusal by the chairmen to submit financial records of their councils to the state government. For him, this amounted to insubordination and gross misconduct for which the house has to investigate them.

    Not unexpectedly, the chairmen have protested the suspension citing extant court injunctions including the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court. Okpebholo has just been in office for barely a month. He inherited LG chairmen elected under the platform of an opposition political party.  It is not unlikely that the lure to wield control over that level of governance is behind the suspension order. But for the judgement of the apex court, those chairmen and councillors would have been booted out and their places taken by caretaker committees.

    The game playing out in Edo State is another guise to curtail the financial independence of the third tier of governance. But the suspension order has been declared illegal by the AGF as only the councillors in that LG can exercise such powers. But the governors will not easily let go.

    With the state assemblies acting as willing tools, the length some governors can go to achieve through the backdoor that which the apex court curtailed, is a matter of educated guess. The way it plays out will have wider repercussions for the financial autonomy of the LGs and their capacity to discharge on their mandate.

     As unsettling as these tendencies are, the urge to abridge rules or cut corners for self-serving ends remains a huge setback to the politics of this country.  In that mind-set can be located the reasons for the failure of many well intentioned government policies.

    Peter Ekeh captured the conflict of orientation in his theory of the two publics-the private and public realms. The thesis of his presentation is that our citizens have different moral attachments to issues that impinge on the private and public realms.

    Whereas the individual has a high moral attachment to issues of the private realm; the ethnic union funds for instance, the same person has a negative disposition to funds belonging to the public realm – federal, state or local government. That is why it is a taboo to steal the funds of a village meeting but not government money. So, you may be considered a smart fellow if you exploit loopholes to defraud the government without incurring the wrath of the law.

    But the same attitude to community or union money attracts opprobrium. That is why a governor will goad a state assembly to make laws to corner LG funds even after the apex court had ruled to the contrary. It is for the same consideration that all the 18 LG chairmen were suspended in Edo for touted insubordination.

    Ours is a country where sub-national governments and citizens appear in a haste to exploit loopholes to circumvent well intended laws rather than seek to cooperate and strengthen them. This negative culture is evident in public reaction to, and perception of, socio-economic policies and our faulty political recruitment process. Searching for loopholes to exploit and sabotage well-intentioned policies of government has assumed dangerous and destructive proportions. You can find the tendency in reactions (governments and individuals) to the deployment of technology to enhance the integrity of elections.

     If technology cannot be sabotaged to gain undue electoral advantage, the resort to vote buying must be the way out. And this culture has come to permeate the entire fabric of our society.  The urge to disingenuously play outside box is evident in the current scandalous scarcity of cash even when the old and new notes are still circulating concurrently.

    The conduct of local government elections follows the same predictable pattern. That is why the ruling party in the states clears all the LG elective positions to the exclusion of other political parties. Circumvention of the rules is the game. And we all fold our arms in seeming helplessness. But we are not helpless. Why have our leaders not thought it wise that strict adherence to rules, principles is the way to national good?

    The threats by the AGF can find practical expression if the leadership at the centre musters the political will for strict enforcement. Obasanjo did a similar thing even to governors of his political party. If there is genuine commitment to rule enforcement, the temptation by governors to exploit the laws setting up state assemblies to circumvent the ruling of the apex court would be stymied.

    But not in George Orwell’s Animal Farm where all are equal but some are more equal than others. Not in a clime where the leadership seems to relish in exploiting loopholes to circumvent the law. That is the uncanny contradiction elevated to the fore by the threat of the AGF. All these continue to evoke Thrasymachus’ characterisation of ‘Justice as the interest of the stronger’.

    We must return to the drawing board and answer basic questions on the type of standards that can propel this country to greatness. Our concept of politics and democracy may turn out our greatest undoing. A system that relishes in rules’ abridgment or corner cutting to satisfy selfish predilections of the ruling class is a recipe for unmitigated disaster.

  • Bail: needlessly lionising Farotimi

    Bail: needlessly lionising Farotimi

    Even without the Federal High Court in Ekiti admitting activist and politician Dele Farotimi to bail in the cybercrime bullying case brought against him by the Nigeria Police, it was inevitable that the Ekiti State Magistrate Court where he is standing trial for criminal defamation would also grant him bail. The police are prosecuting him pursuant to the complaint of legal icon and educationist Afe Babalola, 95. The Federal High Court set, among other terms, a bail sum of N50m, while the Magistrate Court set bail at N30m. Mr Farotimi is unlikely to face any difficulty in meeting the terms of the bails. Indeed, his former boss to whom he was presidential campaign spokesman, Peter Obi, has offered to help him meet the terms.

    Clearly, going by how he pumped his fist outside the Magistrate Court in the midst of his euphoric supporters, he is not going to beg anyone he has allegedly libeled in his penny dreadful book, Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System. He may have, in the estimation of many Nigerians, particularly the Obidients and anti-establishment activists and civil society organizations, written himself into a storm, but all his adult life as a lawyer, he has been shrill in lampooning anyone he did not take a fancy to, especially government. He had hankered after a cause célèbre, now he has found one. He will milk it to the bitterest dreg in his legal jousting with Chief Babalola. He was reported to have suggested that should he face a suit over his trenchant and perhaps tendentious views, the case would drag on until the complainant passes away.

    He has been admitted to bail, partly on the condition that he must not grant press interviews. Like the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, he would find it irresistible not speaking to the media, obliquely or undisguisedly. It is in his nature to posture, and as his December 20 bail hearing indicated, he cannot resist the glare of publicity. Leading Obidient intellectuals, their foot soldiers, and surprisingly an undistinguished faction of the Yoruba political and socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, had all warned before Friday that should the Magistrate Court decline to grant Mr Farotimi bail, they would embark on street action. It was an empty threat: they knew the offence Mr Farotimi was charged with was bailable, and they knew after the Federal High Court had given him bail that the lower court could not conceivably refuse him. By threatening fire and brimstone, like the man in the eye of the storm himself, they were just posturing.

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    The collective assault on the judiciary is saddening. How does a simple defamation case, whether criminal or civil, become a celebrated case in which the complainant is demonised and the accused is lionised? Before, during and after the presidential election, the judiciary had been pummeled and intimidated. Because it has its own flaws like all other institutions, it has been unable to respond adequately to the calumniation orchestrated by some ethnic irredentists, civil society organisations, and lately Obidients. The Farotimi case is a continuation of the intimidation of the judiciary and an indication that political reasons are at the base of the abuse of judges. Because the calumniators have got away with murder on social media, the intimidation is unlikely to stop. It will, therefore, be up to individual judges to stare down their traducers and insist on judging cases on their merit.

    By offering to help Mr Farotimi meet his bail terms, Mr Obi, a former presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), lends credence to the suspicion that a carefully wrought agenda to undermine the judiciary was being undertaken. Whether the suspicion is true or false, Mr Farotimi and his supporters, including Mr Obi, will continue to view every case judged against them as the product of judicial compromise. As the criminal defamation and cybercrime cases continue, every court appearance will be an opportunity for Mr Farotimi to engage in legal histrionics. Since the Obidients are a captive audience led by the nose, they will also use the appearance to scandalise the courts. This pull and push on a national scale will likely continue for some time, aided by social media and an undiscriminating traditional media. Few persons will be concerned that Mr Farotimi and his supporters are playing a political card, a tactic they will deploy to the hilt as the cases drag on and evidence become scarcer to find or more arduous to present.

    But it must concern the courts that this case should not be allowed to drag on for much longer than necessary. Not only is the complaint registered by Chief Babalola of such huge legal and societal consequence, to leave it unresolved for an extended period is to entrench the injury complained about as well as subordinate justice to politics. Hopefully the cases would be heard with despatch, and the cause of justice served. If Mr Farotimi is exculpated, so be it. But if Chief Babalola gets the upper hand, the courts must not be swayed by mob intimidation to hem and haw on suits that are likely to define public behavior and political relationships in the years ahead.