The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • In public interest?

    In public interest?

    Had Festus Keyamo, Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development not been overtly consumed by his planned January trip to Dublin to meet his so-called major airline financiers supposedly to bail out his ailing aviation sector, he would most probably have sufficient time to pore the issues without his rather uncharitable, but quite frankly, characteristic exuberance of dubbing another agency of the same government as ‘careless’ on prime time television.  

    “It was a very careless statement by the agency, making such a pronouncement without consulting the NCAA,” he said of the tiff over which the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, FCCPC, and the local airline, Air Peace had, days before, been locked in combat.

    “The NCAA is responsible for regulating airlines and ensuring compliance with pricing structures. The FCCPC should have allowed us to provide the facts before issuing public statements”, he reportedly told Arise News with a tone of finality.

    Clearly, if for the most part of the interview, the minister chose to be oblivious of the fact that an agency like the FCCPC actually exists, what came out rather alarmingly is that a steward of state sworn to the performance of public duty would choose to play the mouthpiece of a private organisation that was supposed to be under investigation. Citing what he called the overriding challenges faced by Nigerian airlines, including Air Peace, which in his view, stem from capacity limitations and foreign exchange volatility, he made no pretences about which side his ministry’s interest lay in the context of the raging controversies over anti-competitive behaviours of that particular dominant airline operator.

    Nigerians already know how things came to be. Earlier in the month, FCCPC issued a public notice conveying its intentions to launch an inquiry into widespread consumer complaints against leading players in the banking, telecommunications and aviation sectors. The inquiry, it said, were intended to address issues of poor service delivery, exploitative practices and potential consumer rights violations. Specifically named were three entities –Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) for network failures hindering customers from accessing their funds or using their banking applications; the telecommunications giant, MTN, for persistent complaints about undelivered data services, unexplained depletion and inadequate customer care; and finally, Air Peace, for alleged exploitative ticket pricing, including significant price hikes for advance bookings on certain domestic routes. To leave no one in doubt as to the source of its powers, the notice cited the FCCPC Act 2018, particularly Sections 17, 18, 32, 33, 80,110,111, 112 and 113, which it says, empowers it to investigate and resolve practices that undermine consumer rights, disrupt markets or create unfair competition.

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    Of the three, Air Peace thought little of the inquiry. In fact, the conduct of the airline in the aftermath of the interaction with the FCCPC – and this is typical of the airline – would somehow betray the antics of an entity that somehow considers itself as being beyond regulation. For a supposed business – a serious one at that, it has been tantrums all the way! From claiming to have reported the allegation of exploitative fares by the FCCPC to the Presidency, to an alleged loss of a summer slot in another country to the damage occasioned by FCCPC allegation, to the ludicrous claim that it should actually be charging N500,000 to N700,000 for a one hour flight (coincidentally, this happened in the same week that another airline actually pegged a one-hour flight fare at N80,000), the airline, quite characteristically, has chosen to fall short of addressing the issues at the heart of its tango with the FCCPC! 

    The tragedy here is that the minister, rather than direct his agency, the NCAA to undertake its separate investigations, merely picked up the gauntlet, not on behalf of the public at whose behest he purports to serve, but in defence of the interests of the operator. Yes, if Minister Keyamo saw any substance in those complaints that have long become commonplace, he was neither prepared to acknowledge them let alone finding merits in them. Like the proverbial dog in a manger, he would rather have the foremost consumer protection body, FCCPC do nothing – while his beloved NCAA luxuriates in its Rip Van Winkle sleep!

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    So much for the jurisdictional and operational issues raised by the minister as highlighted in the interview, it must be surely amusing that the minister actually believes that the airlines problems, which he appears all too eager to inundate the public with, actually vitiate the right of the consumer to seek redress with the FCCPC or any other agency for that matter, within the ambits of the law.

    But even worse is the false assumption, again by the minister, that the NCAA’s statutes somehow convey on it the exclusive jurisdiction on matters bordering on consumer rights and protection in the aviation sector. Even in the United States where the Department of Transportation is often assumed to possess exclusive jurisdiction on such matters, we have seen how, not too long ago, a bipartisan group of 36 state attorneys general actually took an unprecedented bold move to ensure that the country’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is granted new powers to investigate airline passengers’ complaints – and this against a 1958 law, under which passenger airlines are exempt from FTC oversight and most state investigations for consumer complaints.

    Said the attorneys general: “Americans are justifiably frustrated that federal government agencies charged with overseeing airline consumer protection are unable or unwilling to hold the airline industry accountable and to swiftly investigate complaints”. 

    Familiar?

    The development, if it must count for anything, is obviously a measure of how the world has changed; an attestation to the primacy of consumer interest in the emerging global aviation eco-system. Applied strictly to the Nigerian situation, it shouldn’t be hard to locate the source of a number of the problems plaguing the aviation in the unwillingness and failure of the players and the regulators to adapt to change and to global best practices. For while it would ordinarily be bad enough that an airline operator would threaten to shut down operations upon being called upon to answer to consumer complaints, (under the patently vainglorious assumption that an entire country should be perpetually indebted to him), what could be worse than the sector’s minister going to a television house to put down an agency of the same federal government? Only in Minister Keyamo’s book!

    Last line:

    It’s been nearly six months since Keyamo’s Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) mounted its toll at the new Lagos international airport terminal requiring each passing motorists to pay N2,000 in cash only! A less distracted minister would obviously have recognised the arrangement for what it is – an infrastructure in service of Corruption Incorporated. Would that also require a trip to Spain to dismantle?

  • Christmas as oyster

    Christmas as oyster

    Christmas season is here again. Soon, the hustle and bustle associated with most major cities would dim and Nigerians would go on holidays. The major markets, after the jostle of buying and selling, would be still, and only hum, till after the New Year. Many senior level workers would take their holidays, and the junior ones would go to the offices perfunctorily. The civil servants would watch the backs of each other, and those who haven’t been to the office for days, would be excused, as having gone to the bank, upon any official enquiry.

    Even with the augury weather of the run-away inflation and the scarcity of the naira ravaging the economy, markets are bubbling and some nearly bursting. The children do not understand the economics of parents not having money, whether in their banks or in their pockets. They expect to breast the season with new clothes and shoes, even if it comes from bend-down boutique. The ingenuity of parents is tasked, on how to raise money to buy food and the accoutrements of the season of celebration.   

    When we were younger, we heard tales of how ingenious poor mothers, would put frying pans on the fire, and while still retaining some water in it, would pour oil to have the ‘jiiii’ impact, as if frying something, to ape the next door neighbour, actually frying a stew. As the Igbo adage says, ‘afo ada aka ihe oriri’ meaning the stomach does not tell tales of what it has eaten. Once it is full and slightly distended, the presumption is that it has been well fed. 

    For the sellers in the market, it is the windfall season. Despite the best efforts of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission ((FCCPC), it is a season to exploit buyers. In the euphoria of the season, buyers like the lamb, submit themselves to the medicaments of sweet tongued sellers. When they get home, they wonder what came over them in the throes of the unequal haggling contest with the seller. Unfortunately, it used to be the buyer’s market, but now, it has become the seller’s market. The seller dictates at what price to sell, and the buyer nearly has no alternative.  And their gains would last, deep into the year, when economic activities would pick up again.

    With Christmas ashore, the roads would be empty of the long winding traffic that make life difficult in a city like Lagos, on bad days. Moving across the far-flung parts of any major city would become pleasurable, as the roads become unencumbered freeways. Those who drink and drive would, as my people would say, be pricing death cheaply with the freeways alluring and inviting the foolhardy for a speed contest. Party goers would zoom across the city centres, and touch all the clubs in town, without any stress.

    Day would grow into the night, and the night would bore the day, without a prolonged labour pain. It is a season to joist and jostle, as if the world is all about gain. Eating and drinking would become a contest that everybody wins, as no one remembers the amber of hunger and want that would become aglow again in January. In the ecstasy, school fees, rents and other bills pales far away. After all, we are in 2024, and the tumble for bills, is for 2025.

    The roads leading into the villages would stretch like a carnival parade, with cars and legs jutting and jostling for the distances, as in a parade. Children would walk without complaining. Happiness and festiveness becomes an analgesic, for dumbness and weariness. Piles of kilometres would be covered, to see a daughter married to a neighbouring town, or an aunty, who is like a mother in another village. In the days of yore, only one word was the happiness of the childhood, and that is to ask, uncle or aunty: ‘celebrate Christmas’ for me.

    And to ‘celebrate Christmas’ was to be given a kobo or two, back in the days. With inflation eating up the kobo and making mincemeat of the naira, a child given ten naira now, would wonder, for what purpose? Even the village masquerades are only in the recess of the mind, as the young ones would consider it beneath them, to gather to practice how to dance to funny sounding beats, from drums and gongs when the hot beats of Davido, et al, are there to prance at.

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    With technology at their palms and ears, entertainment can be privatized, and everyone according to his or her choice. Organizing music for parties does not require the rigor of the last century, or even the early 21st century. With a torch-like equipment, or a flash fixed on a laptop, music can start blaring, and the party is on. Drinks and other enablers have also metamorphosed and the young get on the groove with ease, holding just one bottle of a heavy intoxicant. Some looking deceptively like a soft drink.

    Parents of the old school are warned that when their children sip what looks like a soft drink, regularly, they may be actually getting high, on a dangerous substance. The social media has become another dangerous addictive, such that some may be in Nigeria, and be celebrating Christmas in Asia, Europe or America. For such, Christmas is intercontinental. Even worse, abuses also come from such extra-terrestrial sojourn. Decades back, it would have been unimaginable what a little object, like an android phone, can be used for.

    With an android phone and a few gigabytes of data, the young literally have the world at their feet. On holidays, they listen and watch whatever pleases them. They engage, make vows, take oaths and entangle behind closed doors, and appear outdoor looking very innocent. The happy side is that with such little devices, they can also conquer the world, and bring accolades home. They can learn, earn and grow big barns. With that device, they can trade, train and rain in huge income.

    The season of Christmas should not be for anything ugly, as the reason for the season is Jesus Christ. In the Catholic Christendom, it is preceded by Advent, a season of Hope, Faith, Joy and Peace. But even for non-Christians, they are partakers in the oyster of Christmas. Our country needs hope, that we would get out of the challenges of the present times. Interestingly, the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, promotes the Renewed Hope Agenda. Nigerians, need to have faith in their leaders, but the leaders must inspire it.  

    Joy and peace are intertwined in the season of Christmas. And amidst the challenges facing Nigerians, this writer wishes his readers, Nigerians and all mankind, joy and peace. Hopefully I will see you, next year.

  • Kemi Badenoch’s phenomenal rise

    Kemi Badenoch’s phenomenal rise

    Kemi Badenoch, Britain’s Leader of  Conservative Party and the leader of Opposition, while recently reflecting on her challenges of growing up in Lagos in the eighties had  described Nigeria  as a country  plagued by “fear, insecurity, and corruption”, a comment VP Kashim Shettima, groomed in an environment where leaders play the ostrich, found offensive. He therefore choose the event highlighting the contributions of Nigerian immigrants to national development in Abuja last week not only to acknowledge the Nigerian government’s pride in Badenoch’s achievements, but also to remind her of her right to remove the Kemi from her name instead of denigrating Nigeria.

    Kemi Badenoch has since come under severe attack from all manners of self-proclaiming patriots and self-serving media platforms. But sure-footed Badenoch is not going to be intimidated by those who have chosen to play the ostrich instead of addressing the problems bedevilling Nigeria. She is therefore standing by her words.

    “I tell the truth. I tell it like it is. I am not going to couch my words”, she added

    Badenoch’s greatest advantage is that for her political socialization, she went through parents who as medical doctors bothered only about their patients without losing sleep over the larger society and her challenges. That she is believed to be on the right-wing of the Conservative Party should therefore not surprise anyone. That she was at 16 exposed to British “political culture whose components are “values, beliefs and emotional attitudes about how government ought to be conducted” (Samuel Beer) prepared her for her choice of politics as a career at 25.

    Those  accusing her of singing one creed when she needed Nigerian voters at constituency level and another now that she has an ambition beyond leadership of her Conservative Party, should understand Badenoch is a political genius who knows how to make a choice that will not lead to future regret when faced with environmental limitations. She must be given credit for knowing how to exploit both her psychological and operational environments to her own advantage (Sprout and Sprout Journal of Conflict resolution1 (1957). The truth is that Kemi Badenoch did not achieve what many see as a miracle by accident. She came fully prepared.

    British political culture coupled with her “very tough upbringing as a middle class living in a house in Lagos with no running water or electricity,” accounts for her strong character and readiness to fight her own battles.

    As a Shadow Secretary for Housing Communities and Local Government, she publicly criticised Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman.  It was also claimed she had a confrontation with Canada over Canadian demands to lift the ban on hormone treated beef being sold to UK consumers.  In July 2024, The Guardian reported at least three officials working under Badenoch felt “pushed out” by “bullying and traumatising” behaviour, claims Badenoch denied and described as smears from former staff.

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    She has made her choice between Nigeria and Britain. “Our country” she once declared, “is not a dormitory for people to come here and make money. It is our home. Those we chose to welcome, we expect to share our values and contribute to our society. British citizenship is more than having a British passport but also a commitment to the UK and its people.” Sunday Telegraph- September 2024

    Accusing Badenoch of unpatriotic behaviour therefore as some media platforms that falsely swear in the name of patriotism have tried to do long after declaring her loyalty to another country is to stand logic on its head. But we do understand “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrels’ as argued by Samuel Johnson back in 1775. Nothing can be more paradoxical than the fact that those today swearing in the name patriotism yesterday served as promoters of Dele Farotimi, who as a leading light of the ‘Obidients’, a euphemism for an unquestioning group, went to US where he recklessly declared before an audience albeit without proof that “as I stand before you, a convicted drug baron is about to be sworn as president of my country”.

    Noisy but empty activists and their promoters perhaps need a lesson in patriotism by America that recently elected a man who on account of over 36 convictions including corruption, women abuse, tax evasion, insurrection etc can be best described as a crook.

    But back to Badenoch’s thesis. Was Nigeria under a siege between 1983 and 1999? The answer is yes to Lagosians except those below 35 years of age who were misled by their sponsors and some media platforms to visit violence on government and private properties in Lagos

    Between 1984 and 1999, neither Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Gbolahan Mudashiru Marwa nor Olagunsoye Oyinlola had answer to insecurity in Lagos. Lagos in the words of Badenoch “was a place where almost everything seemed broken”; “there was no freedom either, the government deciding which school your child would go to, deciding what businesses could or could not operate all the way to arrests with no trial, state-sanctioned murder”.

    She was right about “destructive government policies” including Babangida’s commercialization policies through which most of our public enterprises were sold at next to nothing to military fronts and Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which opened our market to importation of manufactured goods which sounded the death knell of our budding industries, the collapse of our naira which marked the beginning of ‘japa’ syndrome of our educated youths.

    Badenoch’s only error was describing the confusion as socialism. If anyone was practicing socialism at all, it is Britain that has in response to Karl Max prediction that capitalism carries within it enough contradiction to lead to its implosion, introduced welfare policies for the most vulnerable of their citizens.

    But we have Badenoch to thank for bringing the past to pain because our youths who were denied the opportunity to study history do not understand where the rain started to beat us. Like it is in the north, where the almajiris are mere disposable instruments of political bargaining, Lagos’ urban immigrants are canon fodders in the war against their Lagos host that give them succour.

    While it is true that many of the Lagos State developmental projects from rail line to General Hospital in all LGAs were the brainchild of Jakande, contrary to claims by revisionists posing as journalists, change of fortune for Lagos did not come until after 1999 when Bola Tinubu started clearing refuse dumps that enveloped Lagos, earning the city the description of ‘the dirtiest city in the world’.

    There was also general insecurity as Badenoch had pointed out. Lagos residents were routinely attacked in broad day light on Oshodi bridge, and Ketu bridge while Mile Two and Okokomaiko were no-go areas after 7pm. It was Bola Tinubu who found answer to insecurity challenges that defied Marwa’s heroic efforts and rehabilitation of collapsed Lagos roads Oyinlola could not find bitumen to mend.

    Let me share my own personal experience with you dear readers. I live in an estate not too far from Lagos State Secretariat.  It is not unusual to see through your window as many as 15 AK-47 wielding robbers some nights. There was in fact particular house down the street said to belong to Senator Chuba Okadigbo’s friend that was under periodic attack. The poor man, with a small stature had to be kept inside a water tank by his wife the last time they came.

    And when they came for me, I was left with nothing except the boxer I was wearing and my lacerated palms I was using to wade off machete attack aimed at my head while my wife and I were on our knees. A neighbour we fondly call Emir in the estate came to give me something to wear the following morning. The massive alarm machine Marwa encouraged us to procure from Lagos State and mounted on our building was useless when the marauders came calling

    I was tempted to flee like many of my neighbours. But I was held back by the pains of going to procure cement directly from West African Portland Cement, going to buy sand in Alapere, going to Nigerite to negotiate rebate for roofing sheets with Yemisi Shyllon and following Engineer Bella to Ijebu Ode to buy planks.

    My family weathered the storm but my children who often woke up at the slightest sound in the night, like Badenoch, bore the scars.

    Tinubu brought sanity back to Lagos in 1999.  For us in my estate, all he did was taking government off our back by creating LDAs for us. I think we got two armed police men. Residents taxed themselves by contributing money to procure transformers and to tar some of the inner roads. Heaven as they say helps those who help themselves. Today our estate is one of the most peaceful in Lagos.

    Except anti-Tinubu and anti-Lagos sponsored EndSARS vandals and the Obidient children of hate and anger, those of us who live here since the eighties long before most of them were born or came as fortune seekers, are aware that the foundation of today’s peaceful and prosperous Lagos with network of roads, fly-overs, General Hospitals in all Local Government Areas, the Atlantic City, the blue and red rail lines were laid between 1999 and 2007. These are facts revisionist posing as journalists cannot change.

  • Oyinbokemi

    Oyinbokemi

    Kemi Badenoch may need to beware of the pratfall ahead. It is what hubris breeds. Rarely is a woman accused of hubris, perhaps a few like Cleopatra. Hubris is often a male venom because women seldom rise to the sort of power that invokes celestial self-confidence.

    In this regard, Badenoch is a class apart. Many don’t want a rehash of Badenoch’s rhetorics without restraint, her Nigerian putdowns, her repudiation of the land of her birth. Yet, as the cleric Bishop Kukah has eloquently written in a recent essay, we must credit her ability to traverse a country of a pedigree that enslaved blacks and built a civilization on the backs of the African race.

    She thinks she was plucked from the sky, a dizzy genius of self-manufacture. She does not seem, in her habits and attitude, to know gratitude to history, to go down in genuflection to the monuments that made her possible.

     She is not the first to so rise. We have known blacks, especially in the United States, who either star as inspiration for others or, for most part, take a cue from the words of an unlikely hero of humility: Winston Churchill. He said, “it was the people who had the courage of a lion, I simply had the luck to give it roar.”

    Obama acknowledged the exploits of centuries of blood and tears, of white butchery and blacks squelching through the mud bowed by lashes. Serena nods to Arthur Ashe. Coco Gauff thanks Serena. In Britain, Formula One Lewis Hamilton thanks all of them before him, especially in the U.S. but not without knowing that you can’t be a pioneer without the collective sacrifices of little people in little episodes. Those who protested in homes, in farms, on the plantations, like Bertha Mason, who screamed anonymously in the attic in Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre. Or Mansfield’s Judgment of 1772 in favour of James Somerset, a slave who would not toil in the plantations outside England. Or our own John Fashanu, or even a sleek Arsenal star Bukayo Saka, whose Nigerian name, unlike Kemi’s, rankles the British soul soothingly.

    Badenoch should remember that a few other Nigerians and African names, too many to say, have been in British politics, and have made names like hers not too shabby for the ear and sensibility of the British. To refer to Churchill again, “to each, there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered a chance to do a special thing.”

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    As Nixon wrote in his memoirs, “history affects us more than we affect history.” War made Roosevelt, slavery minted Lincoln, suffering sainted Mother Theresa, apartheid gave us Mandela. We have to be humble before history. We are not as great as we think we are. History is like what the playwright Arthur Schopenhauer describes willpower, as “a strong blind man who carries a lame man who can see.”

    A few examples of blacks who rose by discounting their fellow blacks should help Kemi. They are Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson. Woods is the best golfer whoever lived, even if he has not clobbered as many majors as Jack Niclaus’ 18. When his stardom lit its first tinder, he had a meeting with existing stars of his colour, especially Jordan. They asked him to stay away from politics, and focus on golf. Retreating from controversy would mount up the dollar deals, and he did. When he was asked in Missouri about a question, he replied, “I am a golfer.” He became a darling of all. Blacks and whites embraced him.

    Then came the fall that exposed his many peccadilloes. The whites turned their backs on him, and it was the blacks, who he would never marry, who would never date, he never identified with that gave him succour in that painful hour. It was his time of solitude. Michael Jackson became so white that he wanted to look white. Then he had troubles of his own, and he fell into accusations of sexual perversion. He opened up in a new album asserting, to some as an exaggeration, that they -white- “don’t care about us.”

    It is the sort of trap Badenoch has to avoid. He is the first to become the leader of a major political party. It is not just a major political party, but the most organized political party in history. It is the oldest in history. It is also the most successful having gobbled up power two-thirds of the time. Before they were called Conservatives, they have been a loose group known as Tories since the third quarter of the 17th century. Most notably it was the party of slavery and monarchism. It was in the aftermath of the Reform Act in the 19th Century that it became organized fully as the Conservative Party. It is no mean task that Badenoch sits on top of story of the Tories.

    It does not call for vanity but sanity. Kemi does not act like a politician of that stripe. He should learn, too, that his party has a history of intolerance for bumbling leaders, white or black. That explains its success. Kemi should be wary, lest she becomes as black as a blip of history. If she wants to lead the party to victory, and become its first black prime minister, she has to remodel her character. Her personality is helping her today. But she needs character more.

    When Vice President Kashim Shettima says she could remove her name as Kemi, we suddenly saw her appealing to her Yoruba roots. That is not only foolish but sophomoric. Yoruba has always been Nigerian since she was born. Her biography shows she grew up in the Southwest where she had all the experience she derides. So, trying to separate Yoruba from Nigeria is vacuous. A president – who is Yoruba – is today fighting Boko Haram, and most Nigerians, North or South, abhor that group.

    She should beware of what some call Coconut – black outside, white inside. Or else, we might not call her Oluwakemi but Oyinbokemi, a name she seems to propagate with her acts. Kemi means take care of me.

  • Between Akume and Atiku

    Between Akume and Atiku

    When George Akume, secretary to the federal government, said there is no vacancy in Aso Rock in 2027, he was not expected to say anything different. He was deferring to a growing convention in Nigerian politics: that it is the turn of the south to have its eight years. But, as usual, our master of political pirouette, Atiku Abubakar, will have a thing or two to say. He said it is time for mathematical parity. He is calling for his own version of equality of regions in the calculus of power. He says, since 1999, the South has been in the saddle more than the north. If we make the calculation, he says it would be six years. His is math as mischief. First, if south gets it till 2031, it will mean the North will take it till 2039. By then, it will be two years advantage. This is counting from Yar’Adua, whose tenure was ended by death and his position Jonathan took. It was the will of providence, not the south, that it turned out so.

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    But Atiku was only clever by stealth. His math is so poor, perhaps that is why his primary school certification is still under a cloud. If we want to make any calculation, it has to originate in 1960. The South was in power only in the Obasanjo years, and that was because Murtala Muhammed was assassinated. If not, it would have been nada for a southern leader. So, between 1960 and 1999, a southerner was Nigerian leader from 1976 to 1979, barely three years out of 39. If the South were to call for parity, it would be unfair because the North would not be in power for a generation. Who wants that?

    The problem with Atiku is that he does not care about democratic tenets but his tenancy in Aso Rock. He knows he will be 86 years by 2031, and he cannot wait, so he wails. He is counting time because he is marking time and running out of time. Pity Atiku. A teardrop for him.

  • Old man and the siege

    Old man and the siege

    It is a pity that Obidients are dragging all of us into their mess. Afe Babalola, like his benefactor, the Owu chief, are Obidients. Farotimi, a strident megaphone of Obi, is also a chip off the old block. Now, their arteries are blocked with a riot of plaques. That is the plague of the Obidient movement. Their bloodline is in crisis. Everyone knows it except the Obidients themselves. That is the sorry state of that rabble.

    Now, we see an old man and his son fighting in public. Peter Obi runs from pillar to the post in Ekiti to play peacemaker. Obi starts a storm. He must end it. After a meeting, no resolution except the resolution to keep kicking up the dustbowl. A dysfunctional family.

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    The drama has everything in a farce. Father is fighting a son. Son is acting like a brat and father is acting like a fuddy-duddy. Son calls the police, and carts him to town and locks him up. The children are crying, from professor to mechanic about rule of law. Whereas it is they who should talk to themselves about washing their linens in public. They suffer from self-forgetfulness. First, they forget that the battle is in the house. They attribute their son’s fate to a man who has nothing to do with it: the president. He is the one they hate. Even when they err, it is his fault. What a shame.

    To give it respectability, a book is in the tale. But it is more tale-bearing than facts. Farotimi says he has facts but they are in the court who nailed him. Some quibble over why he was in detention. The police add to the grist. The book is a best seller, but it is not Lady Chatterley’s Lover, or Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn or To kill a Mocking Bird. This one is trash. No law professor unless an Obidient renegade would teach it except on how not to teach law. But as all farces go, trash must enjoy a pride of place. The old man is under attack, and he must weather the storm from  a ragged mass of hair that leads a rabble

  • Seeking justice for Oyekanmi

    Seeking justice for Oyekanmi

    More than a year after the tragic murder of Taiwo Oyekanmi, 51, an accountant and former Director of Finance and Accounts in the office of Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun, the immediate past Ogun State Commissioner of Police, Abiodun Alamutu, lamented that his failure to solve the murder was his “only regret” in the state. He was appointed as Commissioner of Police for the state in July 2023. Alamutu, who expressed his regret to journalists, retired on December 9, after a 32-year career in the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).

    He was quoted as saying, “The only regret I have in this state is that up till now, we have not been able to arrest the person who shot the finance director.

    “That’s the only regret I have and it still boils down to what we are saying, no information, no clues. It took us to so many places, it took us even to Ibadan. That is the only regret I have.”

    Oyekanmi was fatally shot by unidentified armed robbers in Abeokuta, Ogun State, four days after he celebrated his birthday. Inevitably, the tragedy triggered several questions, particularly whether it could have been prevented.

    At the time, Alamutu, said Oyekanmi was in “a homemade bullion van” with a driver and one other person, and they were returning to their office from a Fidelity Bank branch where they had gone to withdraw money when the armed robbery happened on November 29, 2023. “They were supposed to have a police escort, but for certain reasons, the person (policeman) was permitted to travel to attend to some issues,” he stated.

    According to another version, the mobile police officer, Inspector Rasheed Adegbite, who was supposed to be with the bullion van, had travelled to Igbo-Ora in Oyo State the previous day, without permission. The police said he had been arrested for investigation.

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    It was unclear what the police chief meant by “a homemade bullion van,” but the description suggested that the vehicle was not a standard purpose-built bullion van. Indeed, the victim’s elder brother observed in a reported interview: “Will you call what my brother was in a bullion van or contraption? There was no risk assessment whatsoever.”

    Alamutu said the armed robbers’ vehicle had blocked the bullion van, and “five occupants of the vehicle came down, shot at the director and from their vehicle, they brought out a sledgehammer to force the receptacle where the money was kept open and they left with the money.”

    Oyekanmi, the only fatality, was said to have withdrawn N97.335m from Fidelity Bank and N15m from Sterling Bank. The bullion van was said to be carrying N112.335m at the time of the attack.

    Why did he withdraw such a sum? Why was their vehicle transporting such a sum?  In these days of increasingly cashless transactions, why was there such an apparently overriding need for cash? 

    The police suspected the robbery was “an in-house (thing)” because the robbers knew they would need a sledgehammer to break the receptacle where the money was kept. “They must have had information that he was going to take a large amount of money from the bank,” Alamutu said.

    According to him, the driver claimed to have trailed the robbers’ vehicle up to a point “where he lost sight of them.” It was after this that he took the shot director to a hospital.  This was a strange narrative. What was the point of chasing the attackers unprotected? Normally, he should have tried to save the director’s life first.  

    The armed robbery exposed poor security arrangements. It was curious that the absent police escort was not replaced with another guard, leaving those in the bullion van without protection.

    Apart from this, it was puzzling that there was only one guard attached to the bullion van, who happened to be unavailable on the day. If he was available, or if someone else had replaced him, would one guard have been able to protect the occupants of the bullion van from the said five attackers?  Such an approach to security was questionable and condemnable.

     Governor Abiodun described Oyekanmi as “a dedicated, truthful, and diligent official,” adding, “It is indeed a colossal loss for our administration.”  The governor directed the immediate payment of his gratuity, and also instructed the Ministry of Housing to provide his wife and children with one of the affordable houses built by his administration. He told the widow: “Your children, the state will be taking over the responsibility of their education.” However, it can be said that the administration did not do enough to protect him, and possibly prevent the tragedy.

    The Ogun State government announced a reward of N50m for any information that could lead to the arrest of the killers. But there has been no official update on the case since then. None from the state government; none from the police. Are the armed robbers who killed Oyekanmi going to get away with armed robbery and murder?   

    Alamutu said: “My successor will continue from where we stopped because it is important we get the culprits and God will assist my successor.”

    The Police Service Commission (PSC) has approved the posting of Olanrewaju Ogunlowo as the new Commissioner of Police for Ogun State. It remains to be seen if he will be able to solve the Oyekanmi murder. He is expected to review the investigation of the murder and ensure that it does not end up as an unsolved murder.   

  • Unending cash scarcity

    Unending cash scarcity

    The House of Representatives had cause last week, to take on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the lingering cash scarcity that constrains the citizenry from accessing their basic needs. It directed the apex bank to urgently address the festering cash squeeze if it was not responsible for the shortage.

    The directive followed a motion by Uguru Emmanuel highlighting the economic and social implications of the cash scarcity that has left many Nigerians unable to access cash for their basic purchases. The House further directed its committee on banking regulations to investigate the cash crunch in commercial banks and report back within one week.

    The intervention of the House of Representatives brings back the sad memories of the naira redesign and cash swap policy of the last administration. The CBN had towards the last quarter of Buhari’s regime announced the redesign of the N200, N500 and N1, 000 notes with January 31, 2023 as the deadline for eventual phase out of the old notes.

    It followed the policy up with gradual withdrawal of the old notes to replace them with the new ones. Soon after, the apex bank enthusiastically announced it had withdrawn N1.9 trillion worth of currency outside the banking system within two months of its naira redesign and cash swap policy. Through that intervention, CBN said it had reduced the currency outside the banking system to N900 billion from a whooping N2.7 trillion before the new policy came into effect.

    The bank sold the new policy to Nigerians with a promise that it would combat counterfeiting, improve the effectiveness of monetary policy tools on inflation and mop up excess liquidity.

    But what followed was a scandalous shortage of the national currency. Neither the old naira notes nor the new ones were available to Nigerians as acute scarcity set in. It was such a confused and hopeless situation that many families could not even afford to buy food due largely to the unavailability of cash.

    In the face of the acute and inexplicable cash shortages, Nigerians resorted to buying naira with naira at inflated rates from those who had them. Allegations were freely traded. The CBN claimed it was disbursing enough cash to the commercial banks even as the banks rationalised their inability to dispense cash on insufficient funds received from the CBN. So confused was the situation that the governors of Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara states, all members of the ruling party approached the Supreme Court to nullify the naira redesign policy.

    Before then, it had become clear that the January 31, 2023 deadline for the phase out of the old currency had become a near impossibility. Suffocating challenges compelled Buhari to extend the deadline to February 10, 2023. But that never brought any respite.

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    The Supreme Court in the suit filed by three governors issued an interim order suspending the enforcement of the deadline. It directed that the old and new notes should continue to circulate pending the determination of the suit.

    Curiously and despite the apex court ruling, the CBN insisted that the old notes ceased as legal tender after February 8. Buhari went against the ruling of the Supreme Court when he restored the validity of the N200 notes contending that the N500 and N1,000 notes had ceased as legal tender.

    It was a very confused situation as nobody seemed to know the high-wire intrigues and politics the naira redesign policy had been enmeshed. But partisan politics was easily fingered even as some top contestants alleged it was a subterfuge against their candidacy.

    The confusion snowballed into the general election. But the apex court settled the matter in its March 2023 verdict when it ruled that both the old and new currencies remain legal tender until December 31, 2023. It also nullified the naira redesign policy and declared it an affront to the 1999 constitution. The court declared Buhari’s disobedience of the Feb. 8, order as a sign of dictatorship.

    That was the situation before President Bola Tinubu assumed office and it subsisted after he was sworn in until November 2023 when the new Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi approached the apex court informing it that the federal government had not been able to print sufficient quantity of the new naira notes to be able to withdraw the old ones from circulation. He prayed the court to extend the deadline to enable the federal government print sufficient quantity of the new currency.

    In a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Inyang Okoro, the Supreme Court ordered that the new and old notes should remain legal tender till further notice. It further ruled that the old notes would remain in circulation pending when the federal government puts a process in place after due consultation with the relevant stakeholders.

    That has remained the situation till date. It has been over one year since that order was issued by the policy court. Yet, the federal government has not finished its consultations with the relevant stakeholders. It has also not been able to print sufficient quantity of currency to approach the court to lift its indefinite order.

    That is why the old and new currencies have continued to circulate contemporaneously. But the cash squeeze has refused to abate even with the old and new currencies in circulation. Something must be wrong somewhere. It is curious that after more than a year and half of the current regime, the sad events of the Naira redesign and cash swap policy are still much with us.

     Nothing underscores the gravity of the situation more clearly than the intervention of the House of Representative asking the CBN to address the cash shortages if it has no hand in it.

     But the CBN has continued to assure the public that there is enough cash to meet their needs. Its governor, Olayemi Cardoso’s threat to fine banks not loading their ATMs with cash or hoarding them has failed to change the equation. CBN’s promise of spot checks across banks with a threat to impose penalties on underperforming institutions has been of no discernible effect as cash scarcity persists.

    More disconcerting is the reality that the cash squeeze has persisted even with the anomalous circulation and use of two sets of national currencies that present difficulties of recognition to the general public. Not only are the commercial banks unable to dispense cash, the Point of Sales Operators POS operators exploit the situation to fleece hapless citizens due to additional charges on cash withdraws. Nigerians are at the losing end especially with the excruciating cost of living accentuated by hyperinflation consequent upon subsidy elimination and the floating of the national currency.

    Recent random surveys by some national dailies indicate scandalous inability by the commercial banks to dispense cash either through their Automatic Teller Machines ATMs or across the counter. Those who manage to dispense, pay their lucky customers between N20,000 and N10,000. Others pay nothing even as their ATMs dispense no cash.

    This mocks the CBN cash withdrawal limits of N500,000 and N5 million for individual and corporate bodies respectively. The situation has taken a toll on citizens’ easy access to the basic needs of life and normal business transactions.

    Yes, the naira redesign policy encourages electronic transfers. But ours is still largely an agrarian and poverty ravished economy with a preponderance of illiterate population. Poverty and illiteracy are serious bottlenecks in embracing the modern technology of monetary transactions which electronic transfers entail.

    Even at that, the requisite technological infrastructure that should be in place for such modern transaction methods to operate unhindered is not just there. There are still no bank branches in some local government areas; making it difficult for people especially farmers who sell basic food items in the rural localities to embrace the banking culture. All these are constraints to the cashless policy implementation and they foretell the huge challenge posed by the cash squeeze.

    More seriously, the embarrassing situation has persisted because the federal government is yet to frontally address the challenges thrown up by the naira redesign and cash swap policy suspended indefinitely by the apex court. It remains largely inexplicable that after one year, the government is yet to finish consultations with stakeholders to come up with final policy solution on the issue. It is nothing to cheer.

    This is perhaps, the first time in recent memory a country is operating two sets of national currencies for that long even with dire challenges of recognition they entail. It is high time the federal government moved to resolve this national embarrassment.

  • Board members

    Board members

    IN 1972, Ebenezer Obey and his band released an album, Board members which confirmed his arrival on the Nigerian music scene as a mega star. Today, more than fifty years after its release, that album retains a freshness which to put it simply, is astonishing and I for one am reminded of it whenever the word, board crops up in any conversation. What is there not to like in that album? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Everything is in it; lyrics, rhythm, throbbing percussion, beautiful singing and sheer joy of performance point to a classic. The board members who were serenaded in that piece of music were all men of power, influence and gravitas; a collection of really outstanding gentlemen who were worthy of praise and respect as befits all members of a board. A Board, any board, consists of people with a commanding presence, with the capacity to give purposeful leadership to any enterprise. This definition was firmly stamped on my mind when I found that universities were administered by a board which was the power behind the administration of the university. The Board or University Council has the power to hire and fire all members of staff and appoint the Vice Chancellor who throughout his tenure is responsible to the Board for everything taking place within the university. It can even be said that the board is the engine room of the university without which the university is no more than a collection of buildings.

    Every university, public or private has a Board. In the case of public universities, board members are appointed by the President in the case of Federal universities whilst state governors are responsible for the appointment of board members in their state owned universities. In this way, the direction in which every university is headed is decided by the quality of the people on their respective boards. This being the case, the most important thing about the Board is its composition. University Board members are, in my estimation required to be highly knowledgeable people who have what it takes to make substantial contribution to a very important institution. They are not supposed to be people who are on the board to learn, but to serve, to serve on the basis of past experience in various fields including the management of institutional finances. One of the primary functions of a University Council is to ensure that the money available to the university is spent judiciously and this includes the ability to stretch such monies to the absolute limit. This function should also include the ability to attract funds to the university but to be honest, this does not seem to be of serious consideration to university boards in Nigeria which are mostly interested in spending the money but that is outside the scope of this article. On the issue of the sensitive subject of university finances in these climes, the most pertinent requirement of a member of the board is integrity or at least should be, as this is a quality or perhaps, the quality which would determine the success or otherwise of the board.

    For the most part, university councils, work unobtrusively, sometimes covered by a thin but impenetrable cloak of invisibility which renders them almost anonymous, unless of course when they choose inadvisedly, to stick their collective nose into the nitty gritty of university business of which they are likely to have little practical knowledge. The board must be outside looking in at all times in order to be able to take in the whole picture.

    I had been a member of staff of the university for a few years before I was made aware of the reality of the university council but when I eventually did, I recognised its importance immediately. After all, the council was going to be majorly involved in the process of my progression through the ranks ultimately leading up to a professorial chair. I recommend that all new academic recruits are not just made aware of this but come to an understanding of it. Promotions are on the bases of the teaching, research and administrative activities of every member of academic staff. Fortunately, I was not only made aware of this process but was involved with it quite early in my career and this put me in good stead as that career progressed.

    When I arrived in the university all those many years ago, the smallest Faculty in the university was the Faculty of Pharmacy and because this was the case, I became involved in administrative processes quite early in my career. In addition to this, I was given the scope to learn about the inner workings of the university and became fully integrated into university administration as an active participant.

    After the Board, the next body in order of hierarchy is the university Senate, which is principally a committee of professors. The Senate makes the laws of the university and is responsible to the Board through the Vice Chancellor. The Senate is a body of professors but within it there are representatives of Congregation made up of all the graduates, academic and non-academic members of staff of the university. They are the equivalent of the Tribunes in the Roman Senate who represented the interest of the common people of Rome. In my role within senate therefore I had a well defined constituency which I tried to serve to the limit of my ability. But first, I put myself on a learning curve and took my time over the matter of contribution to debate which was usually of high standards. After all, some of the professors with whom I was rubbing shoulders with so to say had been professors when I was still working towards my school certificate. My election as Congregational representative marked the beginning of my experience of university administration outside my Faculty and allowed me to more or less rub shoulders with the professors who were providing leadership within the university. Once a month throughout the session, Senate met to consider the cases brought before it and took decisions which were ratified by Council. Debates on the floor of Senate were usually animated and sometimes quite fierce but all were carried on with a great degree of decorum according to Senate rules and regulations.

    It did not take me a long time to find my voice in senate which is why I was able to take a giant step in my academic political career when I was elected a Congregational representative on the Appointments and Promotions Committee. This is a joint committee of Council and Senate responsible for all matters concerning appointments and promotions in the university. Apart from Council itself, this is perhaps the most powerful committee in the university since everyone always has something to say about their promotion. The committee chairman was the Vice Chancellor and one of the members was a representative of Council, a Board member no less and if being a member of senate was a learning curve, being a member of this committee was an enormously steep learning curve.

    This Board member on the Appointments and Promotions Committee was a taciturn old man. I was quite young then and considered anyone above fifty old, so in strict terms, he probably was not old but he certainly was taciturn to a fault. At least he carefully avoided making any contribution to the many lively debates which went on as each case was discussed round the table. Whenever a division was necessary to decide a case however, he always voted for the candidate to be promoted and he could do this without uttering a single word. It took me a long time to come to the realisation that the honourable Board member had no clue of what the business of the committee was. I found this out quite dramatically after a year.

    Academics are assessed mainly on both the quality and number of their academic papers which had been published since their last promotion. In university parlance the first thing pointed out was about their papers. Your case was made on the basis of your papers and the more papers you had published in what were recognised as reputable journals, the higher the chances of being promoted.

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    This being the case, you could have knocked me over with a feather when the taciturn Board member in complete break with his own tradition put up his hand to ask the chairman’s permission to speak. He then took my breath away when the words on his mind came out of his mouth.

    ‘You people are always talking about papers, what are these papers and where are they published? In the Daily Times or any other newspaper?’ These words were followed by pin drop silence as members looked around in complete disbelief. It was left to the Vice Chancellor to bring the Board member up to speed. It was clear at that point that the man had been turning up for meetings for no other reason than to collect his allowances which I found out were quite handsome and worth turning up for even though he did not do anything to earn those allowances.

    It was clear that our Board member earned his seat on the university council as reward for services to the political party in power at the time. Frankly, I was shocked that government could even think of ramming such  a square peg into our round hole. The poor man was completely out of his depth and had nothing to offer but he made sure that he collected all the monetary entitlements attached to his office by turning up for every meeting, to sit down with his mouth clenched shut for hours on end.

    That was my first experience of ineptitude in high places within the university but it was by no means the last. One of the main pillars of ASUU’s struggles with successive governments over the years has been the issue of university autonomy through which universities were to be responsible for their own governance. The present arrangement in which the most powerful persons within the university are by and large political appointees leaves a great deal to be desired. This is because our political parties have not demonstrated the restraints which are necessary to appoint members of university councils and indeed other boards to government institutions on demonstrable merit. When we talk about politicians and their appointment into various offices our minds do not often stray into appointments into all the various boards which exist at the pleasure of various governments even though, there are many thousands of them at various levels. All of them provide opportunities to reward all those who ‘worked very hard for the success of the party’. All that work must be rewarded, of course to the detriment of all those institutions they are foisted upon.

    I met that taciturn Board member on the university Council forty years ago. How time flies. At that time, there were only a handful of Federal universities but even then, there were not enough men and women with the requisite qualifications to render useful service to our universities. Today, there is a shocking plurality of those institutions and with the pool of qualified personnel dwindling all the time, I shudder to think of how low the bar for the membership of our university Councils has fallen over the years. And, this is one of the reasons why the news coming out of our universities these days is uniformly bad.

  • Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, 59-63 set’s 61st anniversary

    Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, 59-63 set’s 61st anniversary

    On Sunday 9, November, 2014 a year after our 50th graduation anniversary which we missed celebrating for unavoidable reasons, the article you are about to read below appeared on these pages.

    Last year too, for inescapable reasons, we were also unable to gather together at our Alma mata in Ado -Ekiti to celebrate our 60th – what with the literally unassailable insecurity buffeting the entire country, especially as our members are spread all over the country.

    in lieu of that, and to mentally land us all on AGIDIMO HILL, I have gone to my archives to retrieve that article which so perspicaciously captured our last anniversary celebration.

    So Guys till we meet again in 2033 by the grace of God.

    Happy reading to all my ever worthy readers.

    At a glorious 2014 Reunion & Home Coming event hosted by both the 59-63 / 70-74 sets from Friday, 23rd to Sunday, 25th October, 2014, my set (59-63) put together an absolutely unforgettable re-union that will long linger in our memories. It was, first and foremost, an opportunity for massive Thanksgiving to the good Lord who has kept us safe these many years; and having been weaned, from tender ages on Christ, there was no shortage of gratitude to God. And how exhilarating it was for us, jubilantly singing together again the school song: Christ is our corner stone (Songs of Praise 464) in those, once wondrously sonorous voices, now going croaky. The husky voices were, however, invigorated by those of the much younger 70-74 members and current students. Where I sat, directly in front of oga Dele Falegan, (Oga being our patented way of addressing seniors no matter the age difference) former Director of Research, Central Bank of Nigeria, it was easy to affirm beautiful singing as one of our major attributes at The School from the beautiful way he sang. It was simply exhilarating and spiritually uplifting.

    Our own segment of events had kicked off the evening of Friday, 23 October at a sumptuous ASUN (roasted goat meat) night hosted by Dr Oye Adegbite, FCA, and his dazzling wife, at their sprawling country home in the Government Reserved Area of the state capital. What a night of camaraderie and reminiscences. What a night to remember!

    We were particularly honoured by the presence of two great icons of The School. First, Chief F. A. Daramola, our highly revered teacher, and father of Hon Bimbo Daramola, who at 87 chooses to personally drive himself around. Be not surprised, he is The School’s most venerated games master after the unmatchable Chief R. A. Ogunlade of blessed memory. The other was Chief (Dr) JGO Adegbite, School goal keeper, senior prefect and, the first Registrar of the Ekiti State University who, coincidentally, is our host’s uterine brother.

    He was obviously the night’s hero as he regaled us with joke after joke.

    Wande Adebiyi, aka Flamengo, and incidentally another School goal keeper, was, however, not far behind.

    Yours truly relived the idiosyncrasies of one of our most loved teachers, the late Mr J. O. Iluku. And, of course, one of our own, the Venerable Jide Iyiola, said the prayers. In the meantime, Biodun Adu, Consultant Gynaecologist, far away from his London base, kept phoning in to share in the joy of the occasion. It was a night to remember. But looking back now, it is funny, if not surprising, that none of us that night remembered to recall that song, weaved around a mythical Asian king, and with which all students of our time, but now unfortunately discontinued, were socially welcomed into the life-long family of Christ’s School at an archetypical bullying event.

    Bullying has been described as the use of force, threat, or coercion, to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively dominate others, and has occasioned suicides in places like the U.S but not this thoroughly enjoyable one which requires some elucidation especially for the sake of readers not already conversant with it. Midway into this unforgettable night, at their very first attendance at a socials event in the school, new students are filed out on the expansive bowel of the Quadrangle, to be taught what is simply described as a song. The song, you are told, is about a king named O Watana, of Siam, who is presented in much more mythical terms. The new students are soon engrossed in this fascinating new song which they soon start singing  exuberantly, dancing in circles. That, however, is until they see their seniors, now a hilarious audience, singing back and pointing fingers at them. What they are singing now is what you get when you fully spelt out the king’s name which is ‘O What an ass, I Am’ but which the seniors now pluralise and turn to: O what asses you are, O what asses you are, O what an ass!

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    Boy, you can only imagine the look on the new students’ faces but it is a night you will forever remember. The next day’s events took off a little behind schedule as a result of the state’s environmental exercise. So, to the school’s Alumni Hall we headed at 11 am, an hour later,  to kick start the 2014 Reunion and Homecoming Event proper with a lecture on ‘My Vision of Christ’s School By the Year 2033’; the Guest Lecturer being another iconic alumnus, Mr Kehinde Ojo, the immediate past Ekiti State Commissioner of Education who is, unarguably, a man of many firsts.

    A member of the school football team, he was Senior Prefect and later, principal. A state merit award winner, he was one of the first set of school principals to be appointed Tutor-General by the Ekiti State government. He was, therefore, the ideal person to envision The School as it turns 100 in 2033. And didn’t he make a wonderful job of it! This, however, was after the Chairman of the event, our teacher and now Acting Vice Chancellor of the Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Professor Femi Ajisafe, has called for the observation of a minute silence in remembrance of our  classmates who have joined the Saints Triumphant. May the good Lord continue to rest them and uphold the family they left behind.

    Chief Daramola, Professor Ajisafe and Mr Ojo were later presented with plaques in appreciation of their support.

    After this was the inauguration of projects. In tandem with the school’s new development plan, the set had, first of all, contacted the principal to identify its most urgent need which turned out to be a bore hole to serve the kitchen and the school clinic which presently do not have a running water of their own. This we agreed to do, thus solving a problem that has existed like forever. It was commissioned by Chief Daramola in the presence of the principal, his immediate predecessor, and a rapturous kitchen staff, some students and members of staff. As it turned out, the bore hole will now also serve the school chapel.

    In addition, we donated 5000 customised exercise books to the students. The last event for the day was the dinner hosted by the 70/74 set to which they had  graciously invited our set, and what a night of good food, wine and camaraderie, at the Fountain Hotel, Ado-Ekiti.

    We all punctually assembled the following morning at the School Chapel for the Anniversary Service which, for us, was a debt repaid us by the school.

     How so?

    Way back in December ’63, believing that the set was too troublesome, the Principal, Canon L.D Mason, had promptly sent us home directly after our School Certificate exams without allowing us have the luxury of the usual send forth service to which every set looked forward to. This service, therefore, mentally took us back fifty-one years; and how throatily we all sang trying to reenact those days of angelic voices. The sermon was taken by one of our most humane and revered teachers, and later university lecturer, The Very Revd John Olu Aina. As we look forward, trusting Christ, whose name we bear, to our 60th anniversary, we all agree that this was a truly wonderful occasion at which many of us were seeing again, for the very first time, since that day in December 1963 when we were hurriedly despatched to our various homes.

    We thank God for His grace upon our lives as we all very happily recite the School Prayer again:

    Grant O Lord

    That Christ School may be a Christian School

    Not in name only

    But, in deed, and in truth

    For the sake of Christ

    Whose name we bear.

    Amen.

    This short recap will not be complete without expressing the set’s deep appreciation to both our Chairman, Adegboyega Adepitan, and our indefatigable Secretary, Oyeniyi Allen Alebiosu, now of blessed memory, both of who literally abandoned their personal chores to ensure we had a glorious outing.

    Our hearty appreciation also goes to the elders and all those who made it a worthwhile outing.