The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Ultimatum on minimum wage

    Ultimatum on minimum wage

    The threat of strike, from the 1st of December, by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), in states that are yet to agree on when to start paying the new Minimum Wage, of N70,000.00  is reasonable. The National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act, 2024, was enacted by the National Assembly, on 29th July 2024. The Act increased the minimum wage from N30,000.00  and reduced the review period from five years to two years.

    Before the Bill became an Act, it was robustly debated by the relevant parties ;  made up of the federal and state governments, the organized private sector, and the representatives of the NLC. Though  most state governments had shown lethargy during the debate, they eventually came on board, and the bill was passed. Considering the galloping inflation, the Labour representatives, initially asked for outrageous wages, but following negotiations with the team set up, by the federal government, they kept coming down, until President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, intervened to help the parties agree to what the payers can afford to pay, and what could tamper the inflationary pressure on wages.

    So, after that rigorous endeavour, to achieve an agreeable Minimum Wage, no state has any reason not to pay, what has become a law. After all, the economic reform policies of the federal government have been putting more monies into the state coffers. According to reports, the statutory federal allocation to states in 2024, will increase by 69 percent. In 2024, the states are expected to receive N2.2trillion more than the N3.3 trillion they received in 2023. The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), reported, that 36 states of the federation shared N1.51trillion, in the first half of 2023, compared to N2.59trillion in 2024. Of that humongous amount, the oil bearing states, got 626.33billion. So, why should any state, delay on the payment of minimum wage?

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    The states which are yet to reach an agreement with their respective state NLC, on the implementation of the minimum wage, are Katsina, Cross River, Zamfara and Imo States. The concerned states within the first quarter of this year, got the following :  Katsina – N60.58bn, Imo – N58.06bn, Zamfara – N48.08bn and Cross River – N40.08bn. In 2023, before the removal of fuel subsidy, Katsina State, got 85.00billion, and after, 106.43billion, making a total of 191.43billion. Zamfara State, before the removal of subsidy got 52.57billion, and after 66.6billion, totaling N119.17b. On its part, Imo State, got 68.49billion before, and 83.90billion after the removal, making a total of 152.39billion.

    While the four laggard states are not amongst the highest state earners in the country, they are not amongst the lowest either. So, again I ask, what could be their reason for delaying the implementation of the National Minimum Wage? Such reason cannot be altruistic, considering the by- product  of the necessary, but painful reform programs, of the federal government, which is yielding the extra monies accruing to the states.

    The major by- product of that reform, is the inflationary pressure on goods and services, especially food items. With inflation at 33.9 percent in October, no fair minded State Governor, would hesitate for an extra day, to pay the new minimum wage. Considering the effect of inflation on the cost of living, some state governors have reduced the working days of the state civil servants, to three days, and some have introduced some other measures, to cushion its impact on the citizens. Some states also established special markets, where basic food items, are sold to civil servants at subsidized rates.

    Another major impacted social need, is the cost of transportation, which further increases the inflationary pressure. An outcome of the deregulation of fuel price, from which the more-money comes, movement of goods and services have become a big cause for worry, for Nigerians, whether in the rural areas or the urban centres. I wonder how state workers, still paid the old minimum wage, afford to go to work, feed and pay for other essential needs. One of the laggard states, Zamfara, reportedly implemented the old minimum wage, enacted in 2019, only this year.

    Surprisingly, Imo State which is an oil bearing state, is reputed among the laggards, as I write. Those who know Governor Hope Uzodinma, said he does not do things in half measure, especially when it has to do with infrastructure development. I hope he is aware that former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, years ago, educated those who were more educated than him, that stomach infrastructure, is one aspect of infrastructure development. And minimum wage if implemented, is not only about stomach infrastructure, both could lead to other forms of infrastructure development.

    A well motivated  work force, is a sine qua non for economic prosperity of the state. While the workers would become more productive, if their welfare is assured, with more money in their pockets, they would have more disposable income, which also impacts the economic prosperity of the state, as there would be increased payment for goods and service. Some states have even agreed to pay more than the National Minimum Wage, and on the top chart are Lagos and Rivers State, which will pay 85,000.00 every month.

    This column agrees with the fundamental principle, for the removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira, despite the severe economic hardships occasioned by the policies. Indeed, it agrees with the position that there are no real alternatives to those policies. To do otherwise, was to keep postponing the evil day, which was already at the nation’s doorstep. What is,  however,  hampering the full success of the programs is the structural inefficiencies, which allows corruption to continue to thrive. Sadly, political office holders still find it easy, to pilfer public resources, without consequences.

    Considering the antecedents of PBAT, in governance, it is hoped that he will incrementally rein  in public corruption, by using technology and the law to tighten the loopholes, through which public resources are pilfered. Expectedly, the federal government has given effect to the new minimum wage, and the current wage will be due for upward review, in the next two years. As I have argued in the past, what requires to improve is the public and private wages, and not subsidy on fuel and the national currency, which benefits a few persons within the national economy.

    Hopefully, the NLC will stare down the state governors, who are dillydallying on the payment of the new National Minimum Wage, and use labour tactics, to compel them to pay what the law says. As they pressure the states, the local governments must be pulled along, and of course, the private sector. The Nigerian economy can only make progress, if it modernizes. And the era of a privileged few, getting the benefits of misguided subsidies, must give way to economic certainties, which drives genuine economic progress.

  • Reprieve for UNIZIK, others

    Reprieve for UNIZIK, others

    Reprieve came last week for two federal universities embroiled in internecine leadership crises when the presidency weighed in. Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) Awka, Anambra State and Federal University of Health Sciences, (FUHSO) Otukpo, Benue State had of recent, been entangled in internal crises that threatened the peace and orderly conduct of academic activities.

    The crisis in UNIZIK followed the appointment of Prof. Bernard Odoh as the vice chancellor and Rosemary Nwokike, registrar in very controversial circumstances. That of FUHSO, Otukpo was sequel to the illegal suspension of the vice chancellor by the pro chancellor and chairman of the institution’s governing council, Ohieku Muhammed Salami. The unilateral suspension pitted Salami against ministry officials.

    The senate, stakeholders at UNIZIK and the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU had kicked against the appointments; raising a number of flaws in the manner the governing council led by Ambassador Greg Mbadiwe went about it.  They alleged that the procedure for the appointments was deliberately skewed to exclude key stakeholders of the institution in utter breach of the laws. Some aggrieved staff of the university had even gone to court to challenge the contentious appointments.

    There were also other allegations regarding the academic qualifications of Odoh to head that institution. Interestingly, the Federal Ministry of Education was quick to respond to the situation, nullifying the appointments for being in “gross disregard for constituted authority and not in line with extant provisions”.

    The letter from the permanent secretary had asked the pro-chancellor and chairman of the governing council to hold on other appointments pending the resumption of duty of the newly appointed minister of education.

    But this did not change anything. Rather, things seemed to have headed for the worse when the governing council issued a seven-day ultimatum to aggrieved staff to withdraw all court cases arising from the appointment of the vice chancellor and registrar or face disciplinary action. It was thus, a matter of time for the chicken to come home to roost.

    In the case of FUHSO, Otukpo, the unilateral and illegal suspension of the vice chancellor of the institution by the pro chancellor and chairman of the governing council was at the centre of the crisis. He had also carried the action in contravention of extant rules. All efforts by the ministry officials to get him retrace his steps were said to have been rebuffed leading to tension in that citadel of learning.

    So it did not come as a surprise when the presidency dissolved the governing council of UNIZIK and sacked the newly appointed vice chancellor, Prof. Odoh and the registrar. A statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga said the “sacking of the governing council and officials followed reports that the council illegally appointed an unqualified vice chancellor without following due process”.

    It noted that after the controversial appointment, the federal government stepped in to address the tension between the senate and the governing council. Apparently dissatisfied by the failure of the governing council to heed the initial advice of the ministry of education, the presidency was left with no other choice than to act in the way it did. The dissolution of the governing council and sacking of the controversial appointees were therefore logical outcomes of that intransigence.

    The presidency did not also spare Salami, as he was relieved of his position as pro chancellor and chairman of the governing council of FUHSO. The decision followed Salami’s illegal actions including suspending the vice chancellor without following the prescribed procedures.

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    The presidency also noted that despite the interventions of the ministry of education to have the illegal suspension revoked, Salami refused and instead resorted to abusing and threatening officials of the ministry including the permanent secretary.

    There was also a presidential order for immediate swap of the positions of pro chancellors and chairmen of the governing councils for the Federal University of Oye-Ekiti and Federal University of Lokoja. This saw Victor Ndoma-Egba serving as the pro chancellor of Federal University of Lokoja taking over at the Federal University Oye-Ekiti while Kayode Ojo who previously held a similar position in Oye-Ekiti assumes the new role in Lokoja.

    The change is said to be “part of President Tinubu’s initiative to foster diversity and national cohesion in the management of the country’s universities” It is not clear why national cohesion and diversity could not be achieved with the duo in their previous positions or their actions that impinged on those national objectives.

    But the swapping of the two positions would suggest something went wrong with the initial choice of Ojo as the pro chancellor of federal university, Oye-Ekiti. His geo-political zone gives this out.  Ndoma-Egba is from the South-south. So diversity or national cohesion could also have been served by his retention in any of those institutions. But not with Ojo in Oye-Ekiti. It is not unlikely there may have been issues in Ojo’s tenure at Oye-Ekiti that accentuated the imperative for ‘balance and national cohesion’.

    Overall, it is good a thing the presidency took steps to restore order and decorum at UNIZIK and FUHSO. The warning to the councils not to create distractions in the universities that will obstruct the focus on improving the standards of education in the country says it all.

    Not a few Nigerians were embarrassed by the show of shame at UNIZIK and FUHSO. If a vice chancellor could be appointed and sacked at will by the councils without regard to clearly established procedure, then all the grounds for the decapitation of the university system would have been set.

    The universities being human organisations are not immune to disagreements. But the challenge in such situations is not in the existence of disagreements as such but their resolution in keeping with established rules and regulations.

    That is one area the conduct of the pro chancellors at the two universities will continue to confound keen observers. It is reassuring that when controversies arose in both universities on the procedure for appointing and sacking a vice chancellor, the Federal Ministry of Education (the supervising ministry) took appropriate measures to redress the anomaly. Unfortunately, those efforts were rebuffed.

    Both pro chancellors trudged on as if the ministry had no statutory role in the matter. Salami was even alleged to have gone as far as abusing and threatening directors of the ministry including the permanent secretary. What emboldened him to act in that manner exposes his unsuitability for that high profile position.

    But the two incidents raise issues on the choice of people appointed as pro chancellors and members of the governing councils of the universities. The universities are very key in the development matrix of any country. The aphorism that no nation develops beyond its level of its education says it all. The universities should not just be seen as another set of parastatals for the patronage and compensation of politicians after elections.

    It is vital that those with the requisite expertise, experience and maturity in managing complex organisations are engaged in such positions. The brazen impunity that manifested in the appointment and sacking of the two vice chancellors are symptomatic of all that is wrong with our national politics.

    This rot is manifest in the leadership deficits that hold this country down. It is evident in the amateurish, incompetent and ill-educated people that suffuse leadership positions at all levels of our national life. It can be discerned from the indecent haste to cut corners and abridge rules. You can also find its manifestation in the rancorous elections that shut out experienced and capable people through organised violence.

    You cannot continue to place nothing on something and expect good outcomes. That is the leadership dilemma the country has had to contend with. It is high time we reformed our political recruitment processes ensuring competence, integrity and credibility in all appointments. Political expedience over merit and track record will continue to be our albatross.

  • Terribly Rabiu

    Terribly Rabiu

    The terrible thing about Rabiu Kwakwanso is that he wants to be Aminu Kano.

    But he does not think like him, talk like him, organize like him and, more importantly, perform like him. He is an imitation, even self-mockery of the Talakawa hero.

    He likes to believe he is a man of the people. But he is like Chinua Achebe’s M.A. Nanga in A Man of The People. Just as we have false prophets and fake products, we also have false inheritors. So, his Kwakwansiya movement is not a movement of ideas but of sentiment.

    The people want an Aminu Kano rebirth, a new ferment like of old, so we have impostors trying to exploit it.

    Now he wants to fight Lagos with his platform. He said Lagos wants to colonise Kano. He is not ashamed to say so. He is attacking the new tax proposals and the emir as the permutations to overthrow Kano. Pity for him. Let him analyse the tax proposal and tell where it colonises Kano. Kano is supposed to be the commerce hub of the north. It has fallen out of that orbit.

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     He never helped it in his over 16 years in government. If he is fighting the tax policy, it is because he wants to reap where he did not sow. His rant is a confession of failure more than a complaint, fearmongering more than love of his people. Recently, the young rioted and was emboldened by his Governor Abba Yusuf.

     It backfired as they almost overturned the Government House. Rather than rant over tax, let him pay attention to his neighbour in Kaduna who is installing economic infrastructure for the future. Governor Uba Sani said the north should not lie to itself and its people but do something about it. Kwakwanso is blaming others. His governor Yusuf wants to make the north an enemy of the president because the president wants justice for Talakawa, not vampire elites like Kwakwanso.

     Kwakwanso seeks a feudal tax system.

     The Arewa Consultative Forum’s chairman was suspended because of the move to try a coalition against the president. He wanted to make it North versus South, and that shows that they brought their cards too early. Who is behind the ACF chair’s error? Why can’t Rabiu and Yusuf reverse the suspension? Enough of Kwakwanso being a Nigerian first. He is not even a Talakawa man. He is their cynical exploiter.

  • Bullet in the buttocks

    Bullet in the buttocks

    “Therefore, you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things,” Romans 2:1

    The Owu chief had a first life, and it was not as a soldier, a politician, or, obviously, even a head of state. In Ohi Alegbe’s interview with his first wife for African Concord decades ago, she taunted Olusegun Obasanjo as a “bush man because his favorite food is pounded yam and bush meat.” But that is not the story that often haunts me about the man. It is the picture of a soldier on the run. It was vivid in a passage in The tragedy of Victory authored by Alabi Isama – Obasanjo’s nemesis.

    During the Civil War, Obj had taken over from Benjamin Adekunle, alias Black Scorpion, as the Commander of the Third Marine Commando, and he went on an inspection in the battlefield. Biafran soldiers opened fire. Obj fled for his life but not before a bullet hit him on the buttocks. The bullet had the mercy of altitude, or the fear of height. It sailed low below his waist. Maybe because Obj looks more shrunken than tall. They say, the higher you go, the cooler it becomes. The bullet reversed the maxim. If the bullet had soared, it might have taken a fatal course. Shall we thank the Biafran soldier for his failure as a marksman? Lieutenant Colonel Iluyomade was a witness and confirmed it to me in an interview.

    Well, Obj had always lived a charmed life and benefitted where he did not labour. After all, he did not want to fight in the war. When Alani Akinrinade and others suggested to Gowon that he take over from Adekunle, he said in Yoruba, “You want them to kill me in battle?” He might have ruminated over it as the bullet made a tent of his bottom flesh. Yet, he takes credit for the victory. Even though when Biafra surrendered, he knew nothing about the firestorms in the battlefront. The guns rested, Akinrinade invited him to glory, to sign the documents on behalf of the federal army. He became a war hero.

    That was Obj the craven. He abides contradictions of the lower sort. He evinced it last week when he spoke at the Chinua Achebe Lecture at Yale University. First, the organisers gave no jewel to the bard’s memory. Achebe was no Obj fan, and, as Bayo Onanuga stated, he rejected his award while president. In his statement from his abode at Bard College, Achebe lashed out at Obj for turning “my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom. I am appalled by the brazenness of this clique and the silence, if not connivance, of the presidency.” Obj accused President Tinubu’s era, among other things, of chaos and insecurity. Achebe ribbed him over the chaos and insecurity in the country, with special focus on Anambra State when he played godfather, unseated a constitutionally elected governor in Ngige, and reveled in its hysteria of success.

    In my column in The Sun newspaper of October 24, 2004, I wrote: “The Achebe of compromise was not the one we saw in the past week. It was the Achebe of unflinching righteous indignation, an Okonkwo abandoning Obierika and reaching for the jugular.” As I noted in my TVC Breakfast show comment, Achebe would scream in his grave to see Obj exploit a platform in his name.

    Where did Obj get the moral authority to attack the president, when he was a failure writ large for history.  He also listed other Tinubu sins; “conflict, discord, division, disunity, depression, youth restiveness, confusion, violence and underdevelopment.” He capped it by calling for the sack of INEC boss Mahmood Yakubu. The paradox is that he is more guilty of all these than any leader, perhaps except IBB. On INEC Chief, did he not anoint Iwu’s skullduggery as electoral umpire? So much so, he was renamed  Iwuruwuru. Did he fire him? a tear for OBJ.

    His long list of Tinubu sins is repetitive. But let us afford him the benefit of nuanced wisdom and accept that ‘conflict’ and ‘discord’ post subtle differences. For conflict, did he not singlehandedly remove a party chairman Audu Ogbe at his home with military-style, or Ngige-style bullying? That was in Ogbe’s home after a sumptuous pounded yam meal served by the woman of the house. For discord, where did the phrase “do or die” come from? It was 2007, and he said it in Ajegunle Lagos because he wanted to “capture” Lagos. When he lost, he told INEC not to announce the results that everyone knew Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) had won. The announcer kept the result for over 24 hours and the whole country waited with bated breath. It was security operatives, especially Nuhu Ribadu, who warned him not to overturn Lagos result or the city would burn. Hence, he yielded. The victory cemented Asiwaju’s image as “the last man standing.” We can see where the man’s malice was brewed.

    For division, can we forget how he capsized the houses of assemblies in Plateau, Bayelsa, Ekiti, and impeached governors without following the law with as few as six men? Lalong as a speaker spent 40 days and 40 nights in Lagos detention as chronicled in my book of that title. Is the Edo State House situation not his legacy of impunity? The phrase “overheating the polity” ceased after he quit office. I wonder what he meant by ‘depression?’ Did he mean sad? What would have made people sadder than most Nigerians lived on less than a dollar a day on his watch. Even at that, he spent billions of dollars to pay debts when our poor could not have one dollar. In my column for The Sun on December 5, 2004, I wrote: “That’s why he (Obasanjo) should teach the rest of the country as the baba of the land the reason his farm is fruitful and the nation cannot say so of itself.” What a genius. Or when he spent $16 billion on power but darkness persisted? That money could have restored our power infrastructure.

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    Did he not call our teaching hospitals centres of excellence? Only mortuaries excelled. On youth restiveness, could he stop the Niger Delta ferment? No. It was Umar Yar’ Adua, who cast oil on their spirits. Confusion? What of his third term? He wanted to remain Nigeria’s baba till death. Can we forget the savagery of Odi and Zaki Biam? His defiance of the courts? What of the harvest of deaths and assassinations during his presidency? In the polls in Ondo and Edo, no death was recorded. In OBJ’s time, cemeteries had great appetites.  He is the patriarch in Dostoyevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, who destroys everything he touches.

    Obj has been angry for a long time. Hence, he must pull down every leader after him. He has spared none, civilian or military. Before that, he wrote My Command to diminish all the war commanders and lionise only himself as the good soldier. He was called PHD in the 1980’s, meaning Pull Him Down syndrome. He has not changed. He is guilty of what Yoruba call Kenimani. Only I should have.

    If he wanted to critique the Tinubu policies, the earthy fellow is welcome, but he did not do it. He should have analysed the economic policies, his tax policies, his job programme and his fight for local government autonomy. That is maturity. Rather, he went the same way of the Civil war, of allowing himself to be shot in the butt.

  • Colonial throwback

    Colonial throwback

    I spent the first eight years of my life learning to read and by now, I have come to the realisation that those years are the most rewarding period of my life. Because I could read so early in life, I have come to appreciate the company of men and women who were infinitely older, cleverer and much more articulate than I could ever hope to be. They are the ones that I met on the pages of those newspapers which kept me company in those days. Because of the erudite ghosts with which I have surrounded myself, I have discovered the beauty of solitude and introspection. I have found that there can be a great deal of joy in solitude as long as I have an entertaining book or some such item dispensing literature of any kind for company. Perhaps this is why I have been quick to note that the value which is now placed on books is diminishing all the time. My fascination with words was sparked by a newspaper, specifically, the Daily Times in those days of my growing up. There were other daily newspapers at that time but none of them came anywhere close to what was served up by the Daily Times. Other newspapers, especially the Guardian have of course come on board since the fifties when I am sure nobody in the Daily Times would have thought that there was a little boy in Ibadan poring through every section of their journal including the classified advert section where the films that could be watched on any day of the week in all the cinema houses in Lagos were advertised. And there were several of them on the island as well as the mainland so that everyone had a choice as to which theatre deserved their custom on any day. It goes without saying that I never got to watch any of those films but got a thrill just by knowing what fare was available for those who had the privilege of sitting through those cinematic experiences.

    There is no doubt in my mind that my interaction with the hundreds of newspaper columnists with whom I have held one sided conversations over a period of more than sixty-five years has shaped my current thinking. In my turn, I have been writing opinion columns, first in the Guardian and then in other newspapers, ending on the pages of the Nation where I have been domiciled for close to three years and counting. I have found that experience as stimulating as reading what other persons have put into the pages of those newspapers that held me in their grip when I was just a reader.

    Our social situation as a people has of course gone through a whole lot of changes over the several decades since I became more or less addicted to newspapers. In the first place, newspapers have been supplanted by first, the electronic media; radio and television, not to talk of the aggressively amorphous internet which is now living in the consciousness of the vast majority of people. The trend setters these days are called influencers. Unlike the columnists who held me in thrall in my late infancy, these influencers have neither time nor ability for introspection. Some of them can hardly string more than two coherent sentences together and speak in slangs which make for translation before they can be understood. Thus, they are only good for instant entertainment which to be honest, is what their followers demand from them.

    At the time my newspaper adventures began, Nigeria was a British colony albeit a dying one at that point in time. This is because by that time, the battle for independence had already been won. Some ten years before, the situation still hung in the balance and the newspapers were out on the frontline doing their bit to see off the colonialists who operated the machinery that ran the country. They were quick to call the colonial government to order at any time that such an admonition was necessary and they were the mouthpiece of the fiery young men who kept the pot of independence boiling over nicely. They constantly reminded the colonial masters that their time was up and they had better start packing.

    At that time, just like now, that mythical man in the street went about his business of gathering on to himself, the wherewithal to satisfy his needs and had little time to worry his head about what government was doing or not doing. One sore point about the colonial status of the day was the lowly status of the Nigerian Vis a Vis any young British puppy who had been sent out from the mother country to maintain law and order in the colony. The word colony had a much changed meaning at that time from what it was in Roman and even earlier times when groups of people left their place of origin and settled in other places with the intention of transferring themselves permanently into their new territory. Such colonisation was actually still taking place at the time the British seized Nigeria and made her a colony. In the century before, millions of people had voluntarily transported themselves or were forcibly transferred from all parts of Britain to America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The Dutch had founded their colony in South Africa several centuries before and had been fully developed as an apartheid state by the time the British arrived in Nigeria. By that time, there could be no large scale settlement of Europeans in Nigeria and other parts of what can be called the malaria belt which turned that part of the world to what was described as the white man’s grave. Many who came were dead within months and others wisely stayed away. It is ironic that by the time the British were packing up and leaving Nigeria, the problem of malaria had been solved through the availability of quinine and other antimalarial drugs. Suddenly, the entire length of the West African coast line had been made habitable for both white men and their black brothers by the wonders of modern pharmaceutical technology.

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    In Nigeria, the colonial masters were careful, very careful to keep the races separate from each other. To start with, at least in the South, they lived on the highest places they could find in their continuous attempts to get away from mosquitoes which occupied the lowest places, there to torment the natives with their viciousness. Effectively therefore, there was a system of apartheid which could not be maintained as soon as independence began to loom on the horizon. The system collapsed spectacularly in 1948 in the wake of what can be described as the Bristol Hotel incident.

    The Bristol Hotel was on Martins Street on Lagos Island and was owned by a Greek who did not allow black men to lodge in his hotel. One Mr. Ivor Cummings was booked into the hotel by the Colonial Office, no less. At that point, common sense dictated that with that name, Cummings was not only white but was a man of high official and social rank. When Mr. Cummings turned up at the hotel however, he confounded everybody by being black. On this account, he was not allowed to register in the hotel. By the next day, news of this arrived at the Island Club on the Marina where a group of young men were enjoying early evening breezes over bottles of beer. Enjoyment was instantly put aside and the enraged young men stopped on their way to Bristol Hotel only to recruit some area boys who at that time were called Boma boys. Yes, area boys were part of the Lagos landscape eighty years ago. This motley group had nothing but mayhem on their mind and this they visited on the hotel immediately on arrival. Twenty or maybe ten years before, the whole lot of them would have been arrested, speedily tried and locked up in the Broad street prison not far from the Island club. After all, they had been involved in assault, use of dangerous weapons, maybe even attempted murder. The newspapers of course spread the news over Nigeria at great speed and the country was boiling over with anger at the insult which had been visited on all red blooded black men everywhere. The situation teetered precariously on the lip of a precipice but mercifully not for long. The governor, a man of experience who had probably seen the light of reason and came to the conclusion that the artificial separation of races was utter nonsense saw the Bristol Hotel farce as an opportunity to right a wrong. Rather than coming down hard on the young hot heads, he announced the end of the fledgling apartheid policy which had kept the races apart. From then on, the European quarters became Government Reserved Areas, the European Hospital across the Five Cowry Creek Lane was transformed to Creek Hospital where African patients, elite African patients it has to be said, could be treated. This did not bring an end to petty apartheid in Nigeria but, whenever there were any episodes it, they were dutifully reported in the newspapers which were no less dutifully read and taken note of.

    Given the rise and rise of social media, newspapers are no longer what they used to be and so, a lot of news transmission is now through the agency of social media. Unlike the newspapers in the glorious days of their dominance, news from social media, colourful as they are must be taken with more than a pinch of salt. You can therefore imagine my shock when my first response to the video clip of a white man slapping a Nigerian was shock and disbelief. I had to do a double take and sure enough, a second look confirmed the veracity of the first one. What could the story behind the pictures be, I wondered. Then, I listened to the sound and heard the diligent slapper introduce himself as a member of the Nigerian senate and his accents confirmed that fact. What was before me was a member of the Nigerian ruling elite riding rough shod over one of the government owned serfs who have been summoned to his castle to perform some menial task. I was of course shocked at the level of violence being visited on the serf who, in the dead of night when only ghosts and spirits were abroad, had arrived at his castle to deliver a commissioned parcel. Stung to fury by the polite request that the lord of the manor should step outside so that he could be served, the poor man was slapped quite deliberately twice, the third slap arriving on the heels of the second to correct the record of the serf who had erroneously accused the aggressive senator who was actually not a senator but a congressman, of having slapped him three times.

    My first impression was that the lord and master was putting himself in the danger of an aneurysm or a stroke. There is only so much pressure you can put on the cardiovascular system before something gives. This man was clearly a man who had anger issues and is in urgent need of skilful counselling. But of course, there are so many other matters arising from this episode.

    My immediate reference was to the Bristol Hotel incident of 1948 when Nigerians resorted to violence when their racial sensitivity was aroused. A black man was refused service at a hotel on account of the colour of his skin. On this occasion it was a man wearing the mask of a white man beating up a black man who had not transgressed in any way. I expected all hell to break loose, not just because of the gratuitous violence inflicted but also because of the flood of invectives and expletives which accompanied the slaps. The level of impunity on display was enough to turn the stomach of people with a lower sensitivity than mine. It was a truly magnificent display of the power which no Nigerian should show in any dealing with another human not to talk of another Nigerian. We are now an independent nation and have been for sixty-four years but what we can learn from this incident is that we are still subject to the insults of a new breed of self imposed colonial masters even though any difference in their skin colour is purely accidental.

  • What exactly does Obasanjo want? Good governance? Sure not because he never gave it

    What exactly does Obasanjo want? Good governance? Sure not because he never gave it

    Getting back to my mother, I still remember your beating her up continually when we were kids. What kids can forget that kind of violence against their mother?

    Your maltreatment of women is legendary. Many of your women have come out to denounce you in public but since your madness is also part of the madness of the society, it is the women that are usually ignored and mistreated” – Professor Iyabo Obasanjo, PhD, psychoanalysing her father in an unsparing, no holdsbarred letter dated December 16, 2013.

    The above should enable Nigerians know who is advising them because Yorubas say you should first look at what somebody offering to make a Christmas dress for you is wearing.

    After describing the 2023 Presidential election in which his candidate, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, through whom he may have intended to resurrect his Third Term Project, of yore, was beaten blue and black to the third place as a travesty, former President Olusegun Obasanjo,

    went on to say much more at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum in Yale University, U.S.A where he recently presented a paper on  ‘Leadership failure and state capture in Nigeria’.

    He sermonised:

    “As a matter of urgency, we must ensure the INEC Chairperson and their staff are thoroughly vetted. The vetting exercise should produce dispassionate, non-partisan actors with impeccable reputations.

    “Nigeria must ensure the appointment of new credible INEC leadership at the federal, state, local government, and municipal – city, town, and village – levels, with short tenures to prevent undesirable political influence and corruption, and to re-establish trust in the electoral system by its citizens, further adding that “The INEC Chairperson must not only be absolutely above board but must also be transparently independent and incorruptible.”

    Pray! When did Chief Obasanjo know all these: after he graduated from the Open University?

    Or, good as they are, how exactly did his 2007 hatchetman, the one and only Maurice Mmaduakolam

    Iwu, of blessed memory, square up to these his prescriptions?

    Knowing full well that the ol’ man did not act on his own, how come the man whose cross the unfortunate Professor carried to his grace, could now turn round to lay strictures against INEC?

    Indeed, how on earth should that proceed from the mouth of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a man who was the ‘Capo di tutti’ of election manipulation in the annals of Nigerian history, a mere 17 years after? He must really think he could so soon sell Nigerian a hagiography.

    But not so soon because as Google never forgets, History doesn’t, either.

    So to his face today, we would count the former president’ss nine toes.

    In the first place, consequent upon the rigging that characterised gubernatorial elections in the 2007 election cycle which was superintended over by his government, nearly all the elections in the Southwest, including Edo state, were voided by the Supreme Court.

    The election, his last in government, was scored very  low by everybody, its Chief beneficiary, the highly regarded President Umar Yar’ Adua inclusive, just as the U. S National Democratic Institute whose leader, Madeleine Albrigh, then U. S Secretary of State, herself an observer at the  selfsame election,  described it as the  worst election ever, anywhere in the whole world, Myanmar inclusive.

    It is important that Chief Obasanjo be freshly reminded of that shameful   election just in case it has escaped his very busy mind.

    I shall do this using the instrumentality of just one of my many articles on the luckiest ever Nigerian Public Servant.

    Titled ‘A Grandstanding Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’, and dated 8 April, 2018, it reads as follows:

    The letter below (that letter would not be included in this recall) from Chief Deji Fasuan MON, is the leitmotif for this article at a  time Obasanjo’s one-upmanship has again reached a crescendo.

    The two-term Nigerian Head of state has been grandstanding  of late describing, in lurid terms, the sitting President Muhammadu Buhari,  just as he has done to everybody who ever held that position other than himself.

    Many have tried to posit that it does not lie in Obasanjo’s place to  continuously trash a sitting President since he has access and has, indeed, been justifiably described as the greatest pilgrim to Buhari’s Aso Villa until recently. 

    But that is when you hear some busy bodies asking you to mind the message and not the messenger.

    Of course, I do not subscribe to such sentiments since my position is that deeds, rather than talk, which is cheap, should be the determining factor, being far more indicative of who the preacher really is.

    In justification of my views, I present below a sample of Obasanjo’s performance in office using election rigging, which was archetypical of everything he did in office.

    A decent, late President Yar Adua self-confessed the rigging of his own election, the reason I chose it for this analysis. 

    I present below, a report of that election as captured by Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

     The Nigerian General Election, 2007.

     Reactions

    “Ikimi and Amusu,  representatives of the AC and the ANPP respectively, at the INEC Collation Centre in Abuja, denounced the results announced by the INEC Chairman. According to Ikimi, “In states like Edo, Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, Akwa Ibom etc, we know that the elections did not start even as late as 5 pm.

    The results collated showed that over 80 percent of the votes being counted were in favour of the PDP and they are totally flawed. In most of the states, only the Resident Electoral Commissioners and PDP Agents signed results. We have been here since yesterday (Sunday) to observe this collation and we have collated only  eleven states when the INEC Chairman rushed down to declare the results  declaring Umoru Yar’Adua the winner.” Continued Ikimi: “The result sheets we viewed so far were not signed by any of our agents at the state level. They were only signed by Resident Electoral Commissioners and  PDP agents.”

    Also, Admiral Lanre Amusu who represented the ANPP concurred with what Chief Ikimi said. “Only results from13 states, and they were collated and signed by only the Resident Electoral Commissioners and the PDP Agents. Our agents did not sign these results.”

    The national Chairman of the Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA), Chief Olu Falae, with leaders of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the Action Congress (AC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), National Advance Party (NAP) and the National Democratic Party (NDP), has called for the setting up of an Interim National Government to conduct credible elections in the country. Chief Falae suggested that the country needed an ING to guard against the emergence of the military.

    The Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation claimed that  INEC deliberately left 70 percent of the ballot papers in a warehouse in Johannesburg, South Africa. We heard that the contractors could have freighted the entire 200-ton consignment into the country three days before the election (Thursday) but INEC instructed them to bring only 30 percent of the ballot papers”.

    Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, said that the West should deny entry visas to INEC Chairman, Maurice Iwu for his “complicity in the fraudulent elections.” He said he has heard of the financial prudence and moral uprightness of Yar’Adua. “I wish he [Yar’Adua] would carry his decency even further by publicly renouncing this poisoned chalice to say: ‘I’m not a receiver of stolen goods”,

    Observers

    Groups monitoring the Presidential election gave it a dismal assessment. Chief European Union observer, Max van den Berg, reported that the handling of the polls had “fallen far short” of basic international standards, and that “the process cannot be considered to be credible”, citing “poor election organisation, lack of transparency, significant evidence of fraud, voter disenfranchisement, violence and bias”. They described the election as “the worst they had ever seen anywhere in the world”, with “rampant vote rigging, violence, theft of ballot boxes and intimidation”.

    One group of observers said that at one polling station in Yenagoa, in the oil-rich south, where 500 people were registered to vote, more than 2,000 votes were recorded.

    Bishop Felix Alaba Job, Head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, cited massive fraud and disorganisation, including result sheets being passed around to politicians who simply filled in figures as they chose, while bribed returning electoral officers looked away”.

    International Reaction

    A spokesman for the United States Department of State said it was “deeply troubled” by the election, calling them “flawed”. 

    “Nigeria has once again failed to rise to the occasion…. Size isn’t enough…. It is a failed giant,” said prominent Ghanaian economist Nii Moi Thompson who compared the elections to those of Liberia in 2005, saying, “Even Liberia, which is coming out of war, had more credible elections than Nigeria”.

    “There is the saying: ‘How goes Nigeria, so goes the rest of Africa’. To have this widespread abuse of the democratic initiative certainly doesn’t do Africa any good,” said Scott Baker, a professor at Champlain College in the US city of Burlington, Vermont. “How can Nigeria sit at the meetings of the African Union African Peer Review Mechanism or ECOWAS and talk about other peoples’ elections?” he asked.

    In conclusion, would President Obasanjo still be still be seing himself as a messiah, as he loves to do, in any decent country driven by democratic ethos?

    It’s time for an Election Malpractices Tribunal in Nigeria which, as happened in Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, will have no respect for persons, no matter the office.

    Read Also: Obasanjo and his ‘failing state’ theory

    In Loving & Cherished Memory Of Ambassador Olufemi Ani.

    Not again!.

    Dipo this evening informed me of Bro Femi’s passing.

    It was an absolutely devastating news because I had a long, forever cherished relationship with the Ambassador, dating all the way back to 1958.

    That year he hosted me during my interview at Government College, Ibadan to which only 4 of us, Ekiti, were invited in Ondo state.

    I became very close to him in later life, and on one occasion recruited a Secretary for him.

    My wife and I used to joke that if the Ambassador bought something of N5000 from you, he would rather give you a cheque than pay cash, as he did a few times buying wine in our T.Club.

    A very handsome, ever sartorially turned out gentleman, Bro Femi was great to be with.

    He will be sorely missed but glory to God, he lived a highly impactful life which spanned not just diplomacy, his forte, but also such diverse areas as business, international relations, sports and community service.

    We thank God that he is survived by high achieving children who will keep the flag flying.

    May the Almighty God grant him eternal rest and comfort the family he left behind, our natal town, Are – Ekiti, which will be deeply impacted at the loss of another distinguished son, so soon after (that of) Professor Femi Olaofe inclusive.

    Adieu.

  • CONUA and ASUU again

    CONUA and ASUU again

    In an effort to ensure stability within the Nigerian University System, a renegotiation committee on the 2009 agreement has been constituted by the federal government. The committee is chaired by Alhaji Yayale Ahmed – a former Minister of Defence, a former Head of Civil Service, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the current Pro-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and the current Chair of the Committee of Pro-Chancellors of Nigerian Federal Universities (CPCNFU).

    The Congress of University Academics (CONUA) was formed in 2018 in reaction to the constriction of the democratic space within the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). According to CONUA, this tendency became unbearable when, in 2013, the duly-won victory of certain members of ASUU in a free and fair election was annulled by some autocratic forces within the union. Things came to a head in 2018 when over seven hundred members of ASUU were suspended and expelled from the union for expressing their dissatisfaction with the trajectory of the union. The suspended and expelled members came together and formed CONUA on 12 February, 2018, as a means of resistance to peer oppression, and proceeded to apply for registration. The application for registration, dated 30 April, 2018, was submitted on 2 May, 2018 at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Abuja. The union was presented a certificate of registration by the then-Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, on 17 January, 2023. On 14 December, 2023, the Trade Union Congress announced its admission of CONUA as one of its new affiliates.

    Meanwhile, on 26 October, 2022, ASUU had prematurely filed a suit at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) challenging the registration of CONUA (and the Nigeria Association of Medical Academics – NAMDA). In the suit, it prayed the court to declare the registration illegal, and pleaded for the court to order the withdrawal of the certificates of registration of the two unions. It is important to note here that as at the time ASUU was making this plea, the certificates had actually not yet been issued. On 25 July, 2023, ASUU lost the case and the NICN declared the registration of CONUA and NAMDA legal.

    The NICN judgement was based principally on the provision of Article 2 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention No. 87 which stipulates as follows: “Workers and employers, without distinction whatsoever, shall have the right to establish and, subject only to the rules of the organisation concerned, to join organisations of their own choosing without previous authorisation.” Also noteworthy here is Section 12 (4) of the 2004 Trade Union Act which expressly states: “Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Act, membership of a trade union by employees shall be voluntary and no employee shall be forced to join any trade union or be victimised for refusing to join or remain a member.”On its website, CONUA also referred to Sections 20 and 21 of the 1990 Kampala Declaration on Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility which state: “Members of the intellectual community have a responsibility to promote the spirit of tolerance towards different views and positions and enhance democratic debate and discussion. No one group of the intellectual community shall indulge in the harassment, domination or oppressive behaviour towards another group. All differences among the intellectual community shall be approached and resolved in the spirit of equality, non-discrimination and democracy.”

    Regarding the renegotiation committee, CONUA wrote to the then-Minister of Education, Professor Mamman Tahir, and noted that there was an oversight, because the bona fide and duly registered union was not invited to be part of the renegotiation. The union argued that as at the time the 2009 agreement was reached, most of those who constitute CONUA were members of ASUU and were therefore major stakeholders in relation to the agreement. CONUA further noted that since the outcome of the ongoing renegotiation would affect CONUA members, the right thing to do is to include representatives of the union. CONUA also remarked that it was only representatives of the union that could best project and protect its interests.

    In reaction to the CONUA call for inclusivity, the Coordinator of the Lagos Zone of ASUU, Professor Adelaja Odukoya, who has been described as “the Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Lagos, Akoka,” was reported in a story, titled “You’re not relevant, ASUU knocks CONUA”, by the Nigerian Tribune of 14 November, 2024, to have said: “If they [CONUA] were once part of ASUU as they argued in the media report, they should answer for themselves if they are part of ASUU now? So, they cannot leverage on what they were in the past but what they are now is the in-thing. So, they should wake up from their self-delusion as they have been used and dumped by Ngige.”

    Professor Odukoya was also reported to have said: “And the earlier they realize that unionism etched on opportunism and charlatanism will always end in disgrace and heartbreak. They should realise that they have miscalculated. And if they have any iota of shame and any honour, they would not [broach] the idea of being included in the FGN-ASUU negotiation in whatever form. I particularly for one think that honour is not a commodity they have. And they should stop asking for undue relevance.”

    If indeed Professor Adelaja Odukoya is the Dean of a Faculty at the University of Lagos, this kind of intemperate language, where rational arguments would have sufficed, doesn’t represent the University of Lagos well, and neither does it represent ASUU well. In Yoruba culture, to which he belongs, such conduct would be categorised as that of a white fowl which doesn’t recognise itself as an elder, and so acts out of tune with the honour ascribed to the position. (“Adìe funfun ò mo’ra rè lágbà.”) As things have now turned out, CONUA has begun to match Professor Odukoya and ASUU expletive for expletive.

    Dr. Nasiru Yunusa, the North-West Coordinator and Chairperson of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, chapter of CONUA, was reported in a story, titled “You have to face new realities, CONUA replies ASUU,” to have said that since the letter pointing out the Ministry of Education’s oversight was not addressed to ASUU, ASUU’s outbursts indicated a refusal to hoe one’s own row. Secondly, CONUA argued that, if it was ab initio eminently qualified for registration in 2018, but the registration was withheld for five long years, and justice finally prevailed in 2023 with its eventual registration, “nothing could … be more asinine than ASUU’s labelling of CONUA’s epochal success as being ‘used and dumped!’” CONUA further castigated Professor Odukoya as follows: “It is indeed a betrayal of deep-thinking scholarship that a university Professor would be ignorantly bleating about ‘unionism etched on opportunism and charlatanism will always end in disgrace and heartbreak.’”

    Moreover, CONUA said it was hypocritical for ASUU to be talking of honour. It asked where ASUU’s honour lay when, in declaring the 2022 strike, the union said the strike would be “total, indefinite, comprehensive and suffocating”; but once the Federal Government invoked the “no work, no pay” rule, ASUU capitulated and claimed that it was only the “teaching” component of its duties that it abandoned during the strike. CONUA was, thus, of the view that ASUU lacked the courage of its convictions. CONUA also noted: “This is a dawn of a new era where our universities are free from the shackles of incessant closures, and ASUU should smell the coffee and get used to the new realities.”

    Meanwhile, some side-players have also joined the fray. For example, in the 18 October, 2024 edition of TVC’s “Journalists’ Hangout”, Babajide Kolade-Otitoju remarked: “CONUA … had complained that their members were oppressed, needlessly punished, under ASUU regime and that this was what caused ASUU to be divided. But when you look at CONUA, if you have to choose between CONUA and ASUU in terms of the number of people that ASUU represents, CONUA literally does not exist beside ASUU. In fact, there are very few … universities where CONUA is present.” First, this is the typical logic of autocrats and oppressors. But, as George Orwell aptly asserts, “Sanity is not statistical.” Second, the argument is akin to rationalising a hypothetical decision, by INEC, not to invite the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Labour Party and New Nigeria People’s Party to meetings to discuss critical political matters that would affect them, just because each of these parties controls only one state, whilst APC controls 21states and PDP controls 12.

    Read Also: Parents, students seek ways out of ASUU’s perpetual strike threats

    In the same edition of “Journalists’ Hangout”, dropping all pretence to objectivity, Kolade-Otitoju said about CONUA, in relation to ASUU’s 2022 8-month-long strike and CONUA’s exclusion from the negotiating committee in 2024: “You rebelled against your own colleagues. You were silent as your colleagues fought aggressively against the oppressor. You behaved like you were not seeing what was going on. Now, the same oppressor has decided to sideline you.” Whilst Kolade-Otitoju saw resistance to ASUU’s autocratic and oppressive streak as rebellion, CONUA saw it as acting in line with the exhortation that “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.” It is unclear why Babajide Kolade-Otitoju persistently gets so easily worked up and lapses into hubris over the fact that CONUA members have been or are exercising their constitutionally-guaranteed, ILO-sanctioned and court-upheld freedom of association.

    The combination of old positions with new perspectives can only benefit the Nigerian university system. It is in this sense that “Two heads are better than one.” It was therefore wrong for the former Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, to have excluded CONUA from the renegotiation committee. It is hoped that the current Minister, Dr. Tunji Alausa, would rectify this anomaly, in the interest of equity and the overall interest of university education in the country. The Minister also needs to direct the heads of MDAs under the ministry, such as the National Universities Commission, TETfund and Vice-Chancellors, to accord all registered unions in the university system due recognition and include them in meetings or programmes in which they ought to be major stakeholders.

    The democratic spirit and the intellectual temperament dictate the recognition, acceptance and respect for diversity of choice. It is thus hoped that ASUU would reconcile itself to the reality of the existence of CONUA and sheathe its sword. It is also hoped that CONUA would note that any hostility against it from ASUU and its associates is a passing phase. CONUA should therefore resist being drawn into unnecessary acrimony. Going forward, ASUU and CONUA should begin, consciously, to cultivate mutual respect, while noting that, as a Yoruba proverb says, “There’s enough room in the sky for birds to fly without colliding (Ojú òrun tó eye fò láì fara kan ra.)  

  • The worth of GCON conferment and his quest for Nigeria’s greatness

    The worth of GCON conferment and his quest for Nigeria’s greatness

    The week in review started on Sunday with the President’s efforts to position Nigeria as a global player taking another leap forward with the state visit of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. The visit, which underscored decades of robust friendship between the two nations, resulted in agreements that promise to elevate their partnership across multiple sectors, from defense and trade to healthcare and agriculture.

    Prime Minister Modi arrived to a warm reception at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, complete with a 21-gun salute—a ceremonial gesture befitting the leader of one of the world’s largest democracies. This was followed by an intimate tête-à-tête between the two leaders and an expanded round of bilateral and political discussions. The outcomes of these engagements were ambitious and forward-looking.

    The discussions placed significant emphasis on security. Both leaders pledged to enhance cooperation in counterterrorism, maritime security, and intelligence sharing. In response to growing threats in the Gulf of Guinea and the Indian Ocean, they agreed to coordinated actions to protect maritime trade routes and combat piracy. Joint naval exercises and anti-piracy operations will soon become a regular feature of this defense collaboration.

    “Terrorism in all its forms must be condemned,” the leaders declared in a joint statement, which was made available, in parts, to journalists at the State House by Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, emphasizing a zero-tolerance approach to terror financing and the cross-border movement of extremists. Prime Minister Modi also offered India’s expertise to support Nigeria’s defense modernization efforts, highlighting his country’s emergence as a trusted manufacturer in the global defense industry.

    Trade and investment also took center stage during the discussions. India remains Nigeria’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade heavily dominated by Nigeria’s crude oil exports to India. President Tinubu applauded the contributions of over 200 Indian companies operating in Nigeria, which have created thousands of jobs and significant investments. Both leaders directed their officials to finalize pending agreements, including the Economic Cooperation Agreement (ECA) and the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), to further boost trade and investment flows.

    President Tinubu reflected on this partnership, noting, “India has stood side by side with Nigeria for decades, demonstrating an unwavering commitment to our mutual development. Our renewed agreements today only strengthen these ties further.” He also pointed to the $14 billion in pledges from Indian investors during the Nigeria-India Presidential Roundtable in September 2023 as evidence of the burgeoning economic collaboration between the two nations.

    Healthcare, agriculture, and energy featured prominently in the discussions. The Indian government extended an offer to provide affordable generic medicines to Nigeria under its Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP) initiative. This effort will ensure vulnerable populations in Nigeria have access to quality medicines. Modi also proposed sharing India’s CoWIN platform, a revolutionary digital health management tool, to support Nigeria’s vaccination programs and other health initiatives.

    Food security emerged as a critical area of cooperation, with both leaders acknowledging the urgent need to bolster agricultural productivity. India’s timely rice supply to Nigeria during periods of scarcity was praised by President Tinubu, who expressed optimism about future collaboration in high-yield seeds, advanced farming technology, and agricultural equipment. “Nigeria and India share common challenges, but with India’s support, I am confident we can turn these challenges into opportunities,” Tinubu said.

    Prime Minister Modi, in his remarks, emphasized the enduring friendship between the two countries. “The relations between India and Nigeria are built on mutual respect, understanding, and shared aspirations,” he said. He dedicated the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON) honour, conferred on him by Tinubu, to the people of India and reaffirmed his commitment to strengthening ties. “This honour will continue to inspire us to take the India-Nigeria strategic partnership to new heights,” Modi added.

    One significant feature of Modi state visit was the GCON honour conferment on the Indian Prime Minister. The GCON is the second highest honour awarded in Nigeria, only after the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR), which is reserved for the President only. GCON is therefore the highest honour conferred on any other human who is not Nigeria’s President and for those who know its significance, you cannot get any better recognition from Nigeria than this most honourable award.

    What Tinubu managed to do with that honour was further strengthening the relationship, first between himself and the leader of the largest democracy in the world, as friends from who he would want to gain favours and grace for Nigerians. Then it was meant to be a mark of friendship between Nigeria and India and nations with similar backgrounds. It was aimed at procuring more goods from India, one of the fastest growing economies, for Nigeria as well as strengthening peerage between both nations. 

    Cultural exchanges and people-to-people connections also received a boost during the visit. Both leaders agreed on the importance of promoting tourism and expanding academic and cultural programs. With over 60,000 Indians residing in Nigeria, Modi expressed his gratitude for the warm hospitality his compatriots have enjoyed over the years. “Nigeria’s diversity mirrors India’s, and this diversity is our strength. Together, we can harness it to create a more prosperous future for our people,” Modi remarked.

    The visit also highlighted Nigeria’s growing influence on the global stage. Prime Minister Modi applauded Nigeria’s leadership in Africa and its contributions to multilateral organizations. The two leaders reaffirmed their shared commitment to reforming the United Nations Security Council and increasing representation for developing countries. Tinubu noted, “Our partnership with India extends beyond bilateral benefits; it is about shaping global narratives and ensuring the voices of the Global South are heard.”

    As the visit concluded, both leaders expressed optimism about the outcomes. Memoranda of Understanding were signed on customs cooperation, cultural exchange programs, and infrastructure development, signaling a new phase of collaboration. Modi also announced 20 tonnes of humanitarian aid to support flood relief efforts in Nigeria, demonstrating solidarity during challenging times.

    “This is a partnership rooted in history and driven by a shared vision for the future”, Tinubu said, reflecting on the significance of Modi’s visit. “India and Nigeria are united by common values and aspirations, and I am confident that together, we will achieve extraordinary things.”

    At the end of the reception for Modi on Sunday, President Tinubu headed to Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil to attend the 19th G20 Leaders’ Summit. Incidentally, Modi was heading for the same destination same Sunday.

    The Summit was a platform for its incumbent Chairman, being the host leader, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, to float an initiative, which is focused on achieving a better and more human world; Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty. President Tinubu lauded the creation of the Alliance. In his words, this initiative is “a bold and visionary step” toward addressing some of the world’s most pressing issues, describing it as a “significant milestone” in global efforts to eradicate inequality and deprivation.

    “This bold and visionary step underscores Brazil’s leadership in addressing one of the most urgent and persistent challenges facing our world today. By fostering collaboration between governments, international organisations, and civil society, this initiative offers a comprehensive approach not only to addressing immediate needs but also tackling the structural causes of hunger and poverty,” Tinubu said passionately.

    Read Also: Reps seek GCON national honour for ex-Speakers

    His endorsement of the alliance aligns perfectly with its domestic priorities. Tinubu was quick to draw parallels between this global initiative and the eight priority areas outlined during his inauguration 18 months ago. “These goals are at the core of Nigeria’s development agenda, and the alliance offers a platform to accelerate progress towards them” he emphasized.

    Nigeria’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly eradicating poverty (SDG 1) and achieving zero hunger (SDG 2), received a notable boost. Tinubu assured world leaders that Nigeria would leverage the best practices, innovative solutions, and financial support the alliance provides.

    Beyond hunger and poverty, Tinubu championed the need for reform in the United Nations Security Council. He called on the G20 to push for Africa’s representation in this elite group, stating, “the Security Council should expand its permanent and non-permanent member categories to reflect the world’s diversity and plurality better. Africa deserves priority in this process, and two permanent seats should be allocated to it with equal rights and responsibilities. Nigeria stands ready and willing to serve as a representative of Africa in this capacity.”

    On the sidelines of the G20 Summit, Tinubu met with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, where the discussion pivoted to Nigeria’s ongoing economic reforms. Tinubu acknowledged the toll of these changes, particularly on the poor and vulnerable, but reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to cushioning the impact through targeted interventions.

    “We have started seeing positive results from our reforms, and the Nigerian people now understand the need for them, but we have to reduce the hardship that has resulted from the implementation,” Tinubu told Georgieva.

    Education, a critical component of Tinubu’s development agenda, also featured prominently in the discussions. “We have too many children out of school, and we know that education is a way out of hunger and poverty. That is why we are designing ways and incentives to keep these children in school, and we need your support for these kids who want to stay in school,” the president stressed.

    Tinubu’s push for investment in infrastructure and his administration’s ongoing tax reforms aimed at expanding the economic base were also discussed. “We are engaging stakeholders and sensitizing Nigerians to expand the economy’s tax base for inclusive developmental growth. We are doing this without necessarily increasing the taxes on our people who have already given a lot. We will require your support on this,” he told the IMF boss.

    With an eye on the bigger picture, Tinubu’s engagement with the IMF also highlighted Nigeria’s pivotal role in global economic dialogues. Georgieva’s acknowledgment of Nigeria’s leadership during the IMF African Caucus meeting in August was a testament to this.

    Beyond Modi’s call and the G20 Summit outing, it was the week Mr. President sacked Nnamdi Azikiwe University’s Governing Council and Vice Chancellor in just one pronouncement, swapped leaderships at two other federal universities, infused order in his media team and lead his Livestock Development team to shop for Brazilian investment. It was a very eventful week, mostly dominated by his quest to place Nigeria properly in the heart of global order. We can only wait to see what this week will offer as he returns from Rio de Janeiro and prepares for another important engagement in France, all things being equal.

  • Ondo, Edo and APC’s electoral future

    Ondo, Edo and APC’s electoral future

    Last Wednesday, the national chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Mamman Mike Osuman, declared that the group would back northern candidates in the 2027 elections. Except the media reported him unfairly and inaccurately, he was ambiguous in approximating the northern socio-cultural group’s preferences. He referenced the Bola Tinubu administration’s unpopular policies and the hardship and hunger inundating the country, but he was careful not to specify names disfavoured by the ACF nor offices they might wish to contest. Though the Forum’s Board of Trustees suspended him a day later for making unathorised statement on behalf of the group, he had given dark hints about the direction the ACF might head some two years down the line. Said Mr Osuman, a lawyer and senior advocate, with flourish: “…It is not in doubt that the North is currently under siege. Our dear region is not only being viciously attacked by bandits, terrorists and kidnappers but also by sinister devices like disproportionate considerations and inequitable treatment.”

    In the fortuitous months ahead, it is unlikely the old political North will see the Bola Tinubu presidency the same way they see it today. Apart from the president indulging the region beyond measure, it is also expected that the badly bruised and battered economy might begin to turn the corner. To that extent, the ACF’s BoT was probably sensible and more restrained in not declaring support for any aspirant or party. They may sometimes be instigative in their speeches, but they often wait to see which way the cat jumps before they cast their lot with a candidate. Nothing of course suggests they won’t eventually ditch President Tinubu, but they are unlikely to do so as spontaneously and peremptorily as Mr Osuman has ill-advisedly done. Sometimes too, the old North criticises and threatens as a form of pressure to get more concession from any presidency constituted by a southerner. Whatever their ultimate aim, the ACF chairman probably let the cat out of the bag too soon. He was unlikely to have voiced sentiments not prevalent among northern leaders, but it will still take more than a year before the old North’s definitive view on 2027 is known.

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    The All Progressives Congress (APC) is probably aware of the electoral booby traps ahead of it, whether placed by northerners, or other regions, or even by enemies within. They may in fact already be toying with various countermeasures defeat the enemy and hold on to power beyond 2027. This is where their victories in the Edo and Ondo governorship elections put them in a quandary. If they had lost either or both states in the September and November polls, it would have been seen as a perfect and karmic referendum on the Tinubu administration, particularly its hated economic measures and probably despised appointments, with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) buoyed by the ruling party’s setbacks. The conundrum, unfortunately for the APC, is that its victories in the two states have been conveniently explained away as signifying no referendum on the Tinubu administration. Analysts often take solace in the axiom that all politics is local. This may sound trite, but it adequately explains the two recent governorship elections as far as the APC is concerned.

    In the Edo poll, the APC was largely united and focused on returning to office, while the PDP was disunited, with the former governor, Godwin Obaseki, calling everybody’s bluff. The APC put the matter beyond contention by winning 11 local government areas and 291,667 votes to PDP’s seven LGs and 247,274 votes, a significant 44,000 plus margin. In Ondo, the APC victory was even more emphatic, with its candidate, the untested and sometimes flighty Lucky Aiyedatiwa, winning all 18 local governments and over 360,000 votes to the PDP’s 117,845 votes. Taking together with the November 2023 reelection of APC’s Hope Uzodinma in Imo State and APC’s Usman Ododo election in Kogi State also in November 2023, President Tinubu can boast four trophies that came seemingly against the run of play. Had those victories come with the run of play, with a great and revving economy, no one would have doubted the unassailable position of the president going into the 2027 poll. It would, however, make the administration complacent, for officials love burying their heads in the cloud rather than having them singed in the cauldron of public anger and criticism. President Tinubu’s men should, therefore, probably count themselves lucky that the administration and the public are unable to attribute the recent electoral triumphs to anything spectacular done by the administration.

    Indeed, if elections were held today, given the state of the economy (petrol price, exchange rate and inflation), the supposed skewness of the president’s appointments in favour of the Yoruba, particularly Lagosians, and the awkward reversals of certain policies and close staff appointments, the president and his APC would be hard put to eke out even a slim victory. If in addition the opposition could get their act together and rally behind a great candidate, defeating the APC would be almost certain. Fortunately for the ruling party, few voters are likely to make up their minds how to vote in 2027 until probably late next year or sometime in 2026. President Tinubu has of course not inspired too many people by his style of administration, but he has sensibly pushed the country through its worst moments early in his government in order to give himself some breathing space in the years ahead, especially close to the polls. If he is fortunate enough to have an economy well on the path of recovery in 2025, with exchange rate, fuel price, and inflation rate doing great, he will sound more plausible and convincing in pushing the APC agenda.

    The relentlessly rhetorical National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, last week pontificated on President Tinubu’s invincibility. He of course exaggerated, and indeed sounded ingratiating. But while the president is good at keeping many balls in the air, two major factors will determine the shape of 2027. One is the shape of the economy in the next 18 months and how smartly the president cleans up his controversial and mystifying appointments, and two is the shape of the political opposition, taken holistically. Should the opposition remain fragmented and bad-tempered in the next 18 months as it is today, it would head nowhere, whether with the superficial Peter Obi as a point man or the bilious Atiku Abubakar as the leprous fist. The two factors stated above were at play in the Edo and Ondo polls; they will greatly influence the course and outcomes of politics and elections in the years ahead. Even if the economy does not recover as significantly as many Nigerians hope, President Tinubu and his APC will probably still do much better than expected should the opposition remain divided and mediocre. But two years is still a long time off, enough time to dig heels in, make amends, or build new platforms and coalitions.

  • Engaging Obasanjo on his ideas, not person

    Engaging Obasanjo on his ideas, not person

    By now, nearly everyone knows that the person of former president Olusegun Obasanjo cannot be changed by abuse or by any form of unwholesome exposure of what he has done or not done, in the past, present or even future. He is set in his ways, and this old man, as they say, is not for turning. In far away United States, at a Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum lecture he delivered at Yale University in Connecticut, he was at his didactic and sermonising best. His recorded lecture, which spoke more to the Obidient worldview than anything else, was provocatively titled Leadership failure and state capture. He needed no other baiting to be at his pontifical worst. After many decades of the former president serially and periodically pontificating on the same narrow subject, Nigerians should be used to his style and methods. Whatever he says about any issue, whether diagnostic or prognostic, has absolutely nothing to do with whatever he does. Academics love to talk about praxis, the execution of ideas. Chief Obasanjo has no interest whatsoever in any such convergence; indeed he has contempt for bridging any divide. Whoever wants to take the former president to task should simply concentrate on what he says rather than the chasm between what he says and does.

    He supposedly spoke on leadership failure and state capture, but much of what he said was frustratingly platitudinous. Apart from saturating his text with authorial references, and undergirding the address with unashamedly narcissistic comments, it is not clear whether his audience did not labour to wade through his quotations to find one pearl or gem worthy of the subject matter. The topic was grand and engaging, even though distinctly Obidient; but unfortunately, Chief Obasanjo lacked the depth of understanding and rich background to explicate the subject. Forget about his person or his style as military head of state and elected president, his treatment of leadership failure was simply far too superficial to attribute to anyone who had ruled Nigeria for a cumulative period of about 11 years, the longest of any past Nigerian ruler. His ideas on leadership have not changed one jot for the better over the years; instead they have worsened, aggravated by comparisons with his successors and predecessors, and weakened by a stubborn refusal to be introspective or learn from past great leaders. Unable to really diagnose the problem, he quickly transitioned to his suggested remedies. But here too he fell on his sword.

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    Perhaps his instincts tell him what his audience wanted to hear, and he was not one loth to serve them the menu they craved. To tackle leadership failure, the first thing he recommended was strengthening democracy, without resolving the conundrum of which comes first, the chicken or the egg. His previous analyses of democracy ended in his suggestion that Nigeria should develop a homegrown democratic model, again without elucidating on both its rubric. So, how does a country strengthen a democracy it does not know? And, worse, how does a country tinker with or restructure a democracy whose model it has not settled on? And if homegrown, what are its component parts and its anchors? The French Fifth Republic, the American 1789 constitution, the Chinese reforms begun after the death of Mao Zedong and the castration of the Gang of Four? At Yale, Chief Obasanjo did not structure his ideas, but merely clamoured against the 2023 elections for being a ‘travesty by all rational measures’. He allowed his private longings and sanctimonious disregard for facts to get in the way. He equated his unfulfilled but visceral preference for Peter Obi’s Labour Party (LP) candidacy with the weakening of democracy.

    Quoting the Pew Research Center, The Carnegie Foundation, and the Electoral Knowledge Network, he identified three planks upon which to strengthen democracy, to wit, legal, administrative, and political. Flowing from these planks, he advocated the wholesale dismantling of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), insisting that the agency was the fulcrum of democracy. To achieve this radical goal, he offered nothing substantial or rigorous other than the trite counsel about finding men and women of integrity. Had he been consistent with his homegrown democracy idea, which he nevertheless failed to concretise, he would have achieved a little bit of profundity and contributed to knowledge. It was clear he blamed INEC for the loss of his dear candidate, Mr Obi, but offered no rational or legal basis for coming to that unguarded conclusion. How he expected a largely unphilosophical, regional and religiously divisive party to win the last presidential election is extremely difficult to understand. And for a man who had ruled Nigeria for so long, he was shockingly unable to appreciate the legal reasoning that validated the disputed February 2023 poll. Indeed, moments later in his keynote address, he was to excoriate the judiciary for his unfulfilled dreams.

    On the subhead of ‘rebuilding the judiciary’, Chief Obasanjo was withering, theoretical and even facetious. “The Judiciary in Nigeria is a very pale version of its once internationally esteemed self,” he began magisterially. “Politicians after rigging elections openly ask their rivals to ‘go to court’ in Nigeria because they are aware that they have completely compromised the Judiciary system. A number of Judges are in the pockets of wealthy politicians and individuals and make judgements – not based on the law of the land but to the highest bidder. This, my learned audience, is one of the most effective strategies of State Capture – discussed next – that must be excised from Nigeria like a surgeon cutting out a malignant cancer.” His pet LP, not to say the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), his former political party which he disassembled by his undisciplined approach to politics and governance, won some cases in court. But as long as his preferred party and candidate lost the grand prize, and regardless of the logic of the justices, the judiciary was hopeless.

    He rounded up his lecture with a short dissertation on state capture, but managed paradoxically to make his analysis sound like his governing manual during his three terms in office. He could of course not resist a kick to the groin of his old nemesis, President Bola Tinubu, whom he described as the quintessential proponent of state capture; but by personalising and vulgarising his analysis, he undermined the integrity of his address, reflected the poverty of his worldview, was condescending to his audience, and ended up playing almost entirely to the gallery. Mercifully he did not travel in person to Yale. It would have been a sheer waste of money and time to have had to travel over such a huge distance to deliver an unglamorous and commonplace address.