The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Alakija @ 90; Hail the common person

    Alakija @ 90; Hail the common person

    A very happy birthday to Mr Ogie Alakija @90. He is indeed a man of many positive  parts and role model roles including being a lifelong dedicated sportsman and sports supporter, international cricketer and captain in 1967, squash player, trustee of Ibadan Recreation Club, astute businessman in construction and other industries, founder of Durante, quiet but generous philanthropist, and a pillar of moral and financial support for NGOs including Educare Trust – a 31-year-old health and education NGO which has impacted on millions of youth and adults. As chairman, Educare Trust, he was instrumental in the completion of the upper floor of the Educare Trust Youth Centre building. We wish him peace and good health.

    As we wake and sleep each day, we are restless at the unnecessary burdens we carry as Fellow Nigerians in and outside our country still struggling to become a nation. We cannot ignore a single one of the tens of thousands of citizens have been murdered simply for living in their communities with approximately 5-10million actually displaced or relocating to safer areas in the last 10 years. They deserve a monument with their names carved in stone.

     There should be another monument to the tens of thousands of Fellow Nigerians who are dead or deprived of limbs and livelihoods by the Okada epidemic, an unfortunate political solution to a mass transit problem in which high speed irresponsible, untrained and unchecked youth, some on drugs and alcohol, all full of the unbridled exuberance, arrogance and the unfounded invincibility of unchecked youth, carry the population at high speed, breaking every highway code rule. Their ‘I am king of the road’ attitude has led to crashes resulting in death and grievous bodily harm.

    Millions are diseased or deceased or disappointed in inadequate health facilities as persistent poor sanitation and inadequate water supply, primitive waste and faecal disposal allow typhoid, malaria and cholera to torment communities. Millions of youth in and out of the struggling school system struggle to become something useful to themselves and their families and their country in poor ill-equipped education structures using a slow to adapt, difficult to change, out of date curriculum, now to be manned by education graduates recruited from graduates of teacher training institutions with a new abysmally low cut off of 100 for entrance when the best are used elsewhere in the world to teach their own Generation Next.

    Why are all these happening in our time?

    We must never forget the cunning scheming and government complicity and criminality of officials and private individuals in our past even if we forgive and refuse to prosecute those responsible for the pit dug for Fellow Nigerians by serial and irresponsible military and civilian governance defects and cross-party elite perpetrators. And now the same political people are gathering again. Did they go to remedial school, learnt lessons, apologise for their past activities which caused ‘Nigeria’s failure to thrive’? 

    The depth of the deceit and extent of the multi-year crisis is best exemplified by the huge number of EFCC, ICPC and Police enquires and court cases amounting to trillions of naira. Remember that being freed by courts on technicalities, verdict summersaults and gymnastics and media mischief does not mean innocence. The accused must be morally innocent, not just inability to prove guilt. We should adopt the French court system where you should prove your innocence.

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     It is not the common man or woman who deserves condemnation for Nigeria’s predicament though politicians are quick to point to the demands made on them by the common man as a reason for the politicians’ demand for the humongous Salaries and Perks sucking Nigeria dry.

    The real citizens of Nigeria are the backbone, not the political class.  The millions of farmers and families, the millions of market women clogging markets from predawn to post dark, the tsunami of citizenry flooding Nigerian towns and cities every single weekday, the masses of youth trooping to and from school daily during term constitute the backbone of Nigerian survival against the onslaught by the greedy politicians on the funds available to make Nigeria great. Politicians make themselves great at our expense. 

    Indeed, most Nigerians deserve national honours for carrying the nearly dead country on their heads, toiling day and night while politicians played extreme politics with the economy. When will this change?

    The only benefit Nigerians received was relatively cheap fuel. We are still struggling with colonial levels of power supply. Our huge fuel consumption as a nation was driven by a transfer of dependence on power supply from the national grid to the generator which is now the ‘Noisy Power Heartbeat of Nigeria’. No country can be economically competent if it relies on each household, service or business generating its own power.  Hopefully the six development zones will address this.

    There is corruption in all countries, but it does not strangle the citizenry, forcing them to grovel before arrogant civil servants and politicians who are competent in corruption but not in service delivery.

    We had low corruption in the beginning but the political, contractor, civil service cartels taught how to smuggle fuel, roundtrip fuel and dollars, pad budgets and dodge prosecution with playacting illness in court.

     Natasha, love her or hate her, showed up NASS members by the outstanding quality and quantity of her empowerment projects delivered by her even before the fracas.

    Copy the good in others please.

  • The Northern question again: Facts unknown or ignored

    The Northern question again: Facts unknown or ignored

    Early in the colonial period, Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria were administered as two separate colonial territories under British control. However, right from inception, the North had posed serious problems to the British government. Chief among the problems was economic—the territory was being run at a budget deficit. The Northern Protectorate was also an administrative nightmare. According to colonial records at the time, the Northern protectorate was “predominantly Muslim and animist”, whereas the Southern protectorate was largely Christian and aggressively “westernizing”. The early adoption of Western education produced surplus personnel to assist the colonial administration. That was not the case in the North, where Western education was resisted. The colonial government also wanted better ways of moving people and goods across the two protectorates.

    The colonial government’s solution to these economic, administrative, and commercial problems was the infamous amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates of 1914. The merger allowed the colonial administration to use the budget and personnel surpluses from the South to run the two territories together. But the Northern problems persisted.

    This was particularly evident in the education sector. The resistance to Western education persisted so much so that, on the eve of independence in 1959, less than ten secondary schools were located in the entire North, whereas about 150 were already functioning or taking off in the South.

    One whole century plus eleven years later, the Northern question remains the Nigerian problem. This is manifested today in many ways, four of which are paramount and interrelated.

    First, the legendary educational underachievement of the North persists. True, there are now many highly educated Northerners, but the North lags seriously behind the South in literacy rate. One distinctive feature of education in the North is its limitation to the children of the elite in their bid to reproduce themselves in power. In the colonial and early postcolonial periods, the children of the elite predominated in the few secondary schools in the North, such as Barewa College in Zaria. Today, the elite outsource the education of their children to foreign institutions in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. The vast majority of the talakawa are left largely uneducated.

    Today, none of the 19 states in the North has attained 50 percent literacy rate, whereas all Southern states are beyond 50 percent. For example, according to the latest UNESCO data, the top three Northern states and their percentage literacy rates are Kwara (49.3); Kano (48.9); and Plateau (46.6), while the bottom three are Taraba (23.3); (Katsina (21.7); and Borno (14.5). However, on the other hand, the top three Southern states are Lagos (92.1); Ekiti (80.0); and Ondo (75.1), while the bottom three are Bayelsa (62.0); Ebonyi (53.0); and Imo (53.2). On the whole, the average literacy rate across the North is 34 percent, whereas the average literacy rate across the South is 68 percent.

    Poverty is the second major drawback for the North. The World Poverty Clock currently has Nigeria at 71 percent poverty level. The bulk of the poverty burden is borne by the North. As with high illiteracy, poverty is at its highest level in the region. According to World Bank and NBS data, the North accounts for 87 percent of Nigeria’s overall poverty level, whereas the lowest poverty rates are to be found in the South. Poverty is so pervasive in the North that as many as nine states have poverty levels in the nineties!

    The third burden the North has made Nigeria carry is insecurity. Boko Haram, banditry, kidnapping, cattle rustling, and other violent crimes are rooted in the North and continue to draw the North and the rest of the country back. As President Bola Ahmed Tinubu indicated on Monday, June 24, 2024, some of the conflicts underlying insecurity in the region are rooted in “historical injustices” that have torn communities apart. Others are rooted in religious fanaticism, mass illiteracy, and hunger.

    What is really mystifying about insecurity in the North is that the region has produced two Presidents (Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, 2007-2010 and Muhammadu Buhari, 2015-2023), both from Katsina state. Their state and region remain largely illiterate, poor, and insecure. Since he became President in 2023, Tinubu has focused on insecurity in the region, by repeatedly drawing attention to the problem and by deploying resources and homegrown personnel to the region. Thus, the Chief of Defence Staff, the Defence Minister, the Minister of State for Defence, the National Security Adviser, the Vice President, and more are all from the North. Besides, all the Governors of the 19 Northern states are all from the region. Moreover, as many as ten Northerners have been Prime Minister, Head of State, or President for a total of 44 years since Nigeria became a republic in 1963, whereas only four Southerners have occupied any of the positions for a paltry total of about 18 years.

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    A fourth major problem confronting the North is malnutrition, leading to stunted development among children and women of childbearing age. Malnutrition has been a lingering problem in the region. That is why there are many Northerners, including children, begging for sustenance on the streets across the country. Yet, most Ministers of Agriculture and Health have come from the North since independence. Today, UNICEF’s data point to Nigeria as home to the second highest burden of stunted children worldwide. The North carries the brunt of this burden. For example, according to the FAO, as many as 3.7 million children are malnourished in the three contiguous states of Yobe, Borno, and Adamawa alone. Borno is Vice President Shettima’s state and Adamawa Atiku’s.

    The conjunctive implications of these problems in a single region could be overwhelming. Illiteracy limits employment opportunities. Insurgency feeds on illiteracy, poverty, and unemployment for recruitment. Rampant insecurity hampers farming and food security, which further deepens the poverty level. To be sure, there are a few factories here and there in the North and the region continues to supply some foodstuffs to the South, but the region still depends largely on resources from the South, distributed as federal allocations. At the end of the day, the North is still a huge burden on Nigeria, recalling the economic burden on the colonial government, which led to the amalgamation of the North with the South in 1914.

    It is unfortunate that Northern leaders are now crying wolf and shifting blame, when they allowed the wolf to fester and grow. This is particularly true of their state Governors, who are the Chief Security Officers of their states. It is a shame that, instead of focusing on the problems of education, poverty, insecurity, and malnutrition in their states, Northern leaders have been busy chasing power, complaining of this and that every election cycle. Their recent complaints about the Tinubu Administration fall flat in the face of the facts (see, for example, Sam Omatseye, Who loves the North?, The Nation, August 18, 2025). What is striking about Northern leaders’ complaints is the neglect of the problems outlined above, which have been plaguing the region before Tinubu came to power.

    Our elders say that you do not count the number of fingers of a nine-fingered person to his or her face. However, if a section of the country continues to lag the rest of the country for over a century, it is high time the problems were highlighted for their historical depth and persistent neglect.

    •An earlier version of this article was published on June 26, 2024

  • Refining NNPCL fraud

    Refining NNPCL fraud

    A popular definition of insanity arguably attributed to Albert Einstein is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. While in law, insanity exculpates an offender from criminal responsibility since the defender is deemed to be afflicted by severe mental illness at the time of committing the crime. The insanity referred to in this piece, is that of the popular highway. So, could it be that Nigerian leaders are afflicted by insanity, for repeatedly plunging billions of dollars to turn around the moribund NNPCL refineries?

    The last leader afflicted was former president, Muhammadu Buhari, who approved nearly $3 billion for the turnaround maintenance of the NNPCL refineries at Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna. A report by Punch indicates that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is probing the sum of $1,559,084.36 allocated to the Port Harcourt refinery, $740,669,600 spent on Kaduna refinery and the $656,963,939 earmarked for the Warri refinery. Despite the humongous resources expended, the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries barely worked, while Kaduna is still in works.

    President Buhari was not the first to engage in turnaround maintenance of the refineries in recent times.  While the first Port Harcourt refinery was commissioned in 1965, the second one was commissioned in 1989. On its part, the Kaduna refinery was commissioned in 1980, while the Warri refinery was commissioned earlier, in 1978. The refineries which were operating optimally years after commissioning started having challenges, when corruption and politics overwhelmed the turnaround maintenance programs in the 1990s.

    The challenge reportedly arose when the military government of President Ibrahim Babangida, ordered NNPC to transfer its account to the Central Bank of Nigeria. With that, NNPC lost its autonomy, and political interference determined who does the turnaround maintenance, and the release of funds for such technical works. Again, political actors were in position to determine when to do the turnaround maintenance. Available statistics shows that the capacity utilization of the 445,000 capacity refineries plummeted to abysmally low levels following the poor maintenance of the refineries.

    Because of such interference, the turnaround maintenance which ordinarily should be between two to three years, happened only when the political actors wished, or after the refinery has completely packed up, for lack of maintenance.

    After failed turnaround maintenance efforts by the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the majority shares in the refineries were sold to a consortium of Nigeria businessmen, led by Aliko Dangote. The special purpose vehicle known as the Blue Star consortium on May 17, 2007, paid $561 million for 51 percent stake in the Port Harcourt refinery and $160 million for 51 percent stake in Kaduna refinery. Obasanjo sold despite protests by the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN). 

    President Musa Yar’Adua who succeeded President Obasanjo wasted no time in cancelling the sale to the popular acclaim of many Nigerians. The civil society groups which alleged that Obasanjo had hidden stakes in the consortium were over the moon that nemesis had caught up with the former president, despite the fact that he handpicked his predecessor. Obasanjo vehemently protested the cancellation, imploring his successor not to succumb to blackmail, since he had done due diligence, before concluding that the refineries were irredeemable in the hands of NNPC.

    The government of Yar’Adua, which was succeeded by President Goodluck Jonathan following the former’s ill-health and death went ahead to spend $396 million in turnaround maintenance of the refineries between 2013 and 2015. President Jonathan, whose government was dismissed as clueless, was succeeded by President Muhammadu Buhari, a former Federal Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural Resources under Gen. Obasanjo’s military government. With a reputation as a no-nonsense former military leader, his promise that the refineries would finally be turned around was taken to the bank by many of his admirers.

    According to media reports which prompted this piece, nearly $3 billion was spent on that mother of all turnarounds. Yet, as my people will say, that thing crying, is still crying. After spending $1.5 billion on turnaround maintenance of the Port Harcourt refinery, the NNPC shut down the plant in May, barely six months after the turnaround, which happened after several years of abandonment. There is no verifiable news whether the so called ‘planned maintenance’ estimated to last one month has ended.

    The Kaduna refinery is reportedly still a work in progress, while the Warri Refinery which started after the turnaround, was shut down over safety concerns in May. There are however conflicting reports as to whether it has restarted again. Instead of exciting results after the humongous expenses, what we are getting is that the EFCC has busted scams committed by the sacked senior officials in the name of the turnaround maintenance. The commission is reported to have recovered N5 billion and $10 million from contractors and government officials.

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    The news report indicates that the commission was working to recover another N10 billion and $13 million linked to bloated contracts by the erstwhile officials. One hopes the economic tragedy associated with the corruption spangled turnaround maintenance of the NNPC refineries would end with the new Board painstakingly assembled by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.  The team inaugurated on April 2, is headed by Engineer Bashir Bayo Ojulari as Group CEO and Ahmadu Musa Kida as non-executive chairman. The two major actors had stellar experiences under multi-nationals in the oil industry, and one hopes that would come to play in the slippery terrain of corruption in NNPC.

    Nigerians wait to see, how they would deal with the monster of corruption that turnaround maintenance constitutes in NNPC. Will they like their predecessors give Nigeria the false hope that the refineries would be up and running once billions of dollars are budgeted for their maintenance? Or will they show courage and slay the monster that has caused Nigeria several billions of dollars with nothing to show for it.

    Between 1995 to 2020, Business Day newspaper estimates that about $25 billion has been spent on turnaround maintenance of the three refineries in Nigeria. To compound the near worthlessness of our refineries now, the man who led the Blue Star consortium to pay for the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries in 2007, has gone ahead to build a private 650,00 barrels per day capacity refinery at a total cost of $19 billion.

    This column has confidence in the competence of President Tinubu to understand and analyse the challenges facing the NNPC refineries. As a political leader, the challenge will be what he will make of the contending monster of political factors which many times trump sane economic decisions. Will the oil industry trade unions, the National Assembly and the presidency, show courage, and slay the monster of corruption that the NNPC refineries have become?

  • Canada and Nigeria’s wayward children

    Canada and Nigeria’s wayward children

    In a country where many would not hesitate to sell their country for a morsel of bread, the case of Nigeria’s Douglas Egharevba, whose asylum petition was rejected by the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), would ordinarily have numbered among the unlucky dip from the pool of those known to have filed baseless claims of ‘persecution’ and ‘primitive cultural practices’ against our beloved country. 

    However, with the Federal Court in Canada upholding an earlier decision of Canadian Immigration Appeal Division (IAD), which had earlier on denied him asylum, our dear country seems to have arrived at the point where the harvest of daily indiscretions by errant nationals have finally berthed in kind of judicial monstrosity that would not have been associated with so-called developed countries at normal times.

    I refer here to the ratio decidendi advanced by the court for the decision.

    First, the court found issue with Egharevba’s membership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Peoples Congress (APC) (sic). Second, it agreed with the IAD that the PDP in particular, engaged in conduct amounting to terrorism and subversion of democratic institutions. And third, that the PDP were perpetrators of political violence, intimidation, and subversion and were protected being the governing party in power during the elections.

    The PDP, it also averred, conducted unlawful acts such as ballot-stuffing, ballot box snatching, intimidation, violence, and murder of opposition supporters and candidates in the elections, and that the party had knowledge of the crimes committed by members and supporters but apparently did nothing to discipline its members or discourage violent and subversive practices, noting that the use of political violence was a long-standing feature of the PDP!

    And finally, that the rank and file of the PDP, to which the petitioner had admitted to its membership, was vicariously liable for the violence and subversion of Nigeria’s process, thus rendering the applicant inadmissible in Canada!

    Nigerians, understandably have been fulminating against this novelty of a trial under which a political party that was not even remotely a nominal party was found guilty of terrorism and subversion and those deemed to have associated with it condemned to suffer its dire consequences, and this in immigration proceedings!

    “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”; so says the holy writ.

    Like many of our compatriots, our dear national may have in the moment of a desperate struggle escape Nigeria’s Titanic thought little of the dire consequences of munching sour grapes. Now, his teeth and perhaps those of the rest of us are condemned to the edge!

    For a story that began nearly eight years ago, the judgment must have come as dramatic, unwanted, if not entirely unimaginable, twist.

    It began in September 2017, when our man, Douglas Egharevba, filed an inland refugee claim. The Background Declaration Form which he completed had stated that he was a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from December 1999 until December 2007. He claimed to have ported, thereafter to the All People’s Congress [APC] in December 2007 and remained in the party till May 2017.

    (Note that the APC was never at any time known as All People’s Congress but All Progressives Congress; in any case, the party was not formed in 2007 when the applicant was said to have joined but in 2013). 

    Anyway, he was referred to a Canadian Border Services Agency [CBSA] to determine his admissibility to Canada. A year later, in September 2018, he would make his appearance before a CBSA officer. Although the official would in January 2019, declare him inadmissible to Canada on the grounds of being a member of PDP, an organization which in the opinion of the immigration official, had engaged in ‘acts of subversion against a democratic government, institution, or process and engaged in terrorism, based on his earlier affirmation of membership of the PDP’, the Immigration Division [ID] would, nonetheless determine that the applicant, Egharevba, was not subject to inadmissibility under the relevant provisions of the Canadian law.

    That reprieve turned out to be temporary. Canada’s Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness immediately took the matter to the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD). In the end, the ID decision was overturned.

    Next, Egharevba turned to the court for judicial review. Well, it came on June 17, when Canada’s Justice Phuong T.V. Ngo affirmed the judgment of the (IAD). Notably, the judge also found Egharevba’s membership of the PDP alone as sufficient to make him inadmissible to Canada under paragraph 34(1)(f) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) – in what could arguably be the most expansive, if not egregious rendition of the doctrine of vicarious responsibility in modern jurisprudence. 

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    Like most Nigerians, I join in the outrage on the simple ground that the law needed not be an ass as the Canadian court would have us accept. And just like one commentator noted, the decision wasn’t just an immigration one; it was in every sense a political one, very pregnant, with the consequences so dire that the Nigerian government will do good to pay attention. Yet, to the extent that the judgment purports to put the entire political system to trial, the pronouncements, with all due respect, smacks of a jurisdictional overreach.

    The other equally troubling part of the judgment is the imputation of guilt by mere association and this in the absence of any specific charge, particularly against the applicant in the aftermath of the court already deeming the PDP’s sins as treasonable and so, unforgiveable. It explains why the Canadian court would cite a specious interpretation of ‘terrorism’ and ‘violence’ to validate what could only be a strange decision. That is absolutely unnecessary. Surely, the Canadians can make their immigration decisions without pulling the roofs over the heads on everyone or as in this particular case, (mis)appropriating the frustrations of the citizens with the electoral process for purposes that are not entirely altruistic. It is neither helpful nor right.

    For while the Nigeria’s electoral system is certainly far from perfect, its greatest critics are by far Nigerians themselves.

    This takes us to the deeper question of how Nigerians, caught in the vortex of immigration challenges, would not hesitate to throw their country under the bus. Surely, the Egharevba story is only one out of many. As it is, the real story behind the movement from the PDP to APC only to end up as fodder for an asylum bid in faraway Canada will most likely remain untold. So it is for other countless asylum applicants known to have sought asylum for variety of reasons ranging from female genital mutilation (circumcision) even where the cultural practice no longer exist, to the Boko Haram insurgency even when those filing the claims have never in their lives crossed to the other side of River Niger! In all of these, the end is supposed to justify the means.

     Thanks to the global strongman, Donald J. Trump, assumptions about immigration are fast-changing as the myths that have sustained them have been whittling. Across the globe, things are no longer at ease. For while the grass may be greener outside, the pathway to that other side has continued to narrow.

    For the Canadian court, the terrorism tag on the PDP goes beyond a ratio decidendi of convenience; more like a symbolic invitation for Nigerians to take note. 

  • Rude staff, wild clients

    Rude staff, wild clients

    Rude operators, wild patrons — that about captured the August 5 and 10 hurly-burly on the aviation front.  In that uppity travel sector, there’s no saint across the aisle.

    Which must have forced Festus Keyamo, SAN, Aviation and Aerospace Development minister, to wave the white flag of no victor, no vanquished; and shut down the ugly saga. 

    Smart or dumb? The jury is still out!

    Still, even the most critical of Keyamo’s intervention would admit this one: but for his neat resolution, that gripping plot — from KWAM 1’s brash suicide bid of August 5, to Comfort Emmanson’s inelegant brawl of August 10 — was set for another drawn-out rumpus, on which emotional scammers had perched. 

    But Keyamo imposed his white-flag denouement, and a hot dispute sizzled into a final angry — if reluctant — hiss!

    Indeed, Keyamo’s quick thinking seems reminiscent of the Biblical Solomon and the two harlots.  Solomon won the first of his wisdom stripes, with two feuding harlots and two babies; one dead, the other alive. 

    The harlot that crushed her baby in reckless sleep wanted the living baby cut in equal halves — as King Solomon had baited.  But the compassion in the other, whose baby lived, would hear none of that crass infanticide.

    Solomon the Wise spotted a cynical and malicious campaign. Pronto, he awarded the baby to the rightful mother; and told her spiteful rival to go bury hers.  Case closed!

    By the Solomon (sorry, Keyamo!) “judgment”, KWAM 1, that — horror of horrors! — stood before a taxiing ValueJet plane, to block it from take-off, became the ValueJet Ambassador on Tarmac Security.

    Emmanson, fierce “Taekwando” Queen, that screamed, punched, kicked and slapped, to resist arrest for alleged violent in-flight misconduct, on board Ibom Air Uyo-Lagos flight, became the Ibom Air Ambassador on Good Cabin Conduct.

    Cynical wisdom, ala Keyamo?  Maybe!

    But it took Keyamo, like King Solomon schooling the two harlots on basic psychology, to spit it out: their excellencies, the “Ambassadors”, were tagged with each offended airline, to serve as community penance: to self-rebuke for their earlier faults! And neither perk nor pay for that service — more of elegant servitude!

    Might we then say Keyamo read well our fractious and infantile polity, with supposed adults ever-ready to play the child, to have one over the other foe, real or imagined?

    It was clear, had the kerfuffle drawn on, not a few had primed themselves to grind political capital from this twin-affront: of baiting airline staff and bawling passengers.

    The ever-droning Peter Obi, for one, unfazed master of populist inanity, had already blared on X: “The poor must not be punished while the powerful walk free”.

    That already insinuated some close cabal cruelly stewing Emmanson for her violent behaviour, but senerading KWAM 1 for something no less outrageous.  Yet, there was no solid evidence: other than KWAM 1 being the informal presidential palace bard; and the president, in Obi-speak, must cover up his own, evidence or no evidence!

    In fairness to Obi though, the context of the tweet was much more conciliatory, if mischief can cohabit with genuine conciliation.  But had he resisted his penchant to rush to comment before thinking things through, he would have realized the Keyamo intervention was along the lines he suggested. 

    But you bet! Some Obidient zealots would crow: but for Obi, Keyamo wouldn’t have resolved the crisis as he wisely did.  Such populist fiction gifts Obi political oxygen!

    Then, Oby Ezekwesili, the famed Madam Due Process of the non-due process Olusegun Obasanjo presidential era, also weighed in, with tad any due process!

    Bawling “double standards” and galloping into the fray like some furious moral sheriff, she painted KWAM 1 as the unconscionable giant; and Emmanson, the helpless dwarf, in Nigeria’s evil system, which Angel Oby must smash, with the “99%” Nigerians under peonage; versus the “one percent” ruling class, insufferable and irredeemable!

    What drama!  But it was built on nothing but conspiracy theories powered by frothy emotions and bubbly mischief.  Still, Oby’s melodrama took a brief back seat with her admission that the young woman’s “behaviour also raised concerns”!

    That’s the point, though.  Emmanson’s landing in Kirikiri was on her: her own violent conduct, openly seen by all, though hardly anyone saw the cabin crew provocation that elicited that temporary insanity.

    But like Obi, it’s Oby’s recent penchant too to — without due process! — jump into matters, in her hot ardour to play the moral police.  First, it was the Anambra teen that forged JAMB results to claim she had a stellar outing. 

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    Then, the Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan Senate saga, into which Oby jumped, decreed the guilty party — even with the first court verdict finding against her feminist hauteur.   Yet, she goes on with laughable bluff. It’s that huff and bluff she has taken to this case.

    No tears for both KWAM 1 and Emmanson, though.  Both had it coming.

    What the hell was KWAM 1 thinking, planting himself before a moving plane?  Did he think the fearsome Ijebu “jazz” — as the Igbo call it — would save him from wilful suicide? 

    Or as a mischievous fellow gruffed: was it the “Abobaku” complex in him, now that his Awujale of 65 years just passed?  If KWAM 1 by this has become a butt of cruel, rib-cracking jokes, he had it coming!

    Still, between KWAM 1 and Comfort Emmanson, whose violent conduct was no comfort to her case, there were clear differences — as everyone saw.

    The worst that could have happened to KWAM 1 was self-perdition, though it could also have blighted the plane pilots; caused passenger trauma, and fetched the airline  a huge bad press.  That explained the temporary suspension of the ValueJet pilots.

    But Ms Emmanson’s rabid violence was a disgrace to womanhood.  Even more rebuke was her reflex ire, knowing her dressing was, ab initio, compromised.  Lo!  How would a bra-less girl get into a graceless scuffle, yet moan and cry at the horrible result?

    That feral aggression, un-lady-like as it was stunning, railroaded her to Kirikiri, not some fictive class divide.  Her indecent exposure too, regrettable as that was, issued from her incomplete dressing.  Yet, had she stayed calm, the struggle to bundle her out of the cabin wouldn’t have arisen.

    Good thing Emmanson was reported to have shown open remorse, at the dock, when the chips were down.  Our Comfort should take great comfort from that, learn true lady-like restraint, and shun these hypocritical voices trying to goad her further astray.

    Still, three incidents: the Adam Oshiomhole showdown with Air Peace, KWAM 1 scuffle with ValueJet and the Emmerson rumble with Ibom Air, have shown a trend: the airlines, though they charge a leg and an arm, almost always treat their long-suffering patrons with scorn and infuriating condescension.

    For the growth of Nigerian domestic aviation, that should not be allowed to continue.  That dovetails into another wise Keyamo call: industry-wide retreat to retool and re-school these air staff in handling tacky air customers.

  • Remembering our doyenne

    Remembering our doyenne

    Twenty-two analogue years ago, on February 1, 2003, or thereabouts, I wrote for one of the newspapers a piece welcoming Dr Hamidat Doyinsola Abiola (HDA, hereafter) to my demographic neighbourhood on her 60th birthday, little knowing that she had actually preceded me to the precinct.

    When she turned 80 some three years ago, her status as the doyenne of the Nigerian Press (I use that old-fashioned term advisedly) was affirmed by President Muhammadu Buhari in a stirring birthday tribute.  Asiwaju Bola and Senator Remi Tinubu called her a valued friend and associate in advancing progressive causes. Dele Alake and Tunji Bello, who had served under her as editors for the Concord newspapers, called her, reverentially, “our Editor-in-Chief.”

    It is in the latter category that HDA’s renown will reverberate down the ages.

    Her last address was the sprawling Concord Newspaper Group where she presided as Editor-in-Chief and chief operating officer.  At its height, the Group boasted six titles in its stable, and had on its staff some of the best-known Nigerian journalists. 

    In its reach and efficiency, its distribution network was unsurpassed.  If just one newspaper was on the newsstand in the most far-flung corners of Nigeria on any given day, it had to be one of the Group’s titles.

    In a male-dominated industry, leading such a conglomerate was no mean task.  But HDA played that role for years and carried along a team comprising members of perhaps the most querulous occupational group in Nigeria.

    It helped that she was the wife of Concord publisher, Chief Moshood Abiola, but it took much more than that to stay at the top of the game.  HDA did not just walk into the role. Long years of academic and professional immersion had prepared her for it.

    Graduating from the University of Ibadan in the 1960s, HDA entered journalism as a writer and columnist for the Daily Sketch, in Ibadan.  From there she went on to the Daily Times as part of the pioneering graduate team that its visionary leader, Babatunde Jose, had recruited to raise its intellectual appeal to match the appetite of an audience that had grown much more sophisticated than the leading newspaper of the day.

    It was in keeping with that programme that the Daily Times sponsored HDA for doctoral studies at the State University of New York, in Buffalo, in upstate New York.  Before that, she had earned a Master’s degree from the highly regarded journalism programme at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, Wisconsin.

    With the communication doctorate under her belt, the first by a Nigerian woman, she returned to Nigeria and served on the Editorial Board of the Daily Times, which Dr Stanley Macebuh had transformed from a routine expedient to the newspaper’s cranium.

    Then, Moshood Abiola and the Concord Newspapers happened, in the aftermath of the 1979 General Elections.  HDA relocated uptown from Kakawa, to Ikeja, the operating base of the Concord Group, shortly thereafter becoming editor of its flagship title, The National Concord.

    The Concord Group unapologetically pulled for President Shehu Shagari and the ruling NPN, despite their unpopularity in places where Nigeria’s core newspaper readership resided.  Abiola’s endorsement of sharia grated against the sensibilities of Christians, leading some church officials to order a boycott of the Concord titles. 

    Moshood Abiola was also widely regarded as an apologist for the military regime. That did little to enhance the standing of the Concord titles.

    Through it all, HDA kept the newspapers in a stable, holding pattern. She came into her own when Moshood Abiola severed his links with the ruling party and became a less strident proselytizer.  The Concord newspapers grew in appeal and respect.

    A far greater challenge lay ahead.

    It came when Moshood Abiola entered the 1993 presidential race and won the presidential ticket of one of the two officially recognized political parties, the Social Democratic Party, SDP.

    Like the rest of the private press, the Concord newspapers saw through the duplicity of Babangida’s political transition programme and took a leading role in exposing it.  The regime exacted a heavy price.  A banning order put its weekly newsmagazine African Concord out of circulation permanently.

    The Concord titles were handed a separate banning order along with The Guardian and the Punch during the debacle confected to prevent Moshood Abiola from being declared winner of the 1993 presidential election.  When the ban was lifted after a year, the operating climate had become unsustainable.  The Concord titles limped on for a while, shadows of what they once were.  Then, they expired.

    Abiola’s struggle to claim his electoral mandate thrust HDA into a role for which nothing had prepared her:  spouse of an embattled president-elect fighting for his life under a brutal military regime, and editor-in-chief and chief operating officer of her husband’s mass-circulation newspaper.

    In the Abiola household, there was an unspoken but clear division of labour among the wives. Kudirat Abiola was the popular face of NADECO, the umbrella organization of progressive elements campaigning to retrieve Abiola’s mandate;  outgoing, outspoken, and defiant right up to the moment she was gunned down in broad daylight by government-sponsored assassins on her way to yet another strategy meeting on how to retrieve the June 12 mandate.

    The thoroughly apolitical and sedate but engaging Adebisi Abiola kept the home front humming.

    HDA was the intellectual face of the struggle, the discreet mobilizer who maintained and used effectively a network of influential persons in Nigeria and abroad.  She brought to this task acute political intelligence, a cosmopolitan outlook, a steely disposition, and mastery of the emerging communication technology. 

    At the height of the annulment crisis, she prepared — full disclosure: I assisted in the effort — a monthly newsletter on the political situation in Nigeria she sent to key officials of the United Nations, the United States, the Organization of African Unity, and the Commonwealth.  From the feedback, we were satisfied that the effort was not wasted.

    The June 12 struggle took a fearsome toll on HDA.  Kudirat’s assassination was a clear signal that nothing and nobody was off-limits in General Sani Abacha’s desperate plot to foist his brutish rule on the nation.  The regime’s officials kept her under suffocating surveillance.  They drew her into enervating mind games.

    Not long after Kudirat’s assassination, a bullet issuing from an undetermined origin would have struck HDA on the head right in her living room at the Abiola Residence in Opebi, had she not shifted her position some two minutes earlier.

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    The stakes were prohibitive.  HDA was as vulnerable as a sitting duck. Yet her resolve was unshaken.  She helped keep the struggle alive until the President-elect was done to death, very conveniently across the coffee table from a United States delegation visiting ostensibly to facilitate his release from the military regime’s custody.

    Nor did HDA confine her exertions to the Boardroom or political networking.  She imparted her knowledge, skills, and insights to journalism students at the University of Lagos, among other institutions.  She deployed her resources and her influence to promote worthy causes nationwide.  A generation of Nigerian women counted her as a role model.

    HDA’s sacrifice in the epic struggle for democracy has not been officially acknowledged, much less honoured.  Recognition has instead flowed to fringe actors, and even to some who did everything in their power to subvert the will of Nigeria’s sovereign electors.  Her entry into the eighth decade of her life provided an opportunity to redress this neglect.  They fluffed it.

    I feared that something was amiss when I heard nothing from her after my tribute on her 80th birthday, on which I drew for this piece, was published.  My anxiety deepened when my phone  calls to her Lagos and London coordinates went unanswered, time and again.  It was so unlike the punctilious doyenne, an embodiment of the social graces.

    Dr Hamidat Doyinsola Abiola died two weeks ago following a protracted illness, her life fulfilled and her place in Nigeria’s intellectual history assured.

    Hail and farewell.

    It remains for the Federal Government to honour her immense contributions to the struggle            for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria, the advancement of women’s rights and media professionalism, not forgetting her discreet philanthropy, with the posthumous conferment                                of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) or a higher distinction

    •Dare contributed this piece from Caledonia, Michigan, USA.

  • Protecting EFCC from ADC buccaneers

    Protecting EFCC from ADC buccaneers

    The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was established in 2003 as a law enforcement and anti-graft agency that investigates financial crimes and unknown transactions such as advanced fee fraud (419) and money laundering in response to pressure from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF). The EFCC was also set up to fight against corruption and protect the country from economic saboteurs.

    The body which appeared to be saddled with fighting antibiotic resistance disease nurtured and sustained by state policies, has faced as much threat from government as from economic saboteurs.  If you are in doubt, take a short trip back to the period Delta’s James Ibori seized the body as a pay-off for bankrolling  Umaru Yar’Adua’s  presidential election and chased Nuhu Ribadu out of office and town as a way of getting his pound of flesh  because Ribadu rejected his $14 m bribe.

    It is also on record that on July 7, 2020, Ibrahim Magu was suspended as EFCC’s chairman following Abubakar Malami panel’s report that found him guilty “for failing to properly account for N431,000,000 security votes/information fund released to his office. Two weeks later, Buhari’s Justice Ayo Salami’s investigative panel cleared Magu of all charges, accusing Attorney General Malami of involvement in a plot to discredit Magu.

    The body’s current helmsman like Ribadu and Magu before him has been described as one of our best. But he has in the last one week gone through great stress and strain. If an organization managed by our best has continued to experience technical glitches, isn’t it time to look at ourselves in the mirror?

    Those who want to keep us where we are often attribute our problem to weak institutions forgetting that long before the emergence of military adventurers, Western Region had what was regarded as the best bureaucracy in Africa and a disciplined political party that compared with any in Europe.

    The truth of the matter is that we have failed to protect our budding institutions from the caprices of the powerful military-baked new breed politicians that bred nothing but corruption since the end of the civil war.  It is of little relief that each of the leading lights of this wealth-chasing new breed politicians have a reckless medium that seems specifically set up to fight institutions of state  that need protection and nurturing.

    Efforts at  discrediting the EFCC and its current leadership in spite of his ongoing heroic exploits as they did to his trail-blazing predecessors started with the routine invitation of Senator Aminu Tambuwal, former two-term governor of Sokoto State.

    Suddenly, as if we have forgotten that Tambuwal is not different from other  “water has no enemy” politicians, who defied his party to get support of opposition to become speaker of the House of Representatives, sought refuge under the opposition when confronted with unapproved bank loan advance he took to pay lawmakers and now as a way of criticising the ruling party while posing as an angel says “once you join the APC, whatever your sins, they are forgiven.”

    While he was conveniently silent on the fact that he was questioned over alleged fraudulent cash withdrawals to the tune of N189billion which emanated from a probe of his administration by the current Sokoto government, he wants Nigerians to believe his travails stemmed from his decision “to stand by the people against Tinubu’s government”.

    Of course the handling of Tambuwal’s case by EFCC could have been done better. There are those who have argued that since the case probably started long before Tambuwal left office as governor, it ought not to have taken two years for EFCC to bring his case up. Tambuwal has also told us of his encounter with EFCC: “I told them to go back and tell the chairman of the EFCC that I am a former Speaker of the House of Representatives with an unblemished record, a two-term governor of Sokoto State, a serving senator, and a Commander of the Order of the Niger. I should be allowed to go on self-recognition”. I agree with him. He in my view is not likely going to jump bail.

    EFCC’s Ola Olukoyede may be right that “fraud is fraud. Corruption is corruption. There is no sacred cow, protected interest or partisan consideration in the investigation and prosecution of corruption” and that “available records in our courts show several political figures from all divides that are answering charges.”

    Olukoyede must realise that not many Nigerian are familiar with the details of his cases before the court. And with a smart politician like Tambuwal ignoring the log in his own eyes, which is the alleged “fraudulent cash withdrawals to the tune of N189billion” while diverting attention to “a certain former governor who defected to the APC with his state’s entire political machinery, the EFCC’s investigations into his administration have vanished from public view. Not a question has been asked. Not a document leaked. Not a single update. Yet the same EFCC still somehow find means to reopen old cases against opposition leaders …” can easily turn perception to reality.

    But do all this translate to witch hunting? I don’t think so. And to think Nigerians will swallow that type of mischief, Bolaji Abdulahi and Atiku Abubakar must have assumed Nigerians don’t see beyond their noses.

    I think the question that should agitate the minds of Nigerians is whether PDP stalwarts now in ADC robes have outstanding cases with EFCC. Tough talking Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC spokesman, a serial cross-carpeter, has not denied they do. His grouse was that EFCC was “excavating all their files from David Mark’s tenure as Senate President” and questioning, “The pattern of ignoring APC stalwarts with fresher and well-documented cases”.  Unfortunately, such diversionary tactics, I am sure, has left many informed Nigerians wondering if in spite of their new ADC protective armour, migrating PDP stalwarts are not being haunted by their past.

    For instance, the Punch of October 2, 2020 reported Imo governor, Hope Uzodimma of claiming he inherited systematic corruption from his predecessor, the sacked governor, Emeka Ihedioha. According to him, “Coming into office barely nine months ago, we encountered a microcosm of systemic corruption and disruption in the public sector. We met monumental payroll fraud in the system; we met a disoriented and disarticulated civil service and a very sorry state of infrastructural provisions.”

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    It is also from the Punch report of June 26, 2024 we now know that Nasir el Rufai, ex PDP, ex APC stalwart, who is currently taking refuge in ADC after he was thrown out by SDP, has dragged the Kaduna State House of Assembly to court over claims that his administration embezzled N432 billion and left the state with significant debt obligations. He was reacting to the Report of the Ad-Hoc Committee on Investigation of Loans, Financial Transactions, Contractual Liabilities and Other Related Matters of the Government of Kaduna State from 29 May 2015 to 29 May 2023, as ratified by the Kaduna State House of Assembly, which he said “was unconstitutional and violated his right to fair hearing as guaranteed under the constitution.”

    We  also now know that David Mark who has been in government  all his life, first  as chairman of  ‘Abandoned  properties Panel’, River State, Military Administrator of Niger State , senator from 1999 -2025 and senate president 2007 -2015 has been waging a silent battle with EFCC over his alleged  illegal purchase of his senate presidential mansion.

    Mark in April, 2011, purchased the property at a “reserved price” of N673,200,000 as against N748,000,000, the open market value according to the then Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Bala Mohammed.  The government, through Chief Okoi Obono-Obla’s Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property, gave the former senate president a 21-day notice to quit the mansion. He had accused him of illegally acquiring the property with the approval of former president, Goodluck Jonathan, despite that such property was excluded from the monetisation policy of the federal government.

    Mark, determined to hold on to the property, filed a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1037/2017 through his lawyer, Ken Ikonne, before the Federal High Court in Abuja, insisting that he legally acquired the property.

    And finally, unknown to many, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who accused President Bola Tinubu of “objectifying the fight against corruption as a political tool to coerce opposition leaders into the ruling party” has had a brush with EFCC. On December 21, 2020 Ikoyi High Court was told of how his lawyer, Uyiekpen Giwa Osagie laundered $2m through Atiku’s security guards

    It is apparent from the above that Bolaji Abdullahi and his fellow seasonal migrants who without abiding faith in anything, jump from one party to the other at every election season, understand the need for enduring institutions for a nation. And this is why we cannot afford to give them the pleasure of undermining the EFCC just as James Ibori and Abubakar Malami did before them.

  • Who loves the North?

    Who loves the North?

    When they are in the news, it is when they have beggarly bowls in hand, when they are hailing some errant elite with Ranka dede, thin, underfed boys under corpulent lords,  when they are recruited into a gang, when they glower over Ak-47s and lurk in shadows of death, when they riot, when they are hungry.

     The most important time when they are in the news is when they are not in the news.

     It is when the elite use them for leverage in boardrooms, gladhand in ballrooms, and navigate on the negotiating tables of politics.

    They are used as spoilers and spoils. Spoilers as battering rams of blackmail, to get things for the region. As spoils, when they get what they want like big allocations, appointments, and votes on the ballot box.

    It is because of these acts that men like Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) Chairman Bashir Dalhatu complain that the North is being neglected. I didn’t hear his voice in the eight years of the Buhari administration in such strident terms.

     He spoke not only like an ignorant man but also like an entitled man. I don’t know which persona is worse. His ignorance or his sense of entitlement.

    As an ignorant man, he is deficient in the senses of sight and touch. Maybe he has lost his capacity to read. If not, he would have known 50 percent of the federal allocation in the 2024-2025 budget was allocated to the North.

     He would have known that Gombe State secured a whopping N60 billion from the centre for farming alone. He would have read of the over two thousand tractors secured from Brazil for agriculture. As a northern chieftain, he should have acknowledged that the Northwest Development Commission gulped N585.9 billion, and North East counterpart shoulders N291 billion.

    He should have travelled to see with his eyes one of the biggest road projects ever in the North in progress from North east to Northwest, the Mararaban-Kankara-Katsina expressway, or the Kebbi-Badagry.

     He would have done better to use his eyes and also feel the North he represents, or claims to represent. He grieves over Lagos-Ibadan expressway that has been in construction for all of  a decade. And he will not celebrate those that are sprouting under his eyes. Let them see that have eyes. Amen.

     He should have heard BUA chief Abdul Samad Rabiu when he said the North for the first time is having the infrastructure to connect North to business. He should as the northern statesman asked the governors how they are working with the centre.

    Men like Dalhatu give ACF a bad name. People like him give the august body a partisan glue.

     He is a politician. He has been with politicians, and he is believed to be in league with Atiku.

     His claims about the north providing the victory in 2023 is self-serving. He did not contribute to the victory. He actually was against the president.

    He is like Babachir Lawal, who also may have confessed to losing his eyesight.

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     He cannot see what is going on in his region because he is too offended to see.

     Is it blind anger or anger blindness, or both? Babachir the boor, of the vulgar tongue. We should not have blind men in charge of sighted bodies. A man like Babachir, who fought the president because of the so-called Muslim-Muslim ticket, should not say anything. He is a false prophet who predicted woe for Christians. Now he cannot say anything except to whine for losing.

     It is the reporters who pay attention to him that I blame. The man, who cannot save his name from the dirt he put in office has the effrontery to bluster on governance? Why has he and his cohorts not raised questions in the North with the non-performing governors? A few are doing well, though.

    But Kwankwaso, who is confused , would visit the president today and afterward belch out his rhetoric of vanity and defiance. Why did he not raise his points with the president, or tell us whether he did?

    They confirm Farouq Aliyu’s assertion that the ACF is “an opposition group” under the spell of Atiku. They are errand boys of partisan sponsors. They burp with loquacity instead of speech.

     Men like Dalhatu want to corner appointments rather than progress for the North. As this essayist has noted, a Dalhatu should embrace the ministers from the North who cradle the positions dear to the northern heart, like defence and security, education, agriculture, health, livestock, etc.

     They are the hotspots of urgency, not portfolios often seen as juicy. When those so-called juicy posts went north, what was the accountability? They held those posts disconnected from the people, like outposts of decadence.

    We don’t want rhetoric of opportunism? We want men with rigour, not bigots of exploitation, not men like Dalhatu, who have spent a great part of their lives living on government largesse from appointment to appointment in the centre. Such men are not removed from politics.

     They pout tainted points of views.   

        They are official renegades posing as mainstream. Dalhatu tried to form a political party in the past and it went belly up. With such partisan failures, how can he lead a neutral organ?

    It is the almajiris and their sisters that suffer in the end. Elites recruit them as avengers of their private interests. This is nothing new in history. We saw this in Argentina, if a more gruesome story. After the Peronist years, a dictatorship crippled the South American country. The conservative military government rounded up so-called “enemies of state” and placed tens of thousands of them in detention where they were drugged, raped, killed. Many were tossed into the ocean alive. It was the era of the “disappeared.”

     The men and women were “disappeared” while their babies were kidnapped and given to military families as “legitimate” children.

     They were exposed later when the grandmothers formed a resistance force. The junta wanted to recruit the children to form a new vanguard of conservatism against their dead parents’ liberal worldview

    . But for the grandmothers, and the reinforced rage of DNA and MTDNA technologies, many of the children would not have known their true parents.

    This narrative in a new book titled: A Flower Travelled in My Blood, by Haley Cohen Gilliland, is perhaps one of the best non-fiction works so far this century. It is marvel of research, rigour and writing, unveiling the sin of a generation. The whole of its capital, Buenos Aires, was a landscape of unearthed bones just like the story of dry bones in the book of Ezekiel.

     Children had to confront, with DNA clarities, the fact that their mothers and fathers lack their blood ties. Grandmas became the heroines of a revolution of knowing and cultural retrieval.

    They wanted to exploit innocence.

     The almajiri case is different only in the sense that they are not given to strangers who claim to be their parents and no one killed their fathers and mothers for their beliefs. But they are suffering their own version of rogue parenting.

     Hence men like Dalhatu, Babachir Lawal, Kwankwaso, et al, feel empowered to indoctrinate them or speak on their behalf.

    The almajiri is in the age of innocence. Innocence is a fraught idea, though. It was in their innocence that some people gave them flags of a foreign country, and made them to twirl it. They who had no money to feed, or who could hardly read, suddenly could afford a piece of cloth more expensive than the food they beg for.

     They have, in the words of Nehemiah, “no heritage, right or memorial” in the land. They were asked to protest inflation when they don’t go to the market, to rage against insecurity when they are the recruits of rapine and deaths, they are asked to fulminate against a system but hey do not even understand concepts because they can’t read or write. It is such state that led Shakespeare in Hamlet to write, “The lady doth protest too much.”

    They are the native sons who, like the novel of Richard Wright also known as Native Son, show that innocents can be forced to be guilty by the system.

    I pity those guys and their sisters. The guys do not grow with their fathers and mothers. They are deprived of the cuddle of family intimacy. I recall a few years ago when lorries of almajiris were shipped away from city to city in the North. No one wanted them. It was a moment in alienation. When I was a Corps member in Kano, I experienced them first hand. I befriended one Mumuni in Wudil, and he was like a personal assistant to me, and he performed every errand with heart and gusto. When I fell ill on the camp, he helped me back to health.

    As a teacher in Kano city, I had a few of them, including Sunusi and Sagir, who were of use to me as well. But I sensed wasted childhood in all of them. They could have had the chance to become doctors and lawyers and writers like me. But the system held them down.

    Years later, when I visited Kaduna, I saw a few of them who were taken away from the streets to a boarding school, and I interviewed them. They thrilled about the future professions they craved. A girl wanted to be a pilot.

    But such arrangements are tokenism. A drop in the pond. That is the tragedy, and what the North needs is not to exploit the little guys.

    They have become the pawns of the North, the ubiquitous currency of the region. Some cynical elites love them and use them. They are not permitted to make choices except those forced upon them. It is called the Hobson’s choice.

     In her novel, The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton writes about how a love is not often genuine. “He loves me, he loves me not.” Such is the almajiri fate.

  • Beyond Ayinde, Emmanson’s reprieve

    Beyond Ayinde, Emmanson’s reprieve

    Federal government’s reprieve for popular Fuji musician, Wasiu Ayinde Marshall and Comfort Emmanson for their unruly conduct while boarding the aircraft to their respective destinations, must have come to many as a huge surprise.

    Given the circumstance the pardon came, it struck as a hurried intervention to resolve allegations of selective justice arising from the handling of the two embarrassing incidents. It is not surprising that the reprieve has since divided opinion across the board. What were the issues?

    Ayinde and Emmanson were in two separate incidents involved in unruly conducts while travelling to Lagos from Abuja and Calabar respectively through different flights. The Fuji musician’s case arose from his refusal to surrender a flask suspected to contain alcohol while boarding a flight to Lagos.

    Under pressure from the airline staff, he allegedly splashed the contents of the flask on some of the staff including the pilot who came down from the cockpit when the incident was disrupting flight take-off. As the aircraft was about to taxi off leaving Ayinde behind, he quickly moved to the front of the plane to prevent it from take-off which posed serious security risk both to his life, the plane and its passengers.

    His conduct led to public condemnation even as the pilot was not spared for attempting to move the aircraft while the musician and some other airport staff were still standing in front of the plane. The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) subsequently placed a six-month no-fly list on Ayinde and lodged a complaint with the Inspector-General of the Police (IGP). The pilot and the first officer of the flight were not spared as their licenses were equally suspended.

    Before the dust raised by the musician’s behaviour settled, another serious security breach involving a female passenger in another airline flying to Lagos occurred. This time, one Comfort Emmanson who allegedly refused to switch off her phone as the flight was taxing to take-off was at the centre of the fracas. Reports had it that on refusing to switch off her phone after pleas from the cabin attendant, a passenger sitting close-by had to snatch the phone and switched it off.

    Events took another turn on arrival at Lagos airport as Emmanson allegedly attacked the cabin crew inside the aircraft. As the situation deteriorated, posing serious danger to the aircraft, the crew called for reinforcement from those on ground who rushed into the plane and forcefully dragged down Emmanson in circumstances that exposed her body indecently.

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    The scene at the tarmac was really riotous as the lady virtually attacked anyone that tried to restrain her. It did no good to the image of the country.

    She was immediately taken into custody and subsequently arraigned at a Magistrate Court. Her inability to fulfil her bail conditions landed her at the Kirikiri custodial centre same day. The airline also placed her on a permanent travel ban.

    But the swiftness s with which Emmanson was arraigned in court and remanded in custodial centre, quickly elicited accusations of selective justice. This was especially so, given that Ayinde who was involved in an earlier breach of airport security and misconduct was allowed to go home free. Faced with this allegation, the NCAA was to explain that they had reported the Fuji musician’s case to the IGP as they lacked the powers to prosecute such offenders. They further explained that it was the airline Emmanson boarded that took her matter to court and not NCAA.

    That was the setting when the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo announced the discontinuation of the prosecution of the two suspects. The minister said in a statement that he conferred with Ibom Airline to withdraw the complaint against Emmanson and the leadership of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) and got their agreement to lift the life ban on her.

    In the same vein, the NCAA is to reduce the flight ban on Ayinde to one month even as “FAAN will also work with the music star with a view to engaging him as an ambassador for proper airport security protocol going forward”, Keyamo said. He also directed the restoration of the licenses of the pilot and first officer of the VALUEJET Airline after a period of one-month ban.

    The minister rationalised the decisions on compassionate grounds even as he warned “government will never pander to base sentiments, politically motivated views or warped legal opinions when clear encroachment of our laws are involved”. It is not clear whom these warnings are directed to.

    But the government had been accused of selective application of justice given the seeming different standards in the handling of the two unruly behaviours. Before the minister’s intervention and subsequent reprieve for the duo, there had been calls for the trial of Ayinde for his unruly behaviour.

    Thus, the reprieve for Ayinde and Emmanson would appear a convenient escape route out of the contradictions raised by allegations of selective justice in the handling of the two incidents. That may well be. But the reprieve has not completely addressed that contradiction.

    These contradictions underscore the absurdity in engaging either Ayinde or Emmanson as good ambassadors for proper airport security protocols. The aphorism, you cannot give what you don’t have should be instructive in the circumstance. It is not possible to place nothing on something and expect positive outcomes. It is one thing to pardon them for their unruly conduct and another ballgame to reward misconduct.

    Such roles should be reserved for persons who have over time, exhibited exemplary behaviour in airport security protocols, if such standards of assessment exist. Rewarding misbehaviour would serve wrong messages. Even then, there are other acts of indiscipline airport staff and cabin crew contend with in their daily operations.

    Take the case of orderly disembarkation for instance. Just before an aircraft taxies to a halt, copious announcements are made on the need for passengers to disembark in orderly and responsible manner-row by row. The announcers sometimes go further to explain that the measure is to avoid loss of personal belongings associated with disorderly disembarkation. What do you get thereafter?

    As soon as the aircraft stops, some people at the back quickly leave their seats and rush towards the front in utter defiance of the security measures for which orderly and row by row exit was put in place. This writer saw this in action in an Abuja-Lagos flight on Monday August, 4, a day before the incident involving the Fuji musician occurred. And it is a regular feature in disembarkation protocols.

    In the instance cited, at least three passengers from the rear defied that security protocol to the protestations of other passengers. Those inconvenienced by the disorderly conducts grumbled aloud, others hissed even as shouts of Naija, Naija rented the air. So, it is not just enough to blame airport staff for not managing crises or misconduct effectively. The suffocating indiscipline by the citizenry is the issue to contend with.

    The message embedded in shouts of Naija, Naija speaks eloquently of the larger indiscipline and moral decay that permeate the entire fabric of our society. Crass indiscipline, disregard for rules and orderly conduct have become so pervasive that one begins to ask how we got into this mess.

     Though not entirely new, the situation appears to be getting worse by the day. Incidentally, it is difficult for any country to make reasonable progress with undisciplined and disorderly citizenry – one that breaks rules at will or seeks loopholes to sabotage well intended policies. That is the miserably position the country has found itself.

    It requires ethical and moral revolution to reverse the ruinous trend. A country ensnared in such huge moral deficits should not be seen trivialising serious acts of indiscipline bordering on brazen breach of airport security protocols. Ironically, that is the impression the proposal to make the music star an ambassador to proper airport security protocol conveys.

  • KWAM 1’s second chance

    KWAM 1’s second chance

    Prominent Nigerian musician King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal (KWAM 1), who is otherwise called K1 De Ultimate, and whose father’s name is Anífowóse, has just had a confounding near-death experience, and it has made many to be repeating a question from one of KWAM 1’s lyrics. The question is “Irú kí lèyí, omo Anífowóse?” (‘What’s this for goodness sake, Son of Anífowóse?’) In its current context, this rhetorical question wonders, rather sarcastically, how KWAM 1 could have deliberately put himself in a life-threatening situation.

    According to reports, KWAM 1 had wanted to board a ValueJet commercial flight from the local wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, to Lagos on 5 August, 2025, but had a flask with him in which was a liquid substance. He was told that he could not board with the liquid substance in keeping with a well-publicised aviation safety regulation. He was said to have refused to obey the directive, in spite of the intervention of the lead pilot of the plane, Captain Oluranti Ogunwale-Ogoyi.

    It was further reported that in anger, he willfully spilt the liquid substance on Captain Oluranti and some other people. While some believed that what was spilt from the flask was alcohol, KWAM 1 claims that it was water. Reports also had it that because the head pilot could not persuade him not to board without the liquid in the flask, she returned to the cockpit. Once the boarding of the other passengers was concluded, the plane’s door was shut.

    Reports further said that in order to stop the plane from moving without him on board, KWAM 1 stood in front of the aircraft. From some of the videos of the incident trending on social media, the pilot moved slightly to make the readiness to commence the flight unmistakable, but KWAM 1 was unfazed. So, the plane stopped; and she revved the engine; and the plane started taxing in earnest.

    At this point, KWAM 1 left the front of the plane, but was now quite dangerously in the line of the wing of the moving plane. Then he bent dramatically, and escaped being hit or killed by the wing. It is this scenario that has given KWAM 1’s rhetorical question “Irú kí lèyí, omo Anífowóse?” its new resonance, and all sorts of comic contents have been created around KWAM 1’s near-death experience.

    For example, his own caustic humour was redirected at him with respect to a Yoruba expression he had created or popularised. The expression, ‘ganusi’, literally means ‘to set one’s mouth’ in readiness for free or undeserved food or money. He had used the word to denigrate some Muslim priests who, when the funeral ceremonies of his mother were being conducted, had come to him in his personal house rather than go to his father’s house where the main activities were taking place. 

    The expression became instantly popular, and means going where you’re not expected or invited, in anticipation of a favour, or pressurising somebody for something. Now that KWAM 1 has done the unthinkable by standing in front of a plane to prevent it from moving, he has become the object of the humorous use of his own expression ‘ganusi’. As one humourist put it, “Wasiu ganu si bàlú” (‘Wasiu stood suicidally in front of a plane.’)

    The KWAM 1 episode came with other interesting optics, including Oluranti’s widely-circulating iconic photograph. In her immaculate white shirt, with her slightly tilted right shoulder showing clearly that she was a four-striped pilot, it was unmistakable that she was a Captain. In aviation parlance, a Captain is more explicitly called Pilot in Command (PIC), whose ‘word is law’ as far as the plane she is flying or about to fly is concerned.

    In fact, an informational on https://www.law.cornell.edu states: “The Pilot in Command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of the aircraft.” The Australasian Legal Information Institute hosted by University of Technology Sydney Faculty of Law also states: “The PIC has the authority to remove or restrain individuals on board who pose threat to safety.” Even a simple Google search on the subject reveals: “The Pilot in Command has the ultimate authority on board and can refuse boarding to any passenger deemed a safety risk.”  Did K1 De Ultimate know that Captain Oluranti was The Ultimate authority on that ValueJet flight?

    To be clear, regarding unruly or disruptive passengers, SKYbrary states: “Annex 17 to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Chicago Convention (Convention on International Civil Aviation Security Safeguarding International Civil Aviation Against Acts of Unlawful Interference) defines a disruptive passenger as: ‘A passenger who fails to respect the rules of conduct at an airport or on board an aircraft or to follow the instructions of the airport staff or crew members and thereby disturbs the good order and discipline at an airport or on board the aircraft.’”

    The KWAM 1/Oluranti scenario reminds one of the following lyrics by the popular Yoruba female musician, Salawa Abeni: “Gentle lady ni mí, èmi kì se fighter o. Kènikéni má tì mí lo síbi ìjà.” (‘I’m a gentle lady. I’m not a fighter. Let no one draw me into a fight.’) In his regard, Oluranti seems to have followed William Shakespeare’s counsel in his play Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3: “Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.” That is, avoid getting into a quarrel as much as you can; but once a quarrel has been forced on you, fight in such a way that your opponent becomes scared of you. 

    Another language-related point about the plane-stopping episode is that Wasiu Ayinde is a ‘Marshal’, and Air Marshals are charged with preventing or dealing with violent acts on planes. Ironically, it was Ayinde Marshal himself who was prevented from boarding the ValueJet plane to stop him from compromising security and safety. 

    The first name of the ValueJet Captain is also noteworthy. She is Olúrántí (‘God remembered’), and the shortened form of the Yoruba name is Rántí (‘Remember’). In her 5 August, 2025 response to passenger unruliness, she has given KWAM 1 and Nigerians at large something to remember for a very long time to come. In one comic skit, she was named “Pilot Kògbérégbè” (‘Pilot No Nonsense’).

    KWAM 1 refused to take instructions from Oluranti, but he was forced to ‘bow’ to the wing of her plane. This image has also been a source of morbid humour, and KWAM 1 has been called “Aríkúyerí” (‘One who bows to escape death’). Moreover, Portable, the irreverent popular Yoruba musician sang sarcastically, in his new single titled “Plane Stopper”: “Ìbèrè mo wà. Ìbèrè mo wà. Ikú rékojá, ìbèrè mo wà” (‘I’m in a bending position. I’m in a bending position. Death flew over me. I’m in a bending position.’) On 9 August, 2025, one humourist called KWAM 1 “The No.1 Plane Bender in Nigeria.”

    Read Also: Kwam 1 and the dangerous cost of pride

    Moreover, one of the lyrics of the late Yoruba apala music star, Ayinla Omowura, is “Òré, b’ó sògùn òwò, jòwó má se dúro dè mótò” (‘My friend, if you’ve fortified yourself with a touch-me-not, danger-repelling magical charm, don’t stand in the way of a moving vehicle.’) If Ayinla had been alive today and witnessed KWAM 1’s ValueJet action, maybe Omowura would have revised the song to “Òré, b’ó sògùn òwò, jòwó má se dúro d’aropúlènì” (‘My friend, if you’ve fortified yourself with a touch-me-not, danger-repelling magical charm, don’t stand in the way of a moving plane.’)

    A new word has also come into Nigerian English courtesy of KWAM 1’s 5 August airport show. As pointed out on the TVC News programme “Your View” of 11 August, 2025, the word is ‘kwamish’. Ms. Morayo Afolabi-Brown noted with respect to this word: “kwamish behaviour … is [the disagreeable conduct of] passengers … when there’s an altercation between them and flight attendants or airport officials.” An adjective, the novel word also means ‘self-endangering’.

    Additionally, when an Ibom Air passenger, Comfort Emmanson, was alleged to have become unruly and violent on board and she had to be physically removed, and bundled into a waiting airport bus by aviation security on 10 August, 2025, she was referred to as “KWAM 2”. Indeed, one writer referred to other potential disruptive or unruly air passengers as “KWAMS”.

    Since KWAM 1 has been President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s bard, detractors have been holding him vicariously responsible for KWAM 1’s audacity and indiscretion. This is in spite of the President’s demonstration of intolerance of clearly disagreeable conduct from anybody – family, friend or foe.

    On 8 August, 2025, KWAM 1 tender this apology : “… I take full responsibility for all [the] incidents. Once again, I seek forgiveness from Mr. President, the Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who’s also my father and father of the nation, the Honourable Minister for Aviation, the pilot, the airline, the airline staff, passengers, and above all, my fans across the globe, my family, for the incident. … Please accept my apology.”

    In a press statement on 13 August, 2025, the Honourable Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, SAN, said: “In the case of KWAM 1, the NCAA is to reduce his flight ban to a one-month period. FAAN will also work with the music star with a view to engaging him as an ambassador for proper airport security protocol going forward. … Having publicly demonstrated penitence, the NCAA is also to withdraw its criminal complaints against KWAM 1 earlier lodged with the Police.”

    The Minister continued: “In the case of Captain Oluranti Ogoyi, and the co-pilot, First Officer Ivan Oloba of VALUEJET, the NCAA is to restore their licenses after the same period of one-month ban after undergoing some mandatory professional re-appraisal.” As further acts of clemency inspired by the Minister, the court case instituted against Comfort Emmanson has been withdrawn unconditionally by the plaintiffs and dismissed by the court; and she has been freed from detention.  

    Today’s Wasiu is inescapably different from the pre-5-August-2025 Oluranti-encountered KWAM 1. In his very sober moments, he would, most likely, be having nightmares or shuddering flashbacks of the incident. Fortunately, he got the divine second chance of missing death by a whisker. He also got the ministerial second chance of missing litigation and the possibility of imprisonment if found guilty of disruptive and life-threatening aircraft-related conduct. He should use his double second chance productively.

    KWAM 1 remains a popular brand in the Nigerian music industry, but it’s at present a battered brand. He therefore needs a public relations offensive to attract overriding positive attention. This could entail, for example, instituting a schools debate competition, establishing a broad-based scholarship scheme, initiating a robust entrepreneurial empowerment programme or building a strategically-located multi-purpose community centre.