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  • Tinubu’s next-level prosperity: Moving Nigeria from consumption to production

    Tinubu’s next-level prosperity: Moving Nigeria from consumption to production

    It was a week that neatly summed up President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s governing style: deliberate in planning, bold in execution, and clear in his long-term development vision. Before boarding his flight on Friday for a tightly scheduled two-nation visit to Japan and Brazil, with a strategic stopover in Dubai, the President packed in a series of activities that reflected the method behind his leadership.

    At the heart of the week was Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, where the President set out his next-phase agenda for moving Nigeria from a consumption-driven economy to one rooted in productivity, savings, and investment. It was not the usual roundtable of routine approvals. Tinubu came to the Council with a challenge, a roadmap, and a sense of urgency.

    “This is not just an economic target; it is a moral imperative,” he told his ministers as he laid out the path towards a $1 trillion economy by 2030, anchored on a minimum 7% growth rate by 2027. For Tinubu, economic reform is not an abstract policy exercise — it is the direct route to lifting millions out of poverty, creating decent jobs, and securing Nigeria’s place in the global economic order.

    The President was unambiguous about the progress made since his administration embarked on difficult but necessary reforms. Removing longstanding distortions, restoring macroeconomic stability, rebuilding investor confidence, these were not small victories. But Tinubu’s message to his Council was that stability is only the first chapter.

    What comes next is acceleration: attracting both domestic and foreign private investment, reviewing existing policies to unlock productivity, and ensuring that the gains of reform translate into real prosperity for all Nigerians — in every ward, every local government, and every state.

    This is where his recently launched Renewed Hope Ward Development Programme comes into focus. Designed to cover all 8,809 wards across Nigeria’s 774 local government areas, the programme’s ambition is deceptively simple: empower active grassroots economic players through a micro-level approach to tackling poverty. It is Tinubu’s way of making sure that national growth targets are not just about GDP figures, but about households that can feed their families, send children to school, and build wealth from the ground up.

    “This programme is close to my heart,” the President told his ministers. And it is easy to see why. It is the clearest link yet between the macroeconomic reforms his administration has pushed and the microeconomic realities that define everyday Nigerian life.

    In the President’s view, no serious growth can occur without disciplined savings and investment. Public investment as a share of GDP, he noted, stands at just 5% — a figure he wants increased by rethinking how government money is spent and retained.

    He was direct in his instructions: review deductions from the Federation Account, reassess the cost-of-collection rates of revenue agencies, and take a hard look at the 30% management fee and 30% frontier exploration deduction currently applied by the NNPC under the Petroleum Industry Act.

    The Economic Management Team, chaired by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, has been tasked to bring back actionable recommendations. This is Tinubu’s hallmark, identifying structural inefficiencies and assigning clear responsibility to fix them within a set timeframe.

    Read Also: First Lady Oluremi Tinubu empowers 500 Bauchi women

    His broader philosophy is that every naira must work harder for Nigeria. This is not austerity for its own sake, but a call for smarter spending that can sustain the momentum of reform even in the face of global liquidity constraints.

    If Wednesday’s FEC meeting was about charting the course, Thursday brought a powerful endorsement from one of the world’s most respected economic voices. Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, met with the President in Abuja and emerged to tell journalists that his reforms had done what many thought impossible: stabilise the Nigerian economy in a period of immense global and domestic turbulence.

    “You cannot really improve an economy unless it’s stable,” she said. “The President and his team have worked hard to stabilise the economy. The reforms have been in the right direction. What is needed next is growth.”

    Her words could not have aligned more perfectly with the President’s own message to FEC the day before. Stability as the foundation, growth as the next imperative, and in both cases, the importance of building in social safety nets so that the most vulnerable can withstand the temporary hardship reforms often bring.

    Okonjo-Iweala’s visit was not just ceremonial. She came to brief Tinubu on the launch of the Women Exporters Fund for the Digital Economy, a WTO–International Trade Centre initiative supported by the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu. Nigeria stood out in the selection process, with 146 women entrepreneurs chosen from over 67,000 global applicants. Sixteen will enter an intensive 18-month scale-up programme, while another 100 will receive $5,000 grants plus a year of mentorship.

    “This is just the beginning,” she assured. “We will all work together, WTO, ITC, the Ministry of Trade and Investment, and the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, to make sure these businesses expand, employ more people, and put more money in both households’ pockets and the nation’s pocket.”

    It was a practical example of the kind of inclusive prosperity Tinubu speaks of, where targeted support to grassroots entrepreneurs, particularly women, becomes part of the growth equation.

    One of the most striking aspects of Tinubu’s presidency so far is that none of these initiatives appear haphazard. He is working to a calendar — a structured rollout of reforms, programmes, and investments designed to build on each other.

    The removal of distortions in the first months. The macro-stabilisation measures that followed. The ward-level development programme to anchor grassroots prosperity. The call for savings and investment discipline. The ongoing push to integrate private sector capital and innovation into public policy goals.

    Every step is part of a sequence, each unlocking the conditions for the next. This is why the President’s trips abroad, like the one now taking him to Japan for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD9) and then to Brazil for a state visit, are not merely ceremonial. They fit into the same calendar.

    In Yokohama, Tinubu will pitch Nigeria as a prime investment destination to Japanese business leaders already active in the country and those considering entry. In Brazil, he will consolidate economic cooperation agreements and open new trade corridors with one of Latin America’s largest economies.

    By the time he returns, the follow-up mechanisms at home, driven by ministers, the Economic Management Team, and agencies, will already be working to convert those international engagements into measurable outcomes.

    What comes through most clearly in Tinubu’s language is that, for him, growth is not just an economic statistic. It is a moral obligation, the only sustainable way to solve Nigeria’s poverty challenge. The President frames the target of 7% annual growth by 2027 not as a political slogan, but as a duty to the millions who depend on the state of the economy for their survival and progress.

    This framing matters. It signals to his team that the work of reform is inseparable from the work of inclusion. It also resonates with external partners like Okonjo-Iweala, whose own career has been defined by efforts to link macroeconomic soundness with poverty reduction.

    In Tinubu’s own words, “Let us continue to work together with unity of purpose, guided by the Renewed Hope Agenda, to build a prosperous, inclusive, and resilient Nigeria.”

    The challenge now is execution. The Ward Development Programme must be implemented with precision to ensure funds reach the intended grassroots actors. The review of savings and investment structures must translate into freed-up capital for productive use. The partnerships formed abroad must materialise into factories, farms, and services that create jobs at home.

    The early signs are promising. Ministries have begun aligning their budget frameworks to the President’s emphasis on productivity-enhancing investments and food security. State governors, after Tinubu’s address to the National Economic Council, seem to have started exploring joint initiatives with local governments to deepen grassroots development.

    And in the private sector, investor sentiment, bolstered by the policy clarity Tinubu insists upon, is beginning to shift. The stabilisation Okonjo-Iweala speaks of is a precondition for the long-term capital Nigeria needs, and her endorsement carries weight with the global investor community.

    As the President’s second year in office unfolds, the strategic sequencing of reforms and programmes will be tested by the realities of implementation. There will be resistance from entrenched interests, unforeseen shocks in the global economy, and the ever-present challenge of translating policy into impact.

    But Tinubu has made it clear that his administration is not in the business of quick wins for political applause. He is working to a methodical schedule, with a fixed destination in mind.

    This week’s events — from the FEC charge to the WTO endorsement to the strategic foreign visits — illustrate a leadership approach that is as much about discipline as it is about ambition.

    If the momentum holds, the phrase “moving from consumption to production” may well become more than a policy slogan. It could mark the turning point when Nigeria began building an economy capable of delivering broad-based prosperity, not just for some, but for all.

    Appointments that Strengthen the Reform Agenda

    As earlier noted, the week under review was not only about President Tinubu’s rousing charge to the Federal Executive Council on moving Nigeria from consumption to production. It was also a week of intense administrative housekeeping, as the President moved to fill key federal vacancies, reconstitute strategic boards, and make targeted appointments designed to strengthen the machinery of governance.

    From regulatory agencies to academic institutions, the choices reflected a deliberate strategy: put competent hands in positions that can translate reform policies into tangible outcomes. At the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), the President’s praise for retaining the WHO’s Maturity Level 3 status underscored his insistence on world-class standards, especially in health regulation — a cornerstone for both public wellbeing and investor confidence in Nigeria’s pharmaceutical sector.

    The Citizenship and Leadership Training Centre got new leadership in Ms. Rinsola Abiola, while Nasir Bala Ja’oǰi was named Senior Special Assistant on Citizenship and Leadership. The Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYREP) saw its governing council reconstituted, signalling fresh energy for environmental remediation in the Niger Delta.

    Appointments to the Federal Character Commission (FCC), the boards of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), as well as governing councils of key universities, reinforced the President’s theme of merit-driven inclusivity. The swearing-in of Prof. Dakas C.J. Dakas as NLRC Chairman, alongside Dr. Uchenna Eugene Okolocha, reflected his attention to legal reform as a tool for economic transformation.

    Even the nominations of Louis Odion and Ummasalma Isiyaku Rabiu to the FCCPC point to an administration tightening regulatory oversight in consumer protection and market fairness.

    In sum, the week’s appointments were not mere personnel changes. They were calculated reinforcements to the institutional architecture required for the next phase of the Renewed Hope Agenda.

  • SNAPSONG 266

    SNAPSONG 266

    Dawn Perambulator

    Those long legs
    How do they gage your gait
    As you walk each morning
    To meet the opening day

    Who hears the whisper
    Between your sole
    And the listening earth
    In what dialect, their dialogue

    How loud, the ditty of the dust
    The powdery prowess of its message
    The granular grandeur
    Of its soft, embracing patience

    Read Also: Nigeria dismisses Canadian court ruling labeling APC, PDP as terrorist groups

    How do those long arms
    Paddle you through
    The ocean of the wind
    And its liquid lore

    At dawns resonant with untold tales
    Of the dreams of yester-nights
    The chimeric metaphysics of metaphors
    So indigenous to your figurative versatility

    The sweet sweat of gentle jogs
    The huff and puff of grateful lungs
    And muscles honed and toned for
    Endless promenades in the Orchard of Grace

  • FG, Ibom Air and Ms Emmanson

    FG, Ibom Air and Ms Emmanson

    Judging from how speedily the Aviation ministry has tried to douse the firestorm created by the Ibom Air/Comfort Emmanson scuffle, and the ValueJet/Wasiu Ayinde (KWAM 1) kerfuffle, it is obvious that Nigeria’s penchant for amicable resolutions will once again rob the country of the opportunity to set a precedent for tackling such dangerous encounters or to enable its institutions function independently and seamlessly. The ValueJet affair occurred first, on August 5, some five days before the Ibom Air August 10 scuffle. There has been enough blame to go round all the people and organisations involved in both affairs. ValueJet pilots, who were probably angered by KWAM 1’s effrontery, were accused of violating departure procedure by taxing before the ground staff gave the all-clear. Mr Ayinde, who tempestuously prevented the aircraft from taking off because cabin crew denied him the use of the contents of a handheld flask, was accused of arrogance, unruly behaviour and violation of a number of aviation regulations.

    In the second affair, Ibom Air cabin crew and aviation security officials were accused of highhandedness and unprofessionalism in their attempt to restrain Ms Emmanson, a passenger on the Uyo-Lagos flight of August 10. First they prevented her from disembarking on her own on the grounds that she had violated some aviation regulations, then used force to deplane her and in the process stripped her naked. Ms Emmanson on the other hand was alleged to have assaulted cabin crew, damaged airline property, and behaved most cantankerously before the plane took off and when it landed. The Aviation ministry, in the eyes of some Nigerians, among whom was former Anambra State governor Peter Obi, was accused of giving preferential treatment to Mr Ayinde while expeditiously charging Ms Emmanson in court a day after the Lagos Airport incident. The uproar among the public, not to say the din which both affairs had raised particularly in legal circles, was so animated that the Aviation minister Festus Keyamo looked for a way out of the quandary. He eventually directed the withdrawal of criminal complaints and charges against both KWAM 1 and Ms Emmanson, arguing that no one involved in the fracas was guiltless, and that in any case lessons had been well learnt. However, investigations will still be carried out in order to better understand what happened, what went wrong, and what remedies should be administered for improved aviation procedure and passenger flying experience.

    Read Also:How Ibom Air passenger was provoked – Eyewitness

    Undoubtedly, the Aviation industry and Nigeria’s justice system will learn a thing or two from both incidents, and in the weeks and years ahead, Nigerians will hopefully have a far better flying experience than they are used to. However, exacerbated by social media commentaries, the incidents will once again expose the fragility of Nigeria. It is of course human that some individuals will have anger management issues, can be instigated by wealth and status to commit antisocial behaviour, or as the case of the National Youth Service Corps member Rita Ushie Uguamaye, commit full public indiscretion just for the heck of it. But what truly bothers many Nigerians is the corrosive ethnic insinuation arising from the official management of the KWAM 1 provocation and the Ms Emmanson scuffle. These insinuations were of course largely limited to the social media. But as feral as the social media has become, its influence cannot be discounted in shaping for the worse social and political behaviour. To learn the right lessons, therefore, the country must reexamine the way aviation regulatory bodies and professionals handle provocations and anomalies, the procedure by which the justice system responds to disputes of the kind brought before them, and how officials handle or comment on public affairs with the sensitivity and impartiality required of their exalted positions.

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    Preliminarily, aviation regulatory bodies, including the Aviation ministry itself, had handled the two affairs in a desultory manner, almost incompetently and emotionally. They acted before engaging in full and impartial investigations. The justice system in the Ms Emmanson case also allowed itself to be stampeded by biased regulatory bodies and media rather than be guided by the facts before the court. Ms Emmanson was clearly and tragically railroaded into jail. Most political leaders declined to comment on the two cases because they awaited more facts, but Mr Obi, who interprets opposition politics in terms of spontaneous comments and conclusions on minutiae, focused more on seeing double standard in the official response to the two provocations. He spoke less about the appalling disregard for rules and professionalism, not to talk of the indefensible mistreatment of Ms Emmanson bordering on oppression, torture, and abuse. Mr Obi should have waited a little bit more in order to avoid making simplistic conclusions. As events unfolded, it became clear that the two incidents were different; and while both showed a violation of aviation regulations, the August 10 incident harks back to the long-standing and culture-based mistreatment of women in Nigeria.

    Mr Ayinde and the ValueJet pilots may have escaped with a slap on the wrist, and the case against Ms Emmanson rightly withdrawn because of its shoddiness and manifest one-sidedness in order to defuse tension and redirect attention to other less combustive matters. But Mr Keyamo and other relevant aviation-related agencies must still press on with their investigations to unearth what went wrong, in what manner officials abused their privileges, and what lessons everyone can imbibe to engender a better Aviation industry. These steps must, however, not preclude whatever legal remedies Ms Emmanson might wish to pursue to find relief for her rights that were cruelly and indefensibly violated by Ibom Air crew and Aviation security officials. Suggesting that during interrogation Ms Emmanson showed remorse over her actions was a needless overreach to influence the outcome of investigations. Hopefully, too, the judiciary may have learnt a thing or two about judicial stampede which public officials are overly fond of, but for which the courts must show no toleration.

  • MBF as Obi’s surety

    MBF as Obi’s surety

    The Middle Belt Forum (MBF) appears eager to repeat the mistake of 2023, when, during the presidential election, it allowed itself as a bloc to be bewitched by politicians. Socio-cultural and political groupings, some of them formed along regional lines, fare very badly when they put all their eggs in one basket. Largely Christian and a minority in Nigeria’s political north, the Forum had reacted furiously to the last presidential poll in response to the ruling party’s same-faith presidential ticket by wholeheartedly supporting the Labour Party’s presidential candidate Peter Obi. In the end, the MBF’s fears were proved to be badly misplaced. But the Forum’s national president, Bitrus Pogu, has refused to learn any lesson. He adamantly stands surety for Mr Obi without showing proof why he does so.

    Read Also: Obi Cubana urges youth to shun envy, focus on legitimate paths to success

    According to the MBF president, “We believe Peter Obi is a man of honour and we believe that if he gets the win and he promises or promised something, he will keep to it…For now, as a people, we believe Peter Obi because we know he is a man of integrity and honour who keeps his words.” It would be surprising to know that the MBF is unanimous in standing surety for Mr Obi years after the assumptions of the last presidential poll were shown to be false. That poll was probably the most divisive ever, along ethnic and religious lines. However, the country is gradually healing from the politicisation of religion, despite herdsmen atrocities in the Middle Belt, and so it would be a disservice to both the MBF and the country for any cultural or regional grouping to take steps or make statements in furtherance of such divisions.

  • The Rise of Uncivil Society

    The Rise of Uncivil Society

    We live in uncharted times. In most western and non-western societies, there is a sharp lurch to the right which makes open and sometimes violent competition for increasingly scarce resources the norm rather than the exception. The human capacity for consumption which ironically is a result of better and healthier conditions and better living facilities in advanced countries has outstripped the capacity for production. No amount of fertility magic in advanced agricultural laboratories seems to be able to do the trick and increase the yield. Or perhaps it is a question of poor and inefficient distribution of resources. Whatever it is, the Western banquet halls are no longer welcoming of uninvited quests and the stricken hordes from the concrete hells on earth.

    Across the English Channel, the authorities turn them back and puncture their inflatables with sharp knives driving them further to the open seas. In the adjoining forests of the French Normandy coast, it is an unending battle between agents and bands of smugglers ferrying their human wares across the channel through the thick forests. In less welcoming climes, their creaking and barely sea-worthy boats are pushed away to the mid-seas and their human cargo left to face the inclement circumstances. In America, they are openly abducted in public places and on private farms and summarily deported often in brutal and most humiliating circumstances. The cheery bouquets that welcomed Jamaican and other Caribbean immigrants to Britain during the Windrush episode less than a century earlier and the hordes that throng the New York harbor just a little over a century before, have all completely disappeared. In their place now reigns open hostility or barely concealed irritation.

           If gold can rust, one can imagine the circumstances of iron. In Africa, things are even more desperate and precarious. The exponential rise in population and in circumstances of steadily increasing poverty and extreme predation of natural and human resources by a deviant and psychotic elite group is straight out  of the playbook of postcolonial sadism. Scarcity and lack of adequate feeding culture often predispose human societies to nastiness and loss of compassion. Prolonged and protracted exposure to hunger and starvation shortens the temperamental fuse of humanity and induces surges of aggressive behavior. Yet it is clear that for the moment, the old idyllic Africa of plethora of game and plenitude of fodder from the forest may be gone forever. The epic feast of pounded yam in Things Fall Apart in which it took participants two whole days to appraise who and who were  on the other side  of the humongous carbohydrate skyscraper will forever remain in the realm of fiction and not of actual reality.

    If we still do not get the nexus and connection between poverty, social dislocation and unruly behavior, we can at least recognize the fact that the uncivil society is here with us in full throttle. It is a society marked by violent discourtesy, arrant vulgarity and a bovine lack of consideration for others which harks back to the savage state of nature. No state of human existence can be stagnant forever. It either progresses, or it sinks further into the abyss of barbarity.  De-civilization has been knocking at our door for quite some time.

     Now, the ugly chimp of postcolonial meltdown has arrived at our doorstep.  It was a little over twenty years ago since one wrote a piece in Africa Today, cautioning the then ruler of the country about a tendency to rude and violently uncouth conduct which could lead to the de-civilization of the polity and a descent into uncivil hell.  Last week, the former ruler was openly complaining about the invasion of his vast estate by law enforcement agencies to apprehend Yahoo Boys who seemed to have taken up permanent residence on the premises. As the EFCC prepared to arraign the culprits on Friday, one is at pain to determine which one was more hilarious and which one was more tragic: the complaint or the purported invasion.

      It speaks to the impermanence of authority and prestige and the transience of power. The influence of power and authority is not determined by how long you can hang on to it but by the beneficial and lasting influence on one’s society. Civil conduct enhances the rational quotient of civilization and makes interpersonal relationship more amenable to order and justice. Some societies are adjudged to be more civilized than others to the extent they succeed in moderating and modulating human behavior to fit into accepted practice which has evolved over the ages and is now seen as part of their civilizing armament.

    Read Also: Civil society coalition alleges plot to blackmail Akpabio

    Most human societies erect guardrails against what they consider to be uncivil behavior. England is universally rhapsodized as the country of good manners where the gentleman is expected to wear his hat and opinion lightly. No heavy-duty intolerant stuff which sets the imagination of the fickle masses ablaze and makes national cohesion virtually impossible. The Japanese and the oriental community are a delightfully courteous and well-mannered race. The only thing they are intolerant of is intolerance itself. Their Chinese, Korean, Malaysian and Indonesian cousins make such a fetish of good conduct and decent behavior that any disgraceful behavior and dishonorable conduct is viewed with extreme hostility which often invites severe communal sanctions. As a visiting professor in Holland, yours sincerely once severely upbraided a Japanese postgraduate researcher for fouling up the wash room after a rowdy drinking binge. The fellow disappeared completely only to reappear about a week after with a retinue of oriental curios who had come to plead for him.  

      The main drivers of social aggression and rude incivility are economic dysfunction and spiritual deracination. Traditional African societies also erected iron walls against boorish behavior and rude misconduct. Among the ethnic nationalities of what became known as Nigeria, respect for elders and disinclination towards what leads to social disharmony ranks very high on the order of engagement. This old agrarian code was obviously aided and boosted by material clemencies. In postcolonial societies, it breaks down once there is scarcity of resources or lack of means to get by in an increasingly harsh environment. As the mother of this columnist would put it, you cannot put down a person without means for poor conduct. The demon chasing him is greater than social graces.

        There is rudeness and incivility everywhere and it is an epidemic. You have rude passengers, rude hostesses, rude politicians, rude ministers, rude lawyers, rude judges, rude professors, rude diplomats, rude opinion-writers, rude columnists, rude traditional rulers, rude subjects and rude musical superstars. The problem is that rudeness does not cancel out rudeness. It only exacerbates the circumstances. This is where we are.

    In recent weeks, there has been a remarkable upsurge in instances of rude incivilities and boorish public behavior particularly among air-travellers. Road rage often ends there and then, particularly among the underclass unwashed and other vagrants of the road. But air rage because of the type of people likely to get embroiled gets more publicity. It is often a fierce competition for scarce resources at the aerial level. Not everybody can own an aircraft. The class occlusions would have been hilarious if tragedy was not hovering in the air.

      How do you remonstrate with a person who was only recently lifted from the abyss of savage poverty and abject illiteracy that he ought to thank his stars and conduct himself properly? He can surely not afford to be seen using his recently acquired social heft to be tyrannizing over members of the old middle class who are invariably better educated and better exposed than himself. But having only himself barely escaped the claws of the selfsame middle class in its collusion and complicity with the ruling class only a man with a greater sense of compassion and vision of social justice would pass off the opportunity to rub it in when the occasion arises as it is bound to.

     Hell hath no greater fury and burning indignation than a scorned former pauper prince rise to stardom in a highly stratified society. The story is told of how the father of the recently departed Awujale, a diffident and noble pauper prince, was subject to ritual indignities and humiliation by the Ijebu monied class just so that his son could receive their nod. It was obvious that throughout his long and blessed reign, Oba Sikiru was determined to have it back on his family tormentors by acquiring the financial heft by fire and by force. This is how class contradictions play out in a turbulent postcolonial society in a state of flux and why there is still a lot to play for and pay for.

      It is only poetic justice that Wasiu Ayinde Marshal, the Fuji music idol, should find himself in the crosshairs of public obloquy concerning his rude conduct and public display of boorish incivility to aviation personnel. He has had it coming for quite some time with his uncouth arrogance and uncivil self-importance. Even his most ardent supporters have had it to the hilt with his garrulous self-conceit and indiscretions which must have embarrassed his patrons in high places. A person should rise to the level of his friends in high places rather than try to drag them under to the dungeon of sinister buffoonery.

    To a barely lettered musical yokel, this may be sheer grammatical overreach, but trying to stop a train with his hands and body mass was the height of suicidal folly. But leaving that aside, how does one inform the other lady that the hostesses she had assaulted might be better educated and socially superior to her? The resort to physical violence by the Ibom Air Staff is regrettable, but that is the ugly nature of these times when incivility reigns supreme.

     As soon as word came to No 10 Downing Street that John Major had been sworn in at Buckingham Palace as the next Prime Minister of Great Britain, his friend, Lord Jeffrey Archer, the irascible novelist, quickly hid himself in an adjoining washroom. According to him, he wanted to be the first person to address the Prime Minister as “Sir”. As far as he was concerned, John Major was no longer an ordinary person but the human embodiment of the British state in all its imperial might and grandeur.

        Wasiu Ayinde has come a long way. His political, economic and cultural fortunes rose exponentially after he nailed his mast to the destiny of the incumbent president of the nation. Nobody should begrudge him his just rewards. He has shown character and grit in the face of danger and adversity. Let’s face it, his bucolic pride and princely sense of self-worth must also have played a role in that. In a country where musicians and artistes are notoriously fickle and unstable, depending on where their bread was last buttered, the Ijebu –Ode noble man has shown that he is a cut above the rest of the musical clan. This is probably why his friends in high places treat him with indulgence and bemused tolerance. But to whom much is granted, much is also expected. If he is incapable of self-tutoring, they should get others to teach him to a level commensurate with his current status as a cultural ambassador and custodian of our sacred tradition. 

  • An Illustrious scion of an illustrious clan

    An Illustrious scion of an illustrious clan

    The grim reaper continues its relentless harvesting among the best and brightest that this country has thrown up. The figures balloon daily. Sometimes, you can no longer tell who is actually living from who is truly dead. The mind and its mindless mischief take over. Sometimes, you see somebody in a crowd and you are about to hail them before suddenly realizing that they had already joined their maker. Sometimes, it is the intimidating array of dead and un-delisted people in your phone entries that wreak the havoc.

    Sometimes in a moment of madness you actually pick up the phone to call a dead person and it is their spouse who connects at the other end and you begin to stutter and mumble some mumbo-jumbo knowing fully well that you have been remiss in your duty and responsibility to both the living and the dead. Some of the people who had left were so remarkable and so colourful that you begin to imagine that they would have constituted themselves into a band of divine merry-makers in heaven. You would be glad to be there with them.

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    If you graduated between 1970 and 1975 from one of our universities, you must have had many friends separated from the brood. The universities then were veritable platforms for elite bonding and we bonded very well, irrespective of clan, class or creed. The only thing we recognized was excellence and the aristocracy of the intellect. It was shortly after the civil war and it was time to reimagine Nigeria as a land fit for heroes and a haven for the Black person after two thousand years of wandering , dispersal, hiding in caves and ritual humiliation by other races.

      We mourn this morning, the departure of a great friend, Muftau Dapo Durosinmi-Etti of the notable Etti clan of Lagos. There are some friends you don’t get to meet often but when you do, it is as if you were together the previous evening. He was a man of immense charisma and mesmerizing personal magnetism. Amiable, personable and immensely likeable, so infectious was his bonhomie and the  goodwill his open personality radiated that you cannot fail to pick him out in a crowd as he cracked endless jokes and delivered bon mots in a devil may care omo Eko style. He had the gait and bravura of a natural prince.

       We met in London during the NADECO years in the home of a mutual friend who has since gone on to stratospheric heights in Nigerian politics. The parting of political ways between him and his friend did not diminish the fondness and affection. Not for once in the subsequent years did one catch him out saying an unkind word about his estranged friend or dropping an unworthy innuendo. He did not allow adversarial politics to sully his sunny disposition. The last time I met him, he had led a retinue of the Durosinmi-Etti clan to the Ikoyi home of our friend, the Odidimade himself, Chief Oladele Fajemirokun, the Baba Oba of Ifewara, to ask for the hand of his adorable daughter, Omolade in marriage to his nephew. It was a joyous and rousing occasion. It was the last snapshot. May his soul rest in peace.

  • Jamb and the rest of us

    Jamb and the rest of us

    It is that time of the year again when we are subjected to JAMB matters on all news platforms. After such consistent bombardments, it is surprising that the level of ignorance of JAMB matters is still more than head high and growing. It is however apparent that a great deal of this ignorance is carefully cultivated. And it stems from our distrust of practically all our public institutions. This being the case,  announcements from any of our institutions, starting from the lofty presidency to the lowliest public office is treated with healthy suspicion, if not downright derision. Given this background, it is not surprising that virtually everything coming out of JAMB, a government institution is, first critically examined and then discarded unless it fits a preconceived point of view.

    The problem with JAMB is that it serves three opposed sides whose interests are not only mutually exclusive but very often, antagonistic. On one side are the cadidates, staunchly supported by their parents and those other parties that support their aspirations. It matters very little if their candidacy is tottering on rickety legs, the only acceptable result is a pass, followed by admission to one of the ‘attractive’ courses on offer, preferably in one of the first generation universities. In addition, there are the proprietors of secondary schools for whom the annual JAMB examinations create an avenue for the advertisement of their prowess in getting their pupils into some prestigious university or the  other. They pay good money to newspapers for the privilege of showing off the flattering mug shots of their students who clear the 300 mark hurdle in the JAMB examinations. The students enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame and thereafter sink into the obscurity of typical Nigerian undergraduate existence.

    On one other side are the universities represented by their lecturers, administrators and alumni based all over the world. They are all anxious for their university to  be counted as one of the best in the land so that they can continue to attract the best students and maintain an enviable position on the log table of the nation’s universities. Nobody is now sure when the listing of Nigerian universities began and the criteria used to determine the quality of universities but nobody can resist the temptation to check up on the performance of his old university on the current table. These days, the scene has been muddled by the arrival of private universities who see their position on the log table as an advertising point, designed to attract fee paying clients.

    The third side is occupied solely by JAMB itself and it suffers from being representative of government control. This is a weak position to be in because, as a rule Nigerian governments of whatever stripe are viewed with deep and abiding suspicion. There was a time, in the days of colonialist existence when this position could be understandable or perhaps excused but now, very close to seventy years after independence, this status quo is at least rather puzzling. The machinery of government is now operated by Nigerians and yet, this perception of government as a foreign institution persists. This is to an extent that JAMB is fair game for sabotage and if it is efficient against all the odds stacked against it, it cannot be working in the interest of the nation. For example, cheating in the JAMB examinations is not only condoned but is actively encouraged in certain quarters. This is why when a candidate forged her own result to put herself on top of the pile a large number of  Nigerians believed her cock and bull story rather than the official and authentic explanation put out by JAMB. From the benefit of my fifty year experience within the Nigerian university system, I quite understand this thinking. Those who pass examinations do so on the strength of their own efforts. On the other hand, those who fail owe their failure to the evil machinations of their examiners. JAMB, being the ultimate examiner in the land cannot, under any condition, be given the benefit of any doubt under whatever circumstances that may arise.

    The omnipotence of the almighty JAMB is now no longer in doubt but, there was a time when, of course, it did not exist. All those who were admitted into any Nigerian university before 1978 did not have to sit for the JAMB examination. Up till that date, each university was wholly responsible for all the exercises involved with the recruitment of all their students. This meant that students applied to the universities of their choice and their applications were processed by each university. In my case, I applied to three universities at a time when there were only four functional universities. A fair proportion of my contemporaries did the same thing and were duly admitted to all three even though this caused considerable chaos to the system. This is because those superfluous admissions constituted a block to other applicants who were qualified, albeit at a lower level to those who had been admitted. This did not foul up the system as it could very well have done because of the relatively few number of universes and applicants. In addition, a large number of applicants were considered for admission on the basis of their Advanced level results. By the mid-seventies however, not only were there more universities but the majority of candidates were being admitted through the concretionary route which was through an examination. They were then admitted to what was regarded as a preliminary year. At Ife in those days, this year was regarded as Part zero to signify that those in that group were being prepared for admission to the university proper. This being the case, it was thought expedient to merge the examination process in all Nigerian universities into one hence the establishment of a Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB). This made a whole lot of sense at the time, especially because all the existing universities were Federal government institutions. The current situation is much different seeing that not only are there as many as fity-one Federal universities but also, hundreds of other institutions for which JAMB is responsible. It must also be acknowledged that the number of candidates handled by JAMB has in the interim increased from less than a hundred thousand to well over a million. None of these challenges is crushing, at least not as problematic as the integrity or, the lack of it of the human beings involoved in the examination process.

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    If there was an integrity index in Nigeria, it would have crashed precipitously since that first JAMB examination in 1978. Even then, the human element in the administration of admission matters was never zero from the onset. I found this to be so through personal experience. My first involvement with JAMB was in 1982 when as the Vice- Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy I was responsible for the admission of students to the Faculty. Unlike the general belief, then and now, the authority to admit candidates into Nigerian universities resides in individual universities. Each university informs JAMB of their minimum standards and from then on, it is the business of JAMB to hold each institution to that standard. This is why there are different cut off points for different institutions even though there is now a JAMB standard which in any case, is set by the universities.

    In 1982, university admission was still a cosy family affair. For that purpose, there was a Medicine/Pharmacy admissions committee which met in the Ikoyi premises of JAMB. All the members of that committee came with their results printout sheets and presented those  results to the committee. We then presented our recommendations and admissions were made based on what had been earlier presented. 40% was based on merit, 30% on catchment area, 20% on candidates from what were called educationally disadvantaged states leaving 10% to our discretion. There were virtually no qualified candidates from educationally disadvantaged areas and few candidates from outside our catchment area had bothered to apply to us for admission, bearing in mind, the disadvantage posed by their state of origin. This meant that virtually all the qualified candidates that were within our 90% zone were admitted. The most compelling fallout from this exercise was that for us, unlike in the past, most of the successful candidates were from the South West. That has been the case since then so that the ethnic diversity which had been the hallmark of the university was diluted noticeably. This has affected most other Nigerian universities.

    Over the years however, the examination board has had to cope with situations which were  not thought of in 1978. For a start, candidates and their sponsors have over the years become increasingly desperate and unscrupulous. So-called miracle centres which have increased cheating to an art form have sprung up all over the place. The situation is such that candidates are aided and abetted by all their significant others including their anxious parents and teachers. The energy with which JAMB must cope with this maleficence is tremendous. There was a time in the nineties when the examination was overwhelmed by this integrity problem so that her published results were stripped of all credibility. The situation was so bad that it became apparent in the performance of the students who were admitted into the university during this period was woeful. The matriculants were loud, empty headed and showed barely concealed contempt for virtually all aspetcts of university culture. In short, too many of them were simply intolerable but they could not be weeded out. That was when the universities reacted by placing another hurdle between the JAMB examination and final admission in defence of their integrity. Hence, post-JAMB tests were instituted.

  • Babachir Lawal oversimplifies bitter politics

    Babachir Lawal oversimplifies bitter politics

    If Babachir David Lawal, a former secretary to the government of the federation, had ridden quietly into the sunset after his removal from office in 2017, he would have been long forgotten. He may lack the depth many Nigerians thought he was capable of, particularly having once assumed a high-profile public office, but he is devious enough to recognise that he needs to sustain his bitter remonstrations to maintain political relevance. He has kept up the flurry, excited that impressionable newsmen have found his postulations irresistible and worthy of adorning newspaper front pages. But if you are going to be very loud, why not add some glamour and substance to it? Not Mr Lawal. He inflicts himself on the public, and does so with bitter and provocative efficiency. Last Monday on television, he was in the public face again excoriating President Bola Tinubu whom he described as arrogant and pompous, and also pontificating on the 2023 presidential election, and stereotyping and psychoanalysing the Yoruba. Casting himself as the ultimate demolition man, he constantly feels a burden to ladle out bucketfuls of invectives now and then to every passerby, especially the ones who would fetch him newspaper headlines.

    Mr Lawal has sadly not lived down his removal in 2017 as SGF over allegations of misappropriation of funds voted to alleviate food scarcity in the Northeast. First suspended by President Muhammadu Buhari in April of that year, he was eventually removed seven months later, because his stay in the administration had become a liability. He still smarts from that job loss and public disgrace. In any case, he severely left the late president out of his misery and has instead trained his guns almost exclusively on President Tinubu. Some Nigerians resent the president, particularly his political contemporaries frequently outsmarted by him, but few among them ever decribe him as arrogant. It is okay to dislike the president, indeed for no reason at all, but if a reason would be cited, it should at least contain some logic. But hear Mr Lawal on President Tinubu: “He is arrogant. The guy has an arrogance that belies definitions…The problem with Bola Tinubu is that he thinks I’m the one that offended him. I didn’t offend him; he offended me and he is full of himself, and he thinks that he is now so-called president…I believe he didn’t win the election.”

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    Similar to how some parts of Nigeria demonstrate dreadful unease when it comes to the Yoruba, the former SGF also swallowed the common stereotype of the Yoruba as arrogant and imperious. According to Mr Lawal, “The problem with the Yoruba – and I still repeat it – is that when you support them and they win, they turn around to convert you, behave as if they have subdued you, as if they have conquered you. They will not count your support…When I used to say that all the time, even when we sat in his house, they would say, ‘No, it’s not like that’…We that are not Yoruba—we regret it, because when you go there, they throw us out.” It is pointless trying to debunk Mr Lawal’s assertions. That view of the Yoruba is widely held in the Southeast, mused over in the South-South, and during the decolonisation process in the 1950s, northern political leaders felt the sting of Yoruba imperiousness. But the mistake the critics make is to ignore the fact that the Yoruba are no fan of one another either. Their elite ridiculed and conspired against Obafemi Awolowo before independence and in the First Republic, treated MKO Abiola with contempt until he won the 1993 election, and as ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo among many others have shown, the Yoruba have been the chief antagonists of their own causes more than anyone else. By making President Tinubu the archetypal Yoruba, the SGF clearly shows how little of the Southwest he knows.

    Perhaps the worst fallacy Mr Lawal committed was his insistence that Mr Obi won the 2023 presidential poll. He did not present any proof other than to say he had proof. Yet he was in the Labour

    Party during the poll, but did not think it fit to lend his proofs to Mr Obi to prosecute their outlandish case in the courts. In addition, he lied about contributing to President Tinubu’s election when he was all along fanatically promoting Mr Obi. The newspapers and social media will obviously continue to indulge Mr Lawal for some time to come. Indeed, the country will give a hearing to anyone with a modicum of talent for abuse and who can pillory the president. Mr Lawal will receive premium mention for his continuing and irrational characterisation of the president, for his pedantic consideration of social, political and economic issues, and for his rage against, and unsparing hatred for, the Yoruba, a trait shared by some geopolitical zones and persons. Do the Yoruba even know how deeply resented they are?

  • Fayemi, Amaechi and ADC

    Fayemi, Amaechi and ADC

    In his wildest dreams, former Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi, could not have imagined that the talkative former Rivers governor Rotimi Amaechi would reveal the foundational details of the conspiracy that led to the formation of a political coalition movement against the All Progressives Congress (APC). Last week, on television, perhaps exasperated by his fellow former governor’s dissembling, Mr Amaechi exposed the conspiracy, revealing that he and the former Ekiti governor inspired the beginnings of the coalition force. Nigerians believe him. Neither Dr Fayemi who has kept spectrally quiet nor his spokesman who merely warned against social media gossips has denied the story. After all, said the former Ekiti governor, he had endorsed Ekiti governor, Abiodun Oyebanji for a second term. How that absolved him of anti-party plots is hard to understand.

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    Dr Fayemi reserves the right to plot against his friends and lionise his enemies, just like the bitter and vexatious former Osun State governor Rauf Aregbesola; but his comrades in the African Democratic Congress (ADC) are tired of his double-dealing and want him to clarify his stand. The trouble, however, is that unlike Mr Aregbesola, Dr Fayemi still has a conscience disturbed by his errant choices. He is aggrieved for being left out in the cold when President Bola Tinubu constituted his cabinet, but he recollects the president’s immense contributions to his election and reelection, without which he could not have actualize his ambition.

    But being lukewarm in politics is as debilitating as it is counterproductive. Dr Fayemi may congratulate himself for not yet immersing fully in the ADC, for the adopted party is convulsing with internal and legal conflicts of all kinds, but he will do more than just immersion once the coast is clear. And he is of course not alone in sitting on the fence. He is in solid and infamous company with former vice president Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, both of whom are on the horns of a dilemma over the many troubles of the ADC. He may also exult for not burning his bridges yet, and like the Pharisee, he may even joke about the irreligious Mr Aregbesola provocatively invoking God as the patron saint of the coalition party. But soon, Dr Fayemi will have to determine whether to go the whole hog in rebellion or retrace his steps. His choice will depend on whether the temptation to unhorse President Tinubu is more vengefully satisfying than the trouble his conscience will give him.

  • 2027: exhuming Goodluck Jonathan again

    2027: exhuming Goodluck Jonathan again

    In April 2022, shortly before political parties began their nomination battles for the 2023 presidential election, a group of supporters visited former president Goodluck Jonathan at his Abuja residence to pressure him to throw his hat in the ring. He was characteristically evasive. His response was a model in both brevity and caution. “Yes you are calling me to come and declare for the next election, I cannot tell you I’m declaring,” he had said soothingly. “The political process is ongoing. Just watch out. The key role you must play is that Nigeria must get somebody that will carry young people along.” Presumably he was that somebody who knew how to galvanise the youth. Months before the parties organise the next nominations for the 2027 presidential election, Dr Jonathan has once more come under pressure to enter the race. Dispensing with the lessons of the 2022 experience, the former president has again adopted his cautious and evasive approach.

    This time, he is not facing any hurdle that he didn’t face in 2022. There is still the legal conundrum inserted in the constitution in 2019 forbidding any president who had previously taken oath of office twice from running for the presidency. Responding to the lacuna that arose from the death in office of ex-president Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010, the National Assembly amended the constitution to remove any ambiguity regarding qualification for the presidency. In 2019, the amendment, contained in Section 137(3), came into effect, and it pointedly precludes anyone who completed the term of a previous president and had won another term in office from staking a claim for the office. The lawmakers reasoned that a breach would violate the immutable constitutional provision that no president shall serve more than eight years in office. It is not clear by what legal sleight of hand anyone can still read ambiguity into that amendment or waffle about whether it can be applied retroactively or not.

    In 2022, former vice president Atiku Abubakar and other crowds of ambitious aspirants from the southern part of the country helped banish the possibility of Dr Jonathan entering the contest. And so it was that the once exuberant former president suddenly became grimfaced and deflated. Had he calmly considered the circumstances of the race he was being beguiled into, he would have seen that it was a bridge too far. But strangely, he let himself be seduced by the prospect of returning to familiar haunts he had grown to love, a presidency so powerful and immense, but an office he felt somewhat humiliated out of in 2015. He was not alone in displaying that unnatural desire. Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo reportedly did not want to relinquish power in 1979, but was coaxed by his fellow generals. He never stopped longing for the office, and when the opportunity came again in 1999, though he at first dissembled, he took it with both hands. In November 2010, Alhaji Atiku became the consensus candidate of the Malam Adamu Ciroma-led Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPFL) in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s presidential primary slated for January 2011. He had defeated Ibrahim Babangida, former military head of state who had ruled for eight years, but still panted after the office more than a decade after he was shooed out.

    Sources within the PDP confirm that Dr Jonathan is being pressured to contest the 2027 presidency on the party’s platform. Bauchi State governor Bala Mohammed, who was for almost five years Dr Jonathan’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, is believed to be the leading exponent of the Jonathan candidature. He has privately conceded that the legal conundrum barring the former president from contesting could be successfully tackled, and that since Dr Jonathan would then not be entitled to run for a second term should he win, it would pave the way for the return of another northerner, presumably his good self, to take a shot at the presidency. His permutations may be neat, but they are infantile. There are many more leading PDP members lining up behind a Jonathan candidacy, believing that he would stand a better chance than anyone else, including Peter Obi, former Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, of winning. It is not known how reassuring it is to Dr Jonathan that the same party is in some perverse way grooming an alternative in Mr Obi.

    The PDP may wish to exhume Dr Jonathan who cold-shouldered the party after 2015 because he felt betrayed by party bosses, or groom Mr Obi who also abandoned them when he thought they were hostile to his ambition, but in reality they may simply be acknowledging how difficult it is to find a suitable presidential candidate with which to beat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in 2027. It is also feared that the North and some elements in the PDP may in fact be exhibiting their extreme antipathy towards President Tinubu in particular. Stories of the seductions they have inspired fill the media. But, from all indications, the stories will fizzle out in the coming months, for the forces against them are overwhelming, if not insurmountable. It is true that outside Dr Jonathan and Mr Obi, they do not have anyone of enough heft to champion their cause and put them in battle formation, but to linger too long on the implausible and chimerical candidature of the two runaway politicians is to further deplete their chances and prolong their anguish.

    Both Dr Jonathan and Mr Obi are irritatingly cautious politicians, the kind of caution that encapsulates indecisions and hesitations. They are currently perched on the horns of a dilemma and will not throw their hats in the ring without firm assurances of getting the presidential ticket. Yet, no one in the PDP will give that assurance. More unnervingly, no one in the PDP, not even their brightest legal minds, can give them the assurance that the legal conundrums the courted aspirants face can be resolved in their favour. For all his tentativeness, Dr Jonathan fears that Section 137(3) cannot by any conceivable legal interpretation be stretched to accommodate his ambition. His wife, Dame Patience, a more resolute person than he, thinks the family honour should be redeemed by supporting someone else for the contest. Since leaving the throne, both she and her husband have looked far better and rosier than when they held the reins of power and were subjected to the worst kind of vilifications Dr Jonathan himself thought was unequalled in Africa. In addition, the former president’s aides will be secretly appalled that their principal still harbours any thought of returning to the hot seat.

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    It is expected that the former president will soon announce his disinterest in the race. Regardless of the allure of office, and notwithstanding his suspicious incapacity for deep reflection, he is thought to understand that he is being courted to be cynically deployed to divide the South and pave the way for a northern victory at the poll. He is also thought to understand that they are courting him not because they respect and love him or appreciate his record in office, but because they hope to use him for their own base calculations to reinforce their long-held belief in the superiority and dominance of the North over the South: that they can enthrone and dethrone at will, and that any southerner in office must labour or function under the weight of northern suzerainty and southern vassalage. Dr Jonathan has not given the impression of retaining a tight circle of advisers capable of disaggregating Nigeria’s complex political dynamics and availing him the best options for his considerations. However, he has proved at key moments in his life a capacity for identifying and listening to his best instincts. Those instincts served him well in 2015 when he lost the election and conceded it despite being egged on by his supporters to foment trouble.

    This time, with regard to the 2027 race, he faces far less challenging conundrums than the opposition and election that took him out in 2015. He will see the constitutional impediments to the 2027 race as insurmountable, and the PDP so wracked by internal conflict as to be able to present a formidable force against the enemy. He will also see whatever guarantees they give him concerning the nomination as insufficient to bank on, especially in a party which years of internal dissensions had weakened and disoriented. And finally, he will see the political ramparts and moats upon which the party hopes to erect its defences against the APC as too weak to withstand the ruling party’s cannons, indeed far weaker than the battlements that failed him in 2015. Should he attempt to contest and be given the ticket, he will sense his vulnerability 12 years after he left office much keener than when he ruled supreme and his word was nearly indisputably law. Mr Obi fights common sense and will return to his Labour Party recently retaken from the Julius Abure faction; Dr Jonathan is much calmer, sturdier, and less given to presumptions and oversimplifications. It may take him a little longer to arrange his logic well, but in the end, he will likely resist the witches of Endor bent on summoning his spirit for an ignoble cause.