The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • PBAT and economic crisis as opportunity (1)

    PBAT and economic crisis as opportunity (1)

    This column has referred a number of times in the past to the conceptualization by the 19th-century British historian, Arnold Toynbee, of the response by societies to the challenges of crises as the basis for human progress across space and time. Today, Nigeria confronts another of those debilitating economic crises that have been a recurrent feature of our post-independence experience. Astronomical spirals in food, transportation, healthcare and electricity costs among others have worsened existential conditions and deepened poverty levels.

    In a recent exchange on an online platform, a contributor compared prices of basic food items such as garri, yams, rice, beans, eggs, poultry, beef, fish, pepper, tomatoes and vegetables among others before the present administration and now and concluded that Nigerians are worse off today than they were before May 29, 2023. Those who are of this school of thought lay the blame for the current existential hardships solely on the shoulders of the Tinubu administration which has just clocked a little over one year in office. But is there a viable alternative to the removal of the fuel subsidy as well as the merger of the parallel exchange rate markets that constitute the twin pillars of the administration’s economic reformist agenda?

    Did all the major Presidential candidates in the campaigns towards the last general elections not promise to immediately remove the fuel subsidy which had become clearly unsustainable? The truth is that practically all observers grossly underrated the negative implications of the fuel subsidy removal on living costs for the majority of citizens and any other administration would still have been confronted with the dilemma faced by the PBAT administration in implementing the inevitable policy.

    Even if it is true as some opposition elements contend that there is still some degree of subsidy being paid on fuel imports as the country awaits the resuscitation of the Port Harcourt refinery as well as the full take-off of the Dangote refinery next month, humongous amounts from the largely dubious scheme are currently being saved. This is evident in the near tripling of the amount accruing to the Federation Account and shared by all levels of government monthly since the subsidy removal. The enhanced revenue levels available especially to the sub-national levels of government have in turn increased the tempo and magnitude of palliative programmes being implemented by various states albeit at different levels of efficiency, efficacy, and transparency.

    Again, the merger of the dual exchange rate markets has substantially blocked the opportunity for a few favoured and well-connected persons to buy Forex at cheap rates at the official window and sell the same for a fortune at the parallel market without an iota of contribution to national productivity. Most experts agreed that had the hemorrhaging and distortions associated with both the fuel subsidy regime and the criminal exchange rate syndicate continued, the economy would for all practical purposes have collapsed by now.

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    The restoration of sanity to the operations of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under the leadership of the current governor, Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, and the resumption of responsibility for fiscal policy within the purview of the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, are gradually but steadily helping to recalibrate, redirect and reinvigorate the economy even though magical solutions cannot be conjured in the short run.

    For the better part of this writer’s adult life, the country has always been faced with one form of economic crisis and high living costs or the other. Perhaps one exception was during the oil boom of the immediate post-civil war era in the early to mid-1970s when the General Yakubu Gowon regime claimed that Nigeria’s problem was not the availability of money but how to spend it. There was also the short-lived boom squandered by President Shehu Shagari administration in the Second Republic between 1979 and 1983. Indeed, by 1981, that administration had to introduce drastic austerity measures as the economy had run into crisis due to its ineptness and venality.

    Under the military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, the country again reaped humongous revenues from oil proceeds as a result of high prices due to the Gulf War, earnings which were again largely squandered. In the latter years of  President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration running on into the Dr Goodluck Jonathan administration on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the country again earned substantial revenues from high international oil prices which were neither invested to effectively bridge the infrastructure deficit nor meaningfully alleviate poverty.

    Many have been led to perceive the 1960s as the golden years of Nigerian development when the country was a virtual Eldorado in terms of living conditions. But even then the country at the time experienced a high living costs crisis. That was when the highlife maestro, the late Victor Olaiya, sang his hit song in Yoruba: “Ilu le o, kosowo lode. Obirin kigbe, Okurin kigbe, won kigbe nitori Owo”. (This translates to “The country is hard, there is no money in town. Both men and women are crying because money is scarce). In our history, we can also recall the chronic scarcity of essential commodities and harsh austerity measures including the mass retrenchment of workers that characterized the Buhari/Idiagbon military regime of 1984-85 or the various students, workers and civil society uprisings against the hardships associated with the Babangida regime’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) between 1986 and 1993.

    Rather than utilize the unanticipated oil boom earnings to consolidate on the agricultural productivity gains of the immediate post-independence era and pursue agro-allied industrialization, the country became grossly import-dependent for all manner of necessities and luxuries including indulging in massive food importation.

    With the massive devaluation of the Naira attendant on the introduction of the IBB regime’s SAP, the scores of manufacturing industries in textiles, tyres, vehicle assembly, paper mills, pharmaceuticals, and other goods established on the import-substitution-industrialization model folded up as the country suffered massive deindustrialization and the attendant large scale youth unemployment. These industries were largely dependent on the importation of raw materials in many cases as well as spare parts and critical technology, activities negatively affected by the currency devaluation.

    Quoting the late Professor Claude Ake at a lecture he delivered in Abuja on Thursday, Professor Mike Ozekhome (SAN), referred to the continued ‘disarticulation’ of the Nigerian economy referring to a situation in which we produce what we do not consume and consume what we do not produce. This has been at the root of Nigeria’s protracted economic development malaise that far predated the Tinubu administration. As Professor Okwudiba Nnoli succinctly makes the point, there is “A divorce between our local resources and those (essentially foreign) that go into the production of the artifacts usually associated with development. As a result we are alienated from our bio-physical environment and unable to creatively transform it for our own benefit and progress”.

    The recurrent economic crises we have experienced since independence had not been utilized by successive administrations as an opportunity to respond to the challenge of dependency and underdevelopment thus laying a foundation for autochthonous development. Our fixation with foreign exchange in our development policy matrix is a function of the substantially dependent nature of our economy which has made the almighty dollar king in our economic transactions and processes.

    Even as President Tinubu’s economic managers continue to draw on their professional and technocratic ingenuity to devise strategies to continuously boost the value of the Naira, the President can utilize the opportunity of the economic crisis to massively mobilize Nigerians to rediscover their self-confidence, become significantly self-reliant, cultivate consumption habits predicated on local resources as well as nurture productive practices based on local technology and expertise to a significant extent.

    The President gave an indication that he is inclined to move his administration in this direction when on Thursday, as a special guest at the 142nd meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) in Abuja, he personally rallied state governors to engage in massive food production to enhance food availability and significantly scale down food costs. But the success of this bid will depend not on the individual heroics of the governors but their ability to vigorously mobilize their citizens, especially energetic and enterprising youth to engage in agriculture and other productive activities.

    The challenge to actualize this kind of mass mobilization of popular energies to achieve self-reliant development will not fall within the purview of the president’s orthodox economic managers whether at the Ministry of Finance or the CBN or other such agencies. Rather, it will be a core mandate of a critical agency like the National Orientation Agency (NOA) to conceptualize and implement mass mobilization strategies to inculcate in a critically significant mass of Nigerians consumption habits, fashionable tastes, productive inclinations and dispositions as well as psychological orientations conducive to accelerated national transformation.

    Again, the ruling party, the APC, and ruling parties at sub national levels will have to be transformed into vibrant, virile and vigorous organizations that are organically alive and can serve as a transmission belt of developmental values from the leadership to the led.

    A key philosophy underpinning this unorthodox approach to development must be the understanding that no people can ever develop another people or confer or transfer development on others. We can ride Chinese constricted trains but will never be masters and owners of this aspect of development until we internalize train manufacturing technology for ourselves. It is only a people through self awareness engendered by transcendental leadership that can develop themselves.

    The second key point is that there will be no easy shortcut to development. To paraphrase the great Awo who once put it with characteristic pungency “Nigeria’s national objectives and aspirations can be stated in simple and succinct terms. But this should not be taken as suggesting that our national goals can be achieved with any kind of ease or simplicity”. How then can President Tinubu mobilize Nigerians to utilize the current economic crisis as an opportunity to fundamentally change the country’s developmental narrative and trajectory in the fastest possible time frame bearing in mind Pandit Nehru’s rallying cry at India’s independence that what the country did not produce she would not consume and if India could not clothe herself she should go naked? Today, India is a global economic power.

  • Professor Tunji Olaopa and there form struggle in Nigeria (3)

    Professor Tunji Olaopa and there form struggle in Nigeria (3)

    Even though he is evidently of a very serious cast of mind, Professor Tunji Olaopa is a captivating and arresting story teller who delicately and intricately weaves his personal narratives of his childhood experiences, educational career and intensive, continual quest for spiritual insight and philosophical self-discovery with his evolution as an eminent reform thinker, scholar and bureaucrat. His narrative throughout the book is gripping even when he is applying his mind to seemingly arcane subjects or writing at a relatively high level of abstraction.

    Born into a polygamous home, the author dilates incisively as regards his perceptions of the strengths and Weaknesses as well as challenges of polygamy. The author writes of his personal experience of the Yoruba adage that “only the parents give birth to a baby, but it takes the entire community to raise a child”. He states that “Indeed, the more my father married new wives, the more the family grew into a small community of its own in a larger community, especially at Aawe”. Even though he admires his father’s adroitness in managing his large polygamous family, Professor Olaopa notes the suspicion, thinly disguised hostility and emotional unpredictability that are often negative experiences of polygamy.

    Thus, he writes of his deep commitment to monogamy in his family life and narrates the story of a loving home predicated on firm shared commitment with his wife and children and informed by strongly held Christian values. His reflections on ‘Christianity and the Spiritual’ as well as ‘Further Philosophical Reflection on my Spiritual Journey So Far’ in chapters six and seven are further portrayals of the author’s practical adherence to the Socratic admonition that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. His meditations on the essence of existence and the meaning or meaninglessness of life would cause many a reader to ponder and evaluate the philosophies and values on which their lives are predicated.

    If all that exists is matter which decomposes and disintegrates at death, after which there is purportedly no after life or spiritual reality, does it then matter how we live or what we do? Do we then have any right to ask moral questions or give value judgements on the lives of others?

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    Of course, Professor Olaopa’s life has naturally had its own fair share of adversities, vicissitudes and challenges. At about the age of five or six, for instance, he encountered political thugs of the bloody operation wetie era in the Southwest in Ibadan who gruffly pushed him aside and proceeded to douse a vehicle in petrol and set it ablaze with its unfortunate passengers trapped inside. This traumatic imagery remained in the mind of the young boy and it was years later as a student of political science at the University of Ibadan that he was able to come to grips analytically with the dynamics of bitter political competition, and the crisis of violence and instability in post-colonial Nigeria.

    In another narration, the author relates his near-death experience with a protracted brain ailment of indeterminate provenance which lasted for ten years well into his undergraduate years in the university. This, in addition to his foray into distracting students union politics at the University of Ibadan affected his grades during his first degree where, to his utter discomfiture, he graduated with a second class lower division degree in political science. The unrelenting fighter that he is, Olaopa was to make up for what he perceived was a lapse in his first degree that he made up for by performing brilliantly at the postgraduate level and going on to become one of Nigeria’s most accomplished bureaucrats and public administration scholars.

    According to the author, “the master’s programne was a most intense period for me. As I had earlier narrated, I was motivated by my initial undergraduate failing to overreach myself. And I did. One of the remarkable recognitions of my frenetic intellectual restlessness was the call I got from one of my highly-Rev-erred teachers, Professor Femi Otubanjo, as regards an interview for a position as research assistant. It was later I got the scintillating news that it was the sage himself, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was looking for a replacement for his personal political Secretary, the inimitable Odia Ofeimun”. Although he eventually got the job, Olaopa was unable to resume following the passage of Awolowo on May 9, 1987.

    A seminar paper titled “Potentials for Revolutionary Change in Nigeria” which he wrote and presented during the late Professor Peter Ekeh’s ‘Marxism’ class at the masters level at UI sought to interrogate Ekeh’s theory of the two publics and Ali Mazrui’s thesis on Africa’s triple spiritual heritage “to explore possibilities that could hinder coalition-building for revolutionary change in Nigeria”. Fascinated by the theoretical weight of his submissions and insights, Ekeh encouraged Olaopa to build on this study with an in-depth examination of the issue of people-centered and grassroots social mobilization for development. One wonders at this point, why Olaopa was more attracted and influenced by scholars of a rather conservative orientation like Plato and not scholars of a more radical persuasion like Marx, Lenin, Nkrumah, Franz Fanon, Walter Rodney or Claude Ake.

    Ake in a piece on Marx’s continued appeal to African intelligentsia had reasoned that Marx’s political theory had the liberation from oppression at its core and was concerned with the imperative of social change in sharp contrast to bourgeois social scientists who are more preoccupied with preserving and ensuring the stability of an oppressive and repressive status quo. Ake also opined, however, that Marxist theory was grounded in the context of the unfolding capitalist system at the centre when he wrote; was fixated with the challenges of capitalism and its inherent cyclical crises in Europe and hardly addressed his mind to the challenges of largely underdeveloped and still essentially feudal societies in confronting their desperate existential conditions.

    Particularly intriguing is Professor Olaopa’s discourse on his encounter with various dimensions of spirituality in his characteristic exhaustive and rigorous search for a religious belief system that offered a coherent and credible system for making sense of reality and ordering one’s existence in an often bewildering human universe. He thus reports in graphic detail his intellectual adventures with Lobsang Rampa’s writings and the mysticism of the Far East, the spiritual meditations of the gnostics, the phenomenal intellect of the fathers of the Catholic Church, the mysteries of the Ifa corpus and his experimentation with the Rosicrucian mystic sect in his student days.

    In his words, “The Ifa corpus also instigated the same interest in me. It encompassed the cumulative philosophy by which the Yoruba have lived for centuries. How then could it be pagan or anti-God? It did not take long for me to realize, first, that a knowledge of the inner workings of Rosicrucianism or Awo (Yoruba cults and their guided knowledge) requires a deeper immersion in certain spiritual frameworks than my intellectual fascination could achieve. There is an extent to which I could excavate the depth of these mystical practices without being a member. And membership was what my intellectual temperament and religious background cautioned against…while my fascination with Ifa cosmology, mysticism and Rosicrucianism satisfied the curiosity of my ever questioning mind, I was always cut short at the point of making a final commitment to the spiritualities”.

    Although he is a Christian of a more moderate Pentecostal persuasion, he abhors what he describes as “the simplistic fixation with the miracle mentality as well as prosperity theology and all its obscene manifestations”. The first part of the book deals with the author’s growing up experiences and the factors such as education, religion and deep immersion in Yoruba cultural and moral ethos that shaped his life values and nourished his underlying passion for personal and institutional reforms in Nigeria.

    From his first job at the Oyo State chapter of the defunct Directorate for Mass Mobilization, Social Justice and Self-Reliance (MAMSER) where his frequent articles on the national condition caught the attention of top functionaries of the military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, Olaopa, before long resumed work at the Speech and Policy Analysis Unit in the Office of the President. In meticulous detail, he writes on his steady rise within the public service hierarchy, the triumphs and failings of his insistent attempts at institutional reforms at his diverse postings, his rise to the apex of the Service as a Permanent Secretary and his unexpected and premature retirement when he still had so much to offer. This book can also be called ‘The Reformist Manifesto’. In chapters thirteen, fourteen and fifteen in particular he enunciates in knowledgeable detail his agenda and reformist philosophy for the emergence of a result-oriented and productive public service in Nigeria as a necessary condition for the country’s liberation.

  • Rivers of trouble (2)

    Rivers of trouble (2)

    A political crisis, once it breaks out, often escalates. Such is the fate of Rivers State, where political leaders and elders are enmeshed in conflicts. It is an ill will that will blow nobody any good. The costly crisis would have been avoided if politicians had spared some thoughts and weighed the consequences of their actions.

    One crisis breeds more crises. The beginning is known, but nobody can accurately predict its end, the scape-goat casualties, the economy of warfare, and its psychological effects on the victims.

    A predecessor-successor crisis is not new in the state. After the distinguished medical doctor, Peter Odili, handed over to Rotimi Amaechi, communication broke down between him and his boy. The experienced politician never openly fought with his stooge on the pages of newspapers, but there was a hushed up cold war.

    Following Nyesom Wike‘s appointment as minister by former President Goodluck Jonathan, there was the parting of ways between the former Chief of Staff and Governor Amaechi, who later left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressives Congress (APC). It was purely on a political difference.

    The then Governor Wike and his predecessor, Amaechi, who later became a minister in the Muhammadu Buhari sdministration, became foes.

    The trend of crises between governors and their predecessors never constituted a threat to public peace. But today in Rivers, there is a threat to law and order.

    As goes the saying: where two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. In the last six months, tension has engulfed the oil-rich state polarised by the protracted feud between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Wike, incumbent Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Put succinctly, the Southsouth state is at war with itself over the discord between the godfather and his estranged godson.

    At a time Fubara and Wike should deepen their collaboration for the development of Rivers, their needless quarrel has given peace the wings to take a flight.

    This is worrisome. In order of economic importance and prospects, Rivers is next to Lagos. If the pattern of public disruption persists, it may constitute a serious threat to national business, besides its own economy going to limbo.

    In the course of the strange battle, the legislature has been at the receiving end. The law-making organ is being crippled and bastardised. The legislature is the first and most important organ of government in a democracy. But the arm has not been allowed to function effectively in the course of the costly crisis.

    The House of Assembly was bombed. Later, it was completely brought down. Much later, the maze was relocated to the Executive Chambers, the domain of the Executive. Also, the residential quarters of the lawmakers was not spared. The governor erroneously thought that it was his property. He threatened to demolish it when he paid an emergency visit to the place, without prior notice to the occupants.

    Majority of the aggrieved lawmakers have also threatened to impeach the governor, making him to gird his loins. Fubara is not sleeping on guard. But the steps he has taken so far have exacerbated the slippery political ground across the state instead of reducing it.

    There have been claims and counter-claims about arson and assassination attempts. Commissioners and other aides have abruptly resigned, reabsorbed and called it quits again. The House of Assembly has split into two; a case of three lawmakers claiming superiority over 27. Democracy is on sickbed in Rivers because the gates to the state’s parliament are shut against the people’s elected representatives. The hand of the executive is heavy on the legislature. It is hampering the doctrine of separation of powers.

    While governors of other less endowed states are scratching their heads and working assiduously to expand their revenue bases, implement developmental projects and erect lasting legacies, political leaders in Rivers, who are swimming in a pool of money, are locked in a needless superiority war that has diverted their attention from the legitimate business of the state.

    The predecessor-successor rift was never anticipated. Under Wike, Fubara was a loyal civil servant. Like other permanent secretaries, his career target was probably to become the Head of Service. But he was catapulted to the driver’s seat by God’s grace. It fulfilled Wike’s succession agenda. The transition was smooth. But the romance ended there. The cordial relationship was replaced by politics of hate, intrigues and bickering within three months. Old allies are now up in arms. Sadly, there is no end in sight to the acrimony.

    A new dimension to the crisis is the regression to ethnic rivalry. Leaning on the tribal pillar, some elements are fueling the fire. But Fubara, though a product of zoning or power rotation, is not the governor of an ethnic group but of all Rivers indigenes and residents.

     The lesson is instructive. Godfather-governors may need a realistic appraisal before making cardinal decisions on succession in the future to prevent a similar scenario and avert a crisis that may take its tolls on effective governance.

    The protracted rift has now graduated into clashes over antagonistic claims about tenure expiration and extension across the 23 local government areas of the state. The two sides of the dissension, observers say, are incongruous. The supporters on both sides see the dispute as the continuation of the feud between the two top political leaders.

    Predictably, the state slid into violence during the week. Rivers almost became a war zone before policemen moved in to halt a likely chaos. There was bloodletting on the streets. Two people – a policeman and a member of a vigilance group – were murdered. The next day, the death toll rose to three. A former student leader closely linked with the protests was murdered by unknown persons. They are not kinsmen of Fubara and Wike. Their bereaved families are left to mourn their dead alone. Whatever the solutions the warring parties might bring to the table in the days or weeks or months ahead cannot bring back the dead. Lives have been wasted.

    The police are still looking for the killers, who are likely to be known by some people but may not be apprehended, thereby rendering the investigation futile.

    The police command had to divert attention from chasing criminals to mounting surveillance at council secretariats where youths were on the prowl. The protesters threatened fire and brimstone.

    It was a harrowing experience for the few men of conscience in the state.

    Barely a year ago, the two warring sides were one; aptly united by their collective dedication to retain PDP in power in the state in post-Wike era. The parting of ways was curious and sudden. The consequence is that instead of focusing on proper governance, a lot of energy is being dissipated to manage the crisis.

    Rivers has curiously chosen the path of hullabaloo. It is a very rich state comprising many idle able-bodied youths who, instead of going to work, chose to invade council secretariats in a protest against or defence of the two warring lords. The protests may have been sponsored. The carrot was big to the extent that the rented crowd refused to go home.

    The barbarism of partisan political leaders is underscored by their unwillingness to allow the court to give the final verdict on the disputed matter before tacitly encouraging youths to take the laws into their hands.

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    Yet, neither side could be said to be legally right. In the past, a conflict like the current one was usually resolved by actors embracing a political solution. In other states, the approach still works.

    However, despite President Bola Tinubu brokering reconciliation, the peace deal still collapsed. Its terms were being implemented initially. It rekindled hope about an amicable resolution. Suddenly, the beat stopped. Those responsible for the implementation of the peace proposals pulled the brake. Other terms were rejected in a matter of weeks. Mutual trust and confidence broke down completely. Cracks widen on the wall. They cannot be mended. Things have fallen apart. The centre cannot hold.

    The crux of the matter is that Fubara and Wike are competing for space. They are locked in battle over the soul of the Rivers PDP. The governor is leaning on the power of incumbency at the state level. The performing minister is the apple of the President’s eyes at the federal level. The state, having become divided, the governor is targeting the councils for the expansion of his personal structures. He inherited those structures before the outbreak of the crisis. Now, he is fighting to keep them.

    Now, the battlefield has shifted to the councils. The local government affair is a delicate issue when the law or the constitution is invoked. The conflict of interpretations heralds trouble. Nigeria has to decide if the local government system should be an autonomous tier under the federal constitution or administrative units created by states for ease of administration at the local level.

    In Rivers, after three years, the tenure of council chairmen, vice chairmen and councillors has expired. In anticipation of the expiration, no concerted effort was made by the governor to conduct council polls for ease of legal and legitimate power transfer at the grassroots.

    According to the 1999 Constitution, a democratically elected council is fully guaranteed. The court has affirmed this clause on many occasions. But politicians, particularly governors, are clever and ever willing to violate the provision or gloss over it. Under the constitution, there is no room for caretaker committee for the local governments.

    But, how valid is the contrasting argument for tenure extension? The 27-members of the House of Assembly, led by Speaker Martins Amaewhule, claimed to have extended the tenure of the chairmen. The factional three-member Assembly, led by Speaker Victor Oko-Jumbo, brandishing an injunction, said the extension was fake, illegal, null and void. Oko-Jumbo said the extension by 27 lawmakers cannot stand.

    The House of Assembly can more create local governments, suspend erring chairmen and exercise control. But the court has to now rule on the contentious issue of whether the House of Assembly can actually extend the tenure of chairmen under the 1999 Constitution or the state law.

    Although Fubara had insisted that the tenure had expired and hurriedly inaugurated caretaker committees, the new chairmen could only set shops outside the council secretariats, which are currently a “no-go zone.” The police that are keeping the peace there have said the premises would be under lock and key until the court delivers its judgment in the case.

    Amaewhule and his group also scored a point in the court. While Oko-Jumbo claimed that the 27 have ceased to be PDP lawmakers, the court said they never defected to the APC. The raging controversy has continued. The question is: who is the authentic Speaker? Which of the two Houses of Assembly is the authentic legislature?

    Instead of waiting for the court to show the way, the combatants on both sides resorted to hooliganism, crippled governance and gave the state a bad name.

    Even some elements rejected the intervention of the police in an attempt to restore law and order. They asked Police Commissioner Disu to pack and go, insisting that having served in the state for many years, their pranks and tricks were easily detected by the cop.

    Observers are building scenarios. The court is the final arbiter. But it may not be the end of the matter. The court ruling will create victors and vanquished. It will not be a win-win solution. Blames will be apportioned. Fines have to be paid. There will be vengeance.

    If the verdict goes against pro-Fubara lawmakers, certain things have to be reversed. The conflicts will continue. If it is against pro-Wike lawmakers, the crisis will fester.

    Would it not have been better for the combatants to embrace political solution characterised by dialogue, sacrifice, give and take, reconciliation and forgiveness instead of setting their state on fire?

  • Towards a viable local government system (2)

    Towards a viable local government system (2)

    Constitutional arrangements such as federalism or unitary states or forms of government such as parliamentary or presidential systems or hybrid governmental systems are made for man and not vice versa. Thus, parliamentarian, presidential, unitary or federalist principles of governance are not abstract ideals that all nations must strictly abide by but rather evolve in most societies as outcomes of their peculiar evolutionary experiences. Nigerian federalism and by extension her local government structure bear inevitably the imprint of her experience under military rule.

    It could be true that the ruling military elite in the nearly three decades since they were at the helm of affairs in Nigeria were inclined towards emphasizing centralizing trends in Nigerian federalism as a result of the military organization’s centralist hierarchical ethos. But it is no less true that other critical stakeholders like elements of the political class, some intellectuals who were involved in governance in military dictatorships, and the top hierarchy of the civil service all supported the weakening of the rigid regional system of the first republic, increased states creation as well as the shift to the presidential form of government because of the perceived role of the political structures of the first republic in orienting the country towards disintegrating centrifugal tendencies inimical to national unity and cohesion.

    It is all too common to blame the military for the shift in the dominant political thought that shaped the political institutions of the first republic. But this perception of the country’s problems and how to resolve them through the constitutional provisions of the 1979 Constitution, a document drawn up by 49 ‘wise men’ comprising some of the country’s best and brightest judicial minds, exemplary intellectuals, and statesmen and which forms the core of the extant 1999 Constitution (as amended) were considered by the conventional wisdom of the period to be the right way to go in correcting the ills that brought an end to the first republic and drove the nation inexorably into civil war.

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    Indeed, although he refused to serve as a member of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) headed by Chief Rotimi Williams (SAN), that avatar of Nigerian federalism, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, publicly admitted that most of the proposals of the CDC reflected his views and suggestions in his book ‘Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution’.

    Thus, even though it may depart from the experience of other federal systems with particular reference to the local government as the third tier of government which is designed by the architects of the constitution to exercise a reasonable degree of autonomy to perform with minimal encumbrances from other levels of government, this is in no way an intrinsic inhibition against the local councils being able to perform optimally and achieving concrete developmental goals at the grassroots. As we noted last week, for instance, Brazil is one federal system that has the local government councils as their third tier of government apparently with beneficial impacts on governance.

    The federal purists contend that seeking to make the local governments an autonomous third tier as the 1999 Constitution (as amended) does, amounts to an absurdity. But they proffer no argument as to why it is logically necessary for states, which are part and parcel of the federation territorially, to enjoy a reasonable degree of administrative and constitutional autonomy while the local governments which are inextricable parts of the states where they are located cannot. It is not enough to assert that local government councils must mandatorily be subordinated to states as an inevitable logic of the federalist ethos perhaps as handed over to us by some constitutional deity whose word is law and must be obeyed. The same argument that makes this case for states’ autonomy can also be made for local governments and may even be considered to be a deepening of the federalist logic.

    In any case, critics of the constitution as regards its provisions for the establishment, management, and funding of this tier of government are utterly unfair in my view. In Section 7 (1) the Constitution provides in unequivocal terms that “the system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is guaranteed under this Constitution”. It further states that “Accordingly, the Government of every State shall…ensure their existence under a Law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils”.

    Some scholars such as the late Professor Adeoye AKinsanya, see a contradiction in this position of the Constitution as regards the existence and functioning of local government councils. In his words, “To be sure, the system of local government by democratically elected LGCs guaranteed by the framers of the Constitution is negated by the same provision of empowering a State Government, using its legislative arm, to enact a Law providing for the “establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such council”, meaning that a state had the power of life and death over every local government council”.

    It is difficult to agree with the submission of the Professor. The only constitutionally recognized local government councils are those democratically elected as clearly stipulated by the Constitution. Once a free, fair, and credible poll has been held and the council’s officers have been elected, their powers and existence flow from the votes of the people and these entities can no longer be legitimately dissolved by governors as currently happens arbitrarily and replaced by caretaker committees.

    The Constitution provides for no lacuna to give governors any leeway to such recourses as the dissolution of elected local government councils, an action that is tantamount to annulling the will of the people and to derogate from the inalienable right of voters in this regard. But the pending decision of the Supreme Court which is being awaited in the case between the federal and state governments should put this matter to rest.

    In also giving the state powers, through the legislature to enact laws for the establishment, structure, composition, funding, and functions of the local councils, the framers of the Constitution pay obeisance to the perceived federalist fetishism. But this provision stands on the leg that the councils must be democratically elected. Some have advocated that amounts of money due to the local councils should simply be paid to state government accounts with the governors determining not only the number of local councils but also how much to allocate to the councils.

    This essentially is what obtains at the moment. The funds paid from the State, Local Government Joint Account as stipulated by the Constitution are managed and distributed according to the whims of the governors. Thus, most local governments lack sufficient funds to effectively undertake their functions even minimally. Again, since the governors reportedly appropriate much of the funds due to the local government councils, the latter officials simply have no compunction, in turn, to divert much of whatever is released to them for private acquisitive purposes rather than to address local developmental challenges.

    Another problem is that of ensuring the integrity of local government elections which is a responsibility conferred on State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs). The latter have been a disaster with every party in power in the states winning 100 percent of Chairmanship and Councilorship positions competed for. Invariably, with their elections guaranteed by partisan SIECs, the local government officials have no sense of responsibility and accountability to the people with negative consequences for grassroots transformation. It is either the SIECs are strengthened constitutionally and administratively to guarantee their independence and autonomy from the autocratic suzerainty of state governors, or their functions transferred to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    It is difficult to understand why anyone should be scared of having credible polls that truly reflect the will of the people at the grassroots all in the name of adherence to some received theoretical doctrine of federalism. If we are striving ceaselessly to improve democratic structures and processes at the centre and in the states, why should the local governments be immune from imbibing the emergent democratic ethos?

    It is no exaggeration that state governors are the greatest albatrosses on the country’s evolution in the direction of an ever-increasingly perfect democratic union, which is an ongoing process even in the most advanced democracies. State governors are widely known to have the state legislatures under their thumbs, and maintain a stranglehold on state judiciaries in addition to their lordship over the state public services. Indeed, so ruthlessly have some governors exercised the powers of their offices that many are beginning to be scared of the impending moves toward the establishment of state police outfits.

    True, it is inevitable that states must necessarily have some degree of control over local government councils as they have the responsibility of planning for the socio-economic development of all local governments that constitute their geographical territorial demarcation. But this is just the same way that states have their budgets and economic planning efforts carried on within the framework of macroeconomic and monetary policies articulated and adumbrated by the national government.

    Of course, no one should be under the illusion that paying funds of local governments directly to them from the Federation Account will automatically translate into manifestations of robust development at the grassroots. There is also the question of the availability of administrative and managerial capacity at that level of governance. It is certainly not out of place to encourage retired citizens with years of experience and accomplishments in both the public and private sectors to seek election as local government chairmen and councilors. Contrary to popular perception, local governments require the highest levels of experienced, capable, and experienced hands because achieving most of our national developmental goals will be a function of the vibrancy and vitality of those elected to run the councils.

    Apart from taking deliberate steps to improve the quality of those elected to run local governments, no effort should be spared by ministries of local government in the states to intensify training and retraining of the officials of the local government bureaucracies to enhance their capacity and effectiveness on the job.

    Perhaps one initiative that could be useful in our quest for a more viable local government system is to experiment with holding local government elections on no party basis or at least inoculating the local government system from the vitriol and prejudices of national or state-level electioneering and elections. Professor Alex Gboyega notes in this respect that “In fact, one could go as far as to say that only local parties show interest in local elections. For example, according to Bowman “Australian local councils are generally proud to describe themselves as non-political, that is, they do not divide on party lines, and most councilors are not endorsed by a political party. Formally, at least, most local authorities are set apart from the partisan politics of state and federal government “.

    Gboyega continues, “In Canada, the principal characteristic of the local political scene…is that the established political parties existing at the federal and provincial levels do not play a direct role in municipal politics. Municipal council members are elected either on a nonpartisan basis or as representatives of purely municipal or civic parties. In the USA too, the party system is so fragmented that national or statewide political parties play no role in local government “. Perhaps this is one area we can look at in reshaping and reorganizing our local government system in Nigeria.

  • Resolving the herdsmen issue in Nigeria

    Resolving the herdsmen issue in Nigeria

    The issue of Fulani herdsmen grazing has been a long-standing and contentious one in many parts of Africa, especially in countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya. Fulani herdsmen, also known as Fulbe or Peul, are a pastoralist ethnic group who rely on cattle rearing for their livelihood. They have a long history of migrating across the Sahel region in search of grazing for their cattle.

    However, several new factors such as  severe changes in our climate, particularly due to the effects of global warming, the increasing population and urbanization in Africa, the availability of land for grazing has become limited the Fulani herdsmen have decided to migrate further, south of the Sahel and this has led to frequent clashes between them and farmers, resulting in bloodletting, sorrow and tears.

    Droughts, desertification, and erratic weather patterns have made it difficult for them to find suitable grazing areas for their cattle. This has forced many Fulani to migrate longer distances in search of pasture, increasing the risk of conflict with settled communities along the way.

    These  conflicts between Fulani herdsmen and farmers have intensified. This has resulted in clashes over land, water, and resources, leading to violence and displacement of communities. The end results are indeed gory that in 2016, the Global Terrorism Index  named the Fulani herdsmen as the fourth most deadliest terrorist group in the world, asides Boko Haram and the recent emergence of banditry, the Fulani herdsmen menace remains the nation’s biggest security issue.

    Of a truth, asides the issues of climate, urbanization and population growth, the Fulani herdsmen also face the challenge of cattle rustling and have been victims of such crimes, the issue of insecurity is a significant challenge and has  created a volatile and dangerous environment for pastoralists, these factors

    coupled with the failure of the security agencies to deal decisively with the issue, the herdsmen have traditionally resorted to self help and have commenced to carry out reprisal attacks against communities, killing, raping and maiming all in  their way. Such attacks have largely incensed Nigerians but till date the perpetrators of both ills, that is the rustling and the reprisal attacks have on most occasions never been apprehended to face the full wrath of the law, the cycle is thus allowed to continue and has bred terror gangs who have not only resorted to reprisal killings but also armed robbery and kidnapping of innocent victims who they ransom for millions of Naira.

    The complex subject of land tenure as well as the ownership of forests and lands hasn’t helped matters, these disputes over access to such lands has  also led to these conflicts.

    Thus, it is safe to say that the Nigerian Nation has a Fulani herdsmen problem and for years many have debated the solutions to ameliorate it’s challenges, reaching a frigthening crescendo during the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. Many then believed that because the Daura born former military general was of Fulani stock, there was a ploy to gift Nigeria to the Fulani who a sitting governor had declared to be a global citizen and thus could choose to migrate from Futa Jallon to Nigeria and back without any inhibitions placed on his movement. Truth is that while the Fulani problem had always been with us since say the 80’s and 90’s,  it gained national attention because of the dastardly nature of the Fulani herdsmen reprisals and the allegation that several security and government agencies were in collusion with these herdsmen to carry out such attacks.

    Read Also:AKK gas pipeline project crucial component of Nigeria’s industrialization, economic prosperity – Minister

    Several solutions have been broached, solutions such as RUGA, ranching, and the restoration of old grazing routes have been mooted to bring a lasting solution to the problem. There was even the hilarious idea of importing grass from other nations to meet up the demand for cattle feed. These solutions stemmed from the lack of government readiness to wholesomely address the issues facing the nation as a result of the  Fulani herdsmen menace. The failure by successive Nigerian governments to develop and enforce comprehensive strategies to address this issue is the reason why Nigeria still suffers from such conflicts when we could have managed such effectively.

    However of all the solutions proffered, that of ranching seems to be the best option for the herdsmen and the nation as a whole. A practice as old as civilisation, this requires the herdsmen to remain in a particular environment which is then given the necessary infrastructural facelifts and security, buyers can come to these ranches to purchase their cows, while the herdsmen can benefit from the provision of healthcare services and educational services. These lands which would be licensed by either the state governments or the local governments would not only boost agriculture but reduce the pressure these herdsmen put on our environment , this reducing the propensity for clashes between the herdsmen and farmers or them and their.communities. Sadly, there are distinguished Nigerians who are seriously antagonising such an idea.

  • Where are the elders?

    Where are the elders?

    I won’t join the maddening crowd seeking to apportion blame on either Victor Osimhen or Finidi George, depending on the side of the divide they want to protect, leaving Nigeria’s 2026 World Cup qualifier ticket on the cliff hanger. The social media is bursting at its seams with all manner of vulgar words poured on Osimhen, with a few others insisting on jabbing Finidi as if they didn’t know that the NFF chiefs served Finidi the World Cup wine inside a poisoned chalice. If Nigeria had 10 points from the possible 12 points from the four matches so far played, it would have been celebrations everywhere. Pray, the loser is an orphan.

    I feel the pains hidden underneath Finidi’s heart because this would be the second time his loyalty towards the growth of the beautiful game in Nigeria is being questioned. As I reflected in my mind’s eye, I discovered Finidi literally walking naked in front of a mammoth crowd, my heart skipped. It went back to the horrific manner in which Finidi’s younger brother Igeniwari George was brutally killed by what today still remains a stray bullet shot by an unknown person around the premises of the Lekan Salami  Stadium with Igeniwari sitting inside Enugu Rangers FC’s bus. It was a dastardly fallout of a Challenge Cup quarter-final game between the Rangers FC (Flying Antelopes) and the vociferous Stationary Stores FC (Adebajo Babes) of Lagos.

    George died of gunshot wounds after a Challenge Cup game between Enugu Rangers and Stationary Stores at the Lekan Salami Stadium, Ibadan on September 9, 1995. That was the year his elder brother Finidi won the UEFA Champions League with Ajax.

    Read Also: Tinubu laying foundation for prosperous, sustainable Nigeria, says NPC DG 

    The late Igeniwari George could not be saved after he was rushed to the University Teaching Hospital, Ibadan where it was alleged that the hospital had a water shortage to carry out a surgery operation. He was part of the Golden Eaglets squad to the 1995 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Ecuador. He featured in four games for the Eaglets. His killer remains unknown to date.

    Except for Coca-Cola’s management in one of their Challenge Cup series which they bankrolled, and remembered the late Igeniwari, all other Challenge Cup finals have been played oblivious of the heart-wrenching incident.

    The puzzle around who killed Igeniwari Gorge years ago still finds consonance with the many questions around the Finidi versus Osimhen saga leaving me with a painful question: “Why always Finidi George?” When Igeniwari was killed, many had thought that Finidi would never play for Nigeria. But he didn’t shun Nigeria as he continued to give his very best in all the matches thereafter, preferring to sulk and bear the pains of the irreparable loss. Perhaps, believing firmly that God knows best.

    Finidi must be pondering over another question akin to the unanswered question (who killed Igeniwari George) with his brother’s death. This time the question would be who leaked the fake news that brought out the bestial tendencies in Osimhen? Sadly, the root cause of Osimhen’s vulgar rants has remained mute and unapologetic while Nigerians take their turns in making Osimhen look like a villain.

    My plea to the elders of the game in Nigeria is that Finidi shouldn’t be left in the cold again like they did to him when his younger brother was killed. I marvel at the way many ex-internationals have joined the crowd in pillorying Osimhen, with many of them suggesting an outright ban for the SSC Napoli striker. Not one of them has suggested the need for their parent body which addresses the problems of players – the Nigeria Players Union – to speak with both the coach and Osimhen, who is livid. In fact, Osimhen in his rage revealed that he offered to come to the camp to motivate his teammates which the coach politely rejected. Is there any truth in this revelation, dear Finidi? What harm would Osimhen’s presence in the camp have brought to the camp, we may need to ask Finidi, if indeed, he rejected that request.

    Even the union’s leaders have offered suggestions of how to take the matter out of social media and find a way of getting Osimhen to shake off his angst as captured in his many videos before walking up to Finidi to apologise. Pictures of that gesture with the players’ union members seated would soothe the pains suffered by Finidi. The Players Union’s hierarchy is only interested in being members of the NFF and other affiliate football bodies. Members have failed in this Finidi/Osimhen saga. It is not too late to redeem themselves by calling a truce and letting all the parties shake their hands for the good of the game.

    Osimhen doesn’t look like someone who thinks that he is indispensable. Not with the way he plays for his club and country as if his life depends on it. Osimhen has erred no doubt. Yet, he needs to be given a second chance. Hounding him before giving him a chance to recant isn’t the best. Osimhen must be ashamed of himself now that it is clear that Finidi didn’t belittle him before his employers. Come on Osimhen, apologise to Finidi who is the quintessential gentleman.

    The elders of the game who have been getting traction on the internet with their posts calling for Osimhen’s ban instead of preaching for peace must be ashamed of themselves with NFF’s statement to the contrary of their devious campaigns. Osimhen needs Nigeria badly for his career growth just as Nigeria needs him and all talented players to boost her ranking with FIFA and CAF, especially now that Nigeria dropped eight places to 38 position in FIFA ranking for June 2024. Osimhen is the current Africa Footballer of the Year. It gladdens Nigerians that Ademola Lookman is poised to replace Osimhen as the next winner if he sustains his current form for both his European club and Nigeria. That is what is called growth. Time was when Nigerians dominated the Africa Footballer of the Year awards. It is good to be back.

    NFF General Secretary, Dr. Mohammed Sanusi expressed amazement at the reports, saying the Federation has neither instructed a process nor has a process been concluded to ban the player from the National Team.

    “The NFF hereby implores the media to join hands with the body to positively resolve issues and then focus on the big picture all the time, rather than needlessly escalate certain matters. There was no official communication from the NFF, yet some persons have gone to town to talk about a ban on Osimhen from the National Team. This is not good at all.

    “Our focus presently is to resolve all matters around the Super Eagles and be able to look ahead with confidence to the 2025 AFCON qualifiers and the remaining six matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification series.

    “This is not the time to spread falsehood and foul the public space the most,” Well said, Sanusi. Kudos NFF.

    Who leaked the story to journalists? Pray, there were six people with the minister, Senator John Enoh. The six people include Ibrahim Gusau (NFF President), Felix Anyansi-Agwu (Vice President), Mohammed Sanusi (Secretary General), Dayo Enebi Achor (Director of Competitions), Austin Eguavoen (Technical Director) and Finidi George. It’s not Finidi or the Sports Minister. Then who was the culprit? What was the motive? Why did he feel the need to feed Osimhen with a piece of false information that would make him pour vituperations on Finidi?

  • 2026 World Cup: Wither Nigeria?

    2026 World Cup: Wither Nigeria?

    Nigeria just marked the 31st anniversary of June 12 and the 25th anniversary of unbroken democracy. The symbol of June 12 who former President Buhari  honoured by changing the democracy day from May 29th to june 12 in 2018 is late MKO Abiola the winner of the annulled 1993 presidential election under the Social Democratic Party ( SDP). Abiola broke all Nigeria’s electoral records.

    The electoral process was pretty much transparent because of the Option A4 System adopted by the then National Electoral Commission headed by Prof. Humphrey Nwosu whose comical social mantra then was, “No wuruwuru, no Magomago” a colloquial way of saying there won’t be any form of cheating. Indeed the election was a watershed in Nigeria’s electoral history. An MKO even defeated his opponent, late Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC) in his home state, Kano.

    An Abiola was not just a businessman or mere politician, he was different things to different demographics not just in Nigeria but in Africa. He was the Pillar of Sports in Africa, an accolade he earned because of his love and investment in sports in Nigerian and the continent. He owned the Nigerian club, Abiola Babes FC that made waves continentally at the time. He was a lover of sports and invested in FIFA competitions in Nigeria and Africa.

    As Nigeria struggles to see if they can qualify for the 2026 World Cup that would be co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, the fate of Nigeria’s Super Eagles seems to hang in the balance presently as the Nigerian team has played about four marches with no wins yet. They are presently making permutations about how to qualify for the Mundial. As the country celebrates the June 12 memories, it is pertinent to recall the efforts an MKO Abiola made to promote football both as a club owner an proud African. He was inducted into the African Football Hall of Fame and honoured by the Confederation of African Football with an Order of Merit in Gold Award, the highest honour by CAF. He got posthumous honours in his home state Ogun and nationally  as two Stadia have been named after him in Abeokuta an Abuja Abuja.

    Even though Abiola Babes football Club was the most vibrant in his lifetime possibly because it bore his name, he equally had the ITT FC possibly named after his business with the international telecom giant. There was also the Concord FC of Lagos named after his newspaper and airline.  His love for football has been unequalled both in Nigeria and Africa in terms of demonstrable interest and investment with full active participation. The spread of his magnanimity and huge personal activism in promoting football not just in Nigeria but in Africa stands as his legacy. He intervened occasionally in helping some African countries with financial assistance and physical presence.

     His generosity was not just in football, other sportsmen and women got his material and cash gifts after winning medals in competitions in and outside Africa. He was almost obsessed with Nigeria’s attempt to qualify for the World Cup and he was sadly not alive to witness that in 1994 when the Dutch coach, Clemence Westerhof led the Nigerian team to the World Cup in the United States where they ended up with a stellar first-timer performance after which Nigeria rose to the 5th position in FIFA ranking.

    It is important to delve into the man MKO Abiola’s role in the promotion of football in Nigeria as Nigeria commemorates the June 12 anniversary while Nigeria ironically struggles to attempt to qualify for the 2026 World Cup. The RoundTable  Conversation believes that now more than ever, the game of football deserves similar if not better attention and investment made by late MKO. He walked the talk and the ministry of sports and the Nigerian Football Federation must be ready to do the needful to see that the qualification for World Cup 2026 can be remedied.

    Football is for Nigerians almost a religion in the real sense. It is positive opium that unites and intoxicates the people. Politics and politicians have over the years divided the people along ethnic and religious lines causing conflicts and disharmony that seem to be going from generation to generation. It is only football that truly unites the people in ways nothing else does. The one programme that comes close is National Youth Service Corps but even its unifying factor seems to be waning with time given various socio-political variables.

    Football is more unifying than any other event in Nigeria, a merit-based sport and unlike in politics, only some of the best across the country make the team and every Nigerian has equal stake and the joy of the game cuts across political, social, class, religious and economic demographics. Football has become a multi-trillion dollar global business and countries that understand this are leveraging on that.

    While Nigeria struggles to alter their 2026 fate, it is instructive to understand that football and all the summersaults is not an isolated case. There have been multi-sectorial negligence by successive administrations in the country and because all eyes seem to be on football, it often escapes our consciousness to understand that a lot is invested by countries that reap the benefits of the business of football.

    Read Also: Sports Minister blasts NFF after World Cup fiasco

    Qualifying for a global competition like the World Cup needs a lot of work and planning to succeed. Nigeria is presently at the crossroads in Group C African qualification table that includes;  Zimbabwe, South Africa, Rwanda, Benin and Lesotho. Nigeria is presently 5th on the table with a paltry three points from four matches.  They have drawn three matches and lost to Benin in their last match. The situation is dire and everything possible must be done to reverse the situation if Nigeria’s flag must be flown at the 2026 World Cup venues. Nigerians have not recovered from missing out on the 2022 world Cup in Qatar where the likes of Morocco and Saudi Arabia showcased excellence and have since been reaping the benefit of their investments. Morocco’s football playing and administration have since improved and they are presently the best ranked in Africa having done really well in Qatar 2022. Saudi Arabian League is fast developing and attracting world best players like Ronaldo, Mane, Mahrez, Benzema, Neymar, Karim and many others.

    The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) and coaching crew are being urged by Nigerians to be more proactive through valid actions to see that Nigeria qualifies for the next World Cup. The Roundtable Conversation spoke to veteran Sports journalist, who was honoured by FIFA in Qatar2022 for having covered nine World Cups. He describes the World Cup as the biggest Worldwide spectacle that he started  has covering  since Italia 1990 

    Mr. Solaja believes that a lot of fundamental works need to be done in Nigerian sports generally but as a veteran World Cup attendee and a Nigerian, he wants a reorientation of the people who run sports in the country. He believes that Nigeria needs to work better on sports development like what obtained in the past. It very rewarding to develop grassroots football.  He recalls that in the past, it was very intersting to go as young people to watch matches between Igbobi College and St. Gregory’s college and other school competitions. That to him was when the country invested in school sports where young ones are groomed for better and progressiveachievements.

    He believes that Nigeria must get back to the era of investing in school sports so that there can be a admirable growth like in other countries. Academies are good but the Nigerian system cannot totally give the best results in the development of football. There must be serious planning for football from grooming young players to the people that are employed to manage football. Everything must work in sync for the country to achieve the desired results at the home league, continental and global competitions. He made reference to the likes of Kanu, Babayaro, Osimhen, Iheanacho, Chukwueze, Awoniyi etc. all products of the under 17 World Cup competitions who went on to achieve phenomenally on the global stage in different leagues.

    The country must learn to put round pegs in round holes if Nigerian football can achieve its potentials given the human and material resources available in and out of the country. Nigerian Leagues he insists must be run professionally run and this includes but not limited to the administration of football.  There must be attention to details  including the officiating in league games that must be free of inefficiency and corruption that could taint the results of league matches.

    He believes that Nigerian football officials at different levels must like Ceasar’s wife be above reproach so that a CAF competition like AFCON cannot be organized without Nigerian officials like what happened in Ivory Coast at the last AFCON. Managing National teams to Solaja must be by very competent and knowledgeably savvy coaches and technical crew that have the passion and attributes of great managers across the world.. The NFF must the difference between a brilliant student and a good teacher. To him, Pele was a good player but cannot be described a a good coach, Maradona was a football legend but was not a successful coach tried as he did. Nigeria must understand this.

    On the contrary, some other very successful coaches across countries, clubs and leagues might not have been excellent players but ended up as successful coaches with trophies to show. He believes then that the NFF in seeking to grab a 2026 ticket must be sure to understand the dynamics of modern football coaching/management and have the determination to do right by the game and the people. Beyond the 2026 World Cup qualification struggle as it appears now, the government, the sports ministry and the NFF must rejig the plans for football development in the country in a holistic way that would cover investment in infrastructure. training, human resources and making efforts to professionally run football starting from the grassroots. No country skips any of the processes.

    • The conversation continues… 
  • June 12: 31 years after

    June 12: 31 years after

    It has been 31 years since June 12, 1993, a day, the people of Nigeria will recall as one of its glorious moments as a nation; a day Nigerians went to the polls to elect their president. A day filled with hope and anticipation, as the country was supposed to transform from military rule to a civilian government as the elections were seen as a crucial step towards democracy and a brighter future for.

    However, to the chagrin of millions of Nigerians and the world, General Ibrahim Badamos Babaginda on the 24th of June, following a series of rumors about a possible annulment of what has been ajudged as the freest and fairest election ever held in the annals of the country went ahead to annul the election citing a litany of reasons for the annulment and in turn sparking an outrage across the country and led to a period of political turmoil and instability, as the country grappled with the aftermath of the controversial decision.

    Rather than the stability that Nigerians craved for, the country was thrown into the darkness as first an interim administration headed by Ernest Shonekan came onboard before it was toppled by General Sani Abacha who was originally one of the masterminds of the annulment. Abiola who has returned from a short exile was to naively enter an agreement of sorts with Abacha on the restoration of the mandate, when Abiola realized that Abacha never intended to relinquish power to him, he took the gauntlet and declared himself as President. The rest is history and Abiola began his journey towards paying the supreme price.

    It is a truth that it was the June 12th struggle that forced the military to return to the barracks in 1999. Even after the emergence of civilian rule and the attempts by Abiola’s kinsman in Olusegun Obasanjo to downplay the roles Abiola and a number of other Nigerians played in the struggle to entrench democracy, June 12 continued to be a symbol of the struggle for democracy and political reform in Nigeria, thankfully, though surprising, it took a Muhammadu Buhari to acknowledge the wrongs meted out to Abiola and do some restitution by according June 12 as the nation’s day of democracy. The Buhari administration also posthumously recognized the winner of the annulled election, Chief Moshood Abiola, with the highest national honor, the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR).

    Despite, its recognition, the scars of June 12 will remain with us, and the unresolved issues surrounding the annulled election continue to haunt the nation.

    Over the past 31 years, Nigeria has made significant progress in various aspects of its development. The country has witnessed economic growth and infrastructural development even though it has done such in a slow pace. Despite these achievements, however, Nigeria continues to face numerous challenges, including political corruption, ethnic and religious tensions, and insecurity.

    The legacy of June 12 still looms large over Nigeria, serving as a reminder of the importance of democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights. The events of that day have left an indelible mark on the country’s history, shaping its political landscape and its people’s collective memory

    Despite these symbolic gestures, the legacy of June 12 continues to divide the nation as well as unite it. There are still calls for justice and accountability for the events of that day, as many believe that the full truth behind the annulled election has yet to be revealed.Babaginda, the architect of the June 12 imbroglio has gleefully accepted responsibility for the actions, he is sadly yet to tell Nigerians the complete story of the annulment; who did what, what roles were played by who and what factors forced his hand as a soldier to do the damage he did?

    The events of June 12 have also had a lasting impact on the Nigerian political landscape. The struggle for democracy and good governance in Nigeria has been shaped by the events of that day, with many civil society organizations and movements emerging in response to the annulment of the election. The fight for democracy in Nigeria continues to be a central issue in the country’s political discourse, with many Nigerians demanding greater transparency, accountability, and respect for human rights from their government.

    Read Also:June 12: Mandate group launches membership drive for Tinubu, Shettima

    As Nigeria marks 31 years since June 12, it is important to reflect on the lessons learned from that day and to consider the challenges that still lie ahead. The events of June 12 serve as a reminder of the importance of democracy, the need for transparency and accountability in governance, and the enduring struggle for justice and human rights in Nigeria.

    Despite the progress that has been made in the past 31 years, Nigeria still faces numerous challenges on its path towards democracy and development. The legacy of June 12 continues to shape the country’s political landscape, serving as a reminder of the importance of upholding democratic values and respecting the will of the people.

    As Nigeria looks towards the future, it is crucial that the lessons of June 12 are not forgotten. The events of that day and the aftermath should still serve as a warning to us against the inherent dangers lurking around our democracy

  • Abiola: 26 years after

    Abiola: 26 years after

    For once, Nigeria, a plural country forcefully amalgamated by the British in 1914, sought to become a nation on June 12, 1993.

    The man who achieved that feat was Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, a detribalised Yoruba endowed with an irrepressible national outlook. He came as the last man standing after other prominent political figures had been banned, unbanned, banned again, emasculated and frustrated by the chameleonic military leadership that midwifed an endlessly meandering transition programme for civil rule.

    Abiola came with a message of hope when hopelessness pervaded the national horizon. As a businessman and philanthropist, he had endeared himself to most Nigerians as a generous and trustworthy man. His entry into the electioneering brought a big torch that lit up the obscure political field. He secured the votes of millions across all the ethnic groups that trusted he would transform the country from the ravages of stratocracy.

    It was a significant feat that eluded more qualified founding fathers who operated on the tripod of tribalism, ethnicity, and mutual suspicion.

    Nigerians attempted to draw the curtains on military rule. Soldiers, having overstayed their welcome in the corridor of power, violated the country, converted the treasury into a private purse, divided the people and abolish the prospects of popular rule.

    Citizens exercised their democratic rights to vote for change and liberty after a series of laboratory experiments by the military. However, the monumental achievement was mismanaged by the reluctance of the military that midwifed a transition programme that was designed to fail. The annulment of the June 12, 1993, historic election won by the symbol of unity amounted to the criminal banishment of political rights and seizure of a collective passport to take a genuine flight to the horizon of democracy.

    The popular mandate given to Abiola became his undoing. He was never a man to run from battle. The next assignment foisted on him was mandate protection. IBB, his long-standing friend-turned foe, knew him inside out. On his previous birthday, the military president had eulogised Abiola, saying a great attribute of the businessman’s life was the resolve with which he always pursued the goals dear to his heart. Not willing to underrate the millionaire business mogul, IBB staggered under a curious influence, saying he was not only in office but was also in power.

    After the cancellation of the poll’s result, no goal was dearer to Abiola’s heart than a de-annulment. It also aligned with the quest for self-actualisation. A bloody civilian, though, he fought without a gun. His civilian armies were on the streets protesting. Nothing more.

    Outside the country, he campaigned against the bad habit of the military, their sit-tight culture and disdain for liberty. Propagandist Information Minister Uche Chukwumerije of Abacha’s military junta yelled at him, insinuating that Abiola was the first Aare Ona Kankanfo of Yoruba land to desert the battlefield.

    The business mogul may have committed the error of returning home. He attempted to declare himself president at Epetedo. Seized on the streets, he was hounded into detention like a criminal. He never returned alive.

    Abiola, the Bashorun of Ibadan and Aare Ona Kankanfo of Yoruba land, thus a generalissimo, lived up to his billing as a warrior. Harassed, abused and blackmailed, he refused to abandon the battle. He rejected the obnoxious bail conditions and the middlemen mounting pressure on him to trade the struggle for personal survival.

    He was resolute. Some of his supporters wavered in their spirits, but the majority queued behind him, thereby sustaining the struggle for six years. Abiola’s battle ultimately became the battle for reshaping Nigeria.

    He died in detention on July 8, barely a month after the demise of Abacha who ordered his detention. His dream of abolishing poverty may have died with him.

    Almost 26 years after his demise, the nation-state is still battling to resolve issues about the ballot box debacle. The masses still groan. Elections have remained problematic. A new twist is the penchant for rejecting valid results. There is the citizens’ do-or-die disposition towards elections, thereby casting doubts on the real outcome of electoral contests by uncritically resorting to protracted litigation while hiding under the clause of political rights.

    While Abiola failed in his bid for legitimate power, the opportunity landed in the palm of military confederates in 1999. The meaning of the Titanic struggle was beyond the ken and comprehension of the new helmsmen at the centre.

    The challenges of nation-building stared them in the face. They lacked the democratic experience, skill and strategy to confront them. They governed under a constitution that lied against itself through the preface: “We the people.” Since the provisions of the 1999 Constitution also endorsed a unitary system, they were comfortable with the military-imposed document. They thus demonstrated a hypocritical commitment to constitution review. An expensive national conference was set up in Abuja. Its report never saw the light of the day.

    The journey to a difficult future commenced. Problems continued to multiply. They piled up. Relief from the subsisting dilapidated economy was a mirage. Security was at a low ebb. Nigerians continued to live in darkness. Towns and villages depended on streams for water in the countryside. Roads became death traps. Employment was given to a privileged few; children of the political class and their cronies.

    Democracy, in the real sense of the word, became a nightmare. Even civil rule was consistently threatened by the assault on the ballot box. Nigeria was positioned far from prosperity. Corruption loomed large. Nothing worked.

    This is the mess that President Bola Tinubu, an associate of Abiola, is now trying to clear. If Abiola had ruled, would Nigeria have been like this today?

    Even the circumstances surrounding his death are still in the realm of conjectures. Who killed Abiola? Or what killed him? It remains a puzzle. The answer is elusive.

    What is most striking is not what has changed since 1999 but what has lingered. While the Third Republic was botched, the Fourth Republic was not erected on a solid federal democratic foundation. That stagnation was what Abiola made a determined effort to challenge.

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    He had made a false start in the early eighties. The secretariat of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was shut against him. Party leaders said the presidential ticket was not for the highest bidder. He retraced his steps to the world of business, religion, and philanthropy. By the time he returned in 1992 as the SDP presidential candidate, he had tried to purge himself of conservative tendencies.

    Abiola also put his house in order. He was a Yoruba man of tall stature. He apologised to the Southwest progressive elements, particularly the disciples of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who he had opposed in the Second Republic. Led by the late Chief Adekunle Ajasin, the political family resolved to back his new vision.

    Abiola also became the sole candidate of the downtrodden. Of course, he too was conscious of his humble beginning as a man who rose from grass to grace. When fate liberated him from poverty, he could not still detach himself from the crowd of the poverty-stricken.

    More than any other Nigerian, living or dead, Abiola permanently filled the consciousness of all those who savoured his unprecedented generosity. The beneficiaries cut across ethnic, religious, professional groups and traditional institutions. He was the toast of private and public educational institutions for his generous gifts of cash and equipment.

    Abiola instituted scholarships for uncountable indigent students. He donated generously to homes, mosques and churches, voluntary organisations, towns, cities and even international organisations. He was also the pillar of sports in Africa.

    He soon discovered a new role for himself. When he led Africa’s quest for reparations, he became the champion of the cause of the black man whose forefathers were misused as hewers of wood and fetchers of water in slavery in Europe and the Americas.

    Abiola’s campaign slogan, ‘Farewell to poverty’, signalled an imminent end to the want and misery of the poor who were knocked down by the neo-colonial military administrators.

    He adorned the cap of a hero. He refused to trade the people’s mandate for big contracts and additional economic gains.

    Yet, he became a novice who yielded to the tricks of his enemy, the military, which sought to extend their rule by cajoling him to give baseline support.

    When Abiola dared the power-loaded military Head of State, General Abacha, he made up his mind about its repercussions. Despite being removed from the public glare and held incommunicado, his spirit did not bow to the wish of the oppressors. It was a lesson in determination, consistency and dedication to principle.

    Abiola outlived his principal tormentor, as it were. Till the end, he was full of hope for a brighter future. All personal tasks had been accomplished. But because he had not got there as the people’s leader, he lacked self-actualisation.

    It was the end. He died a martyr with his ghost hunting his alleged killers.

    However, Abiola’s memory has endured. His pedigree, grace, act of giving, mettle of speech, forceful character, and above all, his love for the people made him a special breed and reference point in national history.

  • Professor Tunji Olaopa and the reform struggle in Nigeria (2)

    Professor Tunji Olaopa and the reform struggle in Nigeria (2)

    Like some of our country’s most profound and accomplished literary and intellectual minds such as Professors  Wole Soyinka, J.P. Clark, Chinua Achebe, Femi Osofisan or Niyi Osundare to name a few, who were deeply grounded in the language, culture and traditions of their communal, ethnic origins, Professor Tunji Olaopa’s intellectual memoir reveals his firm rootedness in and immense gratitude for an early penetrating immersion in the values of the Okeho and Aawe Yoruba communities of South-West Nigeria where he was born and had his childhood and youthful acculturation and maturation. He writes fondly of the moral values, life-affirming communal ethos and virtues as well as disciplinary ethic that molded his growing up in these communities. Olaopa’s profound love of and limitless affection for western education and its rich intellectual heritage did not alienate or delink him from his traditional cultural moorings but rather the traditional and the modern had a mutually reinforcing symbiosis in his mental and psychological makeup as exhibited by his expansive, accommodationist and syncretic worldview.

    Olaopa demonstrates a deep knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the historical origins, cultural matrix and psychic predisposition of his native Aawe. He is the urbane, global intellectual and citizen who is yet acutely embedded in the local soil that sprang him. Indeed, his unquenchable thirst and hunger for western education and knowledge responsible for his no mean accomplishments in life so far have their roots in his Aawe socio-cultural environment. As he put it, “The re-education I got on my return to Aawe went beyond Mama Muniratu’s good doses of lessons in physical hard work and industriousness. I was also regaled with stories of the diligence that went into the founding of the town and the vision that bred so many illustrious sons and daughters who became beacons of possibilities for younger generations like mine. It became obvious early in Aawe that the only way to make up for what Awe lacked in historical significance, like the imperial glory of Oyo, was to take education seriously”. It was from this early period that the example of the great Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, the renowned economist from Aawe, was to be of profound inspirational significance for Oloapa in his evolving educational odyssey and future intellectual as well as bureaucratic career.

    He writes that “The first fifteen years of my life was spent in cultural and educational journeys from Okeho to Akure, and then Sango-Ota, back to Okeho, then to Iseyin and, finally, Aawe”. The political scientist in him draws critical parallels or divergences between the political organization and cultures in these communities of his early local peregrinations in the South-West and the larger Nigerian polity of his later adulthood. For instance, writing of Okeho, he notes that “Indeed, Okeho is many things that Nigeria is not. Aside its original confederate communities, Okeho grew to incorporate many other peoples and different faiths in relative peaceful coexistence. I remember we had Hausa-Fulani neighbours who were Muslims as others who were adherents of traditional religions. The Hausa-Fulani had stayed so long as to have integrated themselves into the Yoruba cultural environment without being forced in any way to jettison their cultural identity…But Okeho of those years signaled for me the very possibility of plural coexistence that Nigeria is striving for”.

    No less fascinating is Oloapa’s narrative of the impact of mutually accommodating and harmonious coexistence of the various religions of Christianity, Islam and traditional African spirituality characteristic of Yoruba communities in the evolution of his religious belief and practice. His description of his quest for spiritual illumination and religious fulfillment reminds one of similar narratives in Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s autobiography of his spiritual adventures during his studies in the United Kingdom which took him from theism through agnosticism until the sage finally birthed at a firm orthodox Christian faith even though he was also deeply immersed in esoteric, mystical spirituality. Professor Olaopa’s strong spiritual convictions as a practicing Christian of a restrained, non-materialistic Pentecostal orientation is obvious. There is no doubt that his Christian moral convictions partly nourish and fuel his obsessive lifelong preoccupation with ceaseless and never -ending reform at the personal and institutional levels. There is as Bishop Hassan Kukah notes in his foreword a subtle, unobtrusive spiritual sense of mission in the passion and fervor with which the author has dedicated his life to the actualization of his vision of reform. The author points out that “Okeho and Aawe were my first introduction to the deep and experiential understanding of what Ali Mazrui calls Africa’s triple heritage of the confluence of western Christianity, Islam and traditional African religion” noting that “The force of modernity that colonization accelerated became a disruptive influence on how Africans perceive themselves and others. And in its place is a new template of three different cultural values struggling to find coherence. In a place like Nigeria, the coherence of Christianity, Islam and Traditional religions has failed to materialize still”.

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    We follow Olaopa’s educational trajectory from his humble beginnings at Christ Baptist School, Aawe, through Ebenezer Anglican Primary School, Akure, Iseyin District Grammar School and Aawe High School where he completed his secondary school education in 1977. His attendance at the famous Olivet Baptist Heights School, Oyo, where he obtained the Higher School Certificate (HSC) was a major milestone in this regard. In his words, “From Aawe High School to Olivet Heights, I learnt precious lessons that added to my stock of life capacities and values required to advance in life and be a better person, first, to oneself and then to others”. Recte Sapere fons (For knowledge and Sound Wisdom), the motto of the University of Ibadan, where he obtained his B.Sc and M.Sc degrees in Political Science, was a powerful motivating factor in the molding of Olaopa, the man, bureaucrat  and scholar. The academic, social and personal fulfillment he experienced at the prestigious institution as narrated in chapter four of the book is evident and infectious.

    According to him, “In retrospect, it would seem that all my journeys towards intellectual “beingness” climaxed at the University of Ibadan. At the time I was still undecided about the choice to make between law and political science, the University of Ibadan had already cast a long shadow over the other universities; it was simply the place to be. It was already a symbol of academic excellence and, I believe, it is still unbeaten today – it is the first and best”. Particularly enthralling is his narration of his foray into student union politics when he made an ultimately futile but no less personally edifying bid for the presidency of the students’ union. Oloapa writes fondly of his various teachers at different stages of his educational career and particularly at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. So important were the writings of Plato to his intellectual development that he devotes a chapter to ‘Plato and the Intellectual Mentors’. Although he had read widely in literature, politics, philosophy and biographies of eminent personalities, Plato’s ‘The Republic’ in particular made a marked impression on Olaopa and possibly laid the foundation for his lifelong preoccupation with public sector reform in Nigeria.

    In his words, “However, when I started rummaging through the book, I got more than just the dramatic contents. On the contrary, I was opened up to a large expanse of intellectual frameworks that speak to what it means to reform a polity that had gone terribly bad and had sabotaged its original objectives. In retrospect, I suspected the seed of inquiry into social harmony and institutional reform was sown at that time”.

    To be concluded