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Category: Segun Ayobolu

  • Thoughts and non-thoughts on minimum wage

    Thoughts and non-thoughts on minimum wage

    No one can doubt the critical importance of adequate wages for workers both in the private and public sectors for the optional functioning of any economy and the wellbeing of the majority of the people. Workers must be able to feed themselves and their families, afford appropriate healthcare, enjoy conducive shelter and means of transportation, private or public, among others to be maximally productive. Again, it is through reasonably adequate income that guarantees a minimally acceptable standard of living that workers and those who depend on them, a substantial proportion of the population, are able to buy commodities that, in turn, enables producers of goods and services to enjoy good patronage and make profit for reinvestment in further production.

    This is why employers of labour in the private and public sectors of the economy are not doing workers a favour when they pay living wages as the resultant effective demand on the part of the latter is also crucial to having a vibrant and thriving economy as pointed out by Keynesian economists during the cyclical recessionary crises that are intrinsic to capitalism.

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    However, in arriving at an appropriate minimum wage that, as much as possible, reflects living costs, the requisite authorities are also understandably not unmindful of the implications of exorbitant workers’ incomes for high inflation rates that effectively erode a substantial proportion of the increased remuneration accruing to workers. At the height of Nigeria’s oil boom opulence, the General Yakubu Gowon administration, sometime in 1974, awarded the Udoji jumbo salary increase bonanza to Nigerian workers. That was understandable in an era when the country’s leadership asserted that the problem with Nigeria was not the availability of money but how to spend it. Excited beneficiaries of the Udoji salary awards stormed the supermarkets to buy up assorted electronics and other household items in the euphoria of the moment. It was not soon after, however, that inflationary spirals caught up with the new wages, diminishing their real value with long term deleterious consequences for the economy.

    In the aftermath of the removal of the fuel subsidy as well as the merger of the parallel foreign exchange markets by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, reforms that it is generally agreed had become inevitable, cost of living particularly with regard to such essentials as food, drugs and general healthcare, transportation among others has escalated astronomically. Matters have not been helped by the removal of subsidy on electricity for a band of consumers even if that segment constitutes a minority of the population as argued by the requisite authorities.

    There is thus a broad consensus that, given current existential realities, an upward adjustment of the extant national minimum wage of N30,000 has become inevitable. The tripartite stakeholders of government, supposedly at all levels, the organized private sector and labour as represented by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have no disagreement on this. The contentious issue is, what constitutes a realistic living wage?

    Apparently because of the abrupt shock effects of the fuel subsidy removal on living costs and to demonstrate its sensitivity to the pains being borne by ordinary Nigerians, the Tinubu administration offered an immediate wage award of 35,000 Naira to federal government workers for an initial period of six months pending the determination of a new minimum wage, which the government promised would be a living wage. The implication was that added to the existing legal minimum wage of N30,000 and an earlier wage award of N12,000 given federal workers by the preceding President Muhammadu Buhari administration, this category of workers is going home with N77, 000 a month as rightly argued by eminent radical columnist, comrade Owei Lakemfa.

    A number of state governments had offered differing wage awards to their workers ranging from N10,000 to N25,000. The Edo State governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, announced a minimum wage of N70,000 to his state’s workers saying the state would make necessary adjustments when an agreement is reached on the issue at the national level.

    It is on the basis of the current minimum wage plus the wage awards that amounts to N77, 000 per month that labour insists that the federal government’s offer of N57,000 as at the last sitting of the tripartite committee is, in reality, a wage reduction.

    It is also in the same light that labour perceives the offer of N54,000 by the private sector. But I think the point is that labour’s initial request for a minimum wage of N615,000 per month for the lowest paid worker, which it later reduced to N497,000, should have been strongly objected to as unrealistic ab initio by the government team and the organized private sector. It should not have been accepted as a meaningful starting point for any reasonable negotiation by other components of the tripartite committee. Had that been done, labour would most probably have scaled down its expectations and moderated its demands thereby making current stormy negotiations less intractable.

    Labour argues that it arrived at its proposals based on a computation of how much, realistically, it would require for a family of six, a mother, father and four children to survive in a month on what is essentially a shoe string budget. It thus bases its demand on a conservative estimated cost of feeding, housing, healthcare and transport costs for the hypothetical family per month. But this is hardly a realistic way to proceed if labour is not bent on making negotiations impossible and industrial crisis inevitable.

    Going by its logic, then a minimum wage of at least not less than N200,000 per month would have been insisted on by negotiators on behalf of labour rather than the N30,000 agreed upon at that time almost ten years ago. Who does not know that the N30,000 agreed on then could hardly take any worker home? But the labour unions discount the factor of the extended family as a social security network in our peculiar circumstances and the cushion it provides in augmenting the income of those who work in the formal sector through diverse devices. That is the only reason that explains why majority of people are able to continue to work at current wage levels despite excruciating living conditions.

    But the critical factor is, what can employers of labour in the private and public sectors afford to pay without having to massively retrench workers or, in the case of private firms, close down operations completely thereby sending more workers into the unemployment market? As it is currently, many states are struggling to meet the extant minimum wage of N30,000. It is not surprising that governors who are expected to be members of the tripartite negotiating committee have reportedly not bothered to attend its meetings. Where do they begin negotiating from when labour makes N615,000 or N497,000 its starting point?

    In the same vein, the private sector, particularly manufacturing with a high labour absorptive capacity, is functioning significantly sub-optimally due to inclement operating conditions. This accounts largely for the high rate of unemployment in the country as there is a limit to which the public sector can absorb surplus labour. To force an unrealistic minimum wage on the country would compel both the private and public sectors to retrench workers substantially while not guaranteeing the sustainable payment of the suggested new minimum wage to the remaining workforce.

    Forced retrenchment will deepen overall poverty while worsening destructive social vices that have already assumed epidemic proportions. Meanwhile, spiraling inflation would have significantly eroded the value of the humongously enhanced wages. Again, a new minimum wage in Nigeria does not mean simply adjusting the pay of the least paid worker upward by the required margin.

    Rather, as former Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), aptly puts it in an essay in his book, ‘Nigerian Public Discourse’, “However, in other jurisdictions, the approach is to effectuate a modification in the minimum wage payable. Whereas, when Nigeria implements its own revisions, it affects everyone earning wages and salaries, leading to a consequential escalation to the most senior white- collar worker, thereby creating a fiscal challenge for the nation. This is the underlying reason why, even after the so-called minimum wage is increased, it is typically not disbursed. This is attributable to the fact that what has been executed is a base salary overhaul and augmentation of the minimum wage”.

    BRF in his exhaustive discourse on minimum wage in the essay notes that “As we have seen, the word clearly used in Item 34 of the Exclusive Legislative List is “minimum wage”. It does not talk about salaries”. He then submits that “Furthermore, as it has also been shown, wages and salaries are different and should not be conflated. Therefore, efforts to improve minimum wage must be that and nothing more. It must not translate into a salary overhaul by accident. While cost of living challenges support the need for wages and salary increases, these revisions, in my view, must be delivered by different vehicles with clear parameters as to who will benefit from a wage review and those that should get a salary review”. I think the senior lawyer’s view must be of interest to those currently working on a review of aspects of the extant 1999 Constitution (as amended).

    True, with the removal of fuel subsidy, more Naira revenues have accrued to the three tiers of government. But this should not necessarily mean recourse to an exorbitant salary award extravaganza a la the catastrophic Udoji awards earlier referred to. Rather than that undesirable and unproductive route, the federal and state governments must continue to invest surplus resources and innovate towards optimal electricity generation, provision of massive road and rail infrastructure, particularly rural-urban transport network, to create the requisite environment for businesses to flourish.

    The private sector, especially micro, small and medium enterprises, are estimated to have a higher job generation capacity than the state sphere. Governments at all levels must also pump sufficient resources into boosting agricultural productivity to force down food prices through ample supply while also substantially reducing food imports, saving foreign exchange and enhancing the strength of the Naira. This will also entail investing even more resources to ensuring greater capacity to secure lives and property across the country so that thousands of displaced farming communities in the food basket zones can return to their farms.

    But then, Labour is on point in its strong condemnation of evident continued waste in government at all levels and the provocative opulence of some appointed and elected officeholders. It is heartening that the Tinubu administration is not unaware of the imperative to ensure more efficient, prudent and transparency in the management of public resources as demonstrated by Mr. Wale Edun, Minister for Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, in his speech at the recent opening of the Fourth Internal Auditors Retreat on “The role of internal auditors in public financial management reforms” which held in Abeokuta.

    Edun stressed the need for an effective and efficient mechanism of administering public resources in the context of dwindling revenue profiles and resultant cash flow challenges. This has become more important not only to achieve more productivity in governance but also make the administration’s call for patience and sacrifices from Nigerians morally justifiable.               

  • Nigeria: Economic crisis or crisis of underdevelopment? (2)

    Nigeria: Economic crisis or crisis of underdevelopment? (2)

    In a characteristically pungent essay on Africa’s crisis of underdevelopment written in the early 1980s, the late Professor Claude Ake, posed the question: ‘The Present Crisis in Africa: Economic Crisis or Crisis of the State?’, the Marxian political economist contended that Africa’s developmental dilemma was as much an economic crisis as it was, more fundamentally, a crisis of the state. He contended that although the African crisis manifested concretely and dramatically in economic terms- ‘the long and continuing decline in real income, the swelling tide of unemployment, the chronic debt problems, the declining productivity and negative growth rates and now the threat of starvation to over 150 million people’ – its root causes lay in the character of the state (politics) and the value orientation of the neocolonial elite.

    If considered within the context of his classic, ‘Social Science as Imperialism’, Claude Ake also locates underdevelopment in Africa as a function of the intellectual dependency of the continent, the erosion through slavery as well as colonial and neocolonial imperialism of the cultural and psychological self-confidence of the continent resulting in the helpless subjection to policy hegemony of external forces whose continued global dominance can only be a function of the continued dependency of the weakest and most vulnerable and exploited members of the extant global order.

    For most liberal and neoliberal economists, the solution to Nigeria’s protracted economic crisis lies in the manipulation of monetary policy instruments to achieve targeted interest rates, currency exchange rates, reduction in inflation rates, achieving a conducive business environment, and favorable conditions for profit repatriation by foreign investors among others. Even when lip service is paid to boosting agricultural productivity, for instance, to break the debilitating dependency on oil revenues, it is assumed that simply allocating humongous funds to the sector will do the trick. Hardly any attention is paid to the no less critical but arduous task of organizing Nigerian farmers into modern cooperatives with the requisite technological and knowledge backup to modernize their operations and enhance their productivity; an imperative articulated in methodical detail in the writings of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

    For those who take an essentially economically technicist view of the Nigerian economy, they had cause to express optimism with what they saw as the impressive progress of the economy at a time, during the oil boom of the early seventies to mid-1980s, when their more radical and non-orthodox colleagues urged caution and warned about the then impending catastrophe we confront today. One of such optimistic economic historians, Professor R.O. Ekundare, wrote in the mid-1970s that “There is a strong belief that the Nigerian economy has passed the stage of economic take-off and reached that of self-sustaining growth. A purely subsistence economy a century ago has been transformed into a fairly sophisticated market economy”.

    It was in response to such scholarly delusions that the book ‘Path to Nigerian Development’, a collection of radical essays on the evolution, root causes, characteristics and concrete paths out of the conundrum of underdevelopment edited by Professor Okwudiba Nnoli was published in 1981. Although written from the prism of radical revolutionary ideology, its insights are still useful to an understanding of and grappling with the challenges of underdevelopment in contemporary Nigeria.

    The hard-working duo of Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, along with other members of President Bola Tinubu’s economic management team are striving to rescue the economy from inherited and deeply rooted pathological dysfunctions. But finding enduring solutions to what is both an economic crisis and the more long-term challenges of underdevelopment will necessitate going beyond superficial economic tinkering or shuffling of economic indices. The non-economic is as critical to the resolution of this crisis as the essentially economic.

    Historically, even when the policies from the toolkit of the orthodox liberal economist appear to be working and achieving the objectives for which they were adopted, there is no guarantee that a country’s goal of transcending and overcoming debilitating underdevelopment are being met. The late Professor Eskor Toyo, the radical political economist, made this point in his exhaustive study of the implementation of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in Nigeria under the military president, General Ibrahim Babangida’s regime, titled, ‘Economics of Structural Adjustment: A Study of the Prelude to Globalization’.

    In his words. “The evidence presented in this chapter shows that the SAP has not failed in all respects, as has sometimes been implied in some criticisms. It has achieved some of the aims set for it: a positive ‘growth’ rate, improved utilization of capacity, increased local sourcing of raw materials, an increase in non-oil exports, a rescheduling of the debts, the lightening of the debt burden through debt conversion, an adjustment of the exchange rate towards what the IMF and the World Bank would accept as ‘realistic’, an increase in saving, more Naira in the hands of the Federal Government, ‘international confidence’ and the extension of some credit or aid to Nigeria thanks to this confidence etc”.

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    As Toyo tersely put it, “The Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) has been described even by some of its supporters as ‘tinkering’ or ‘fine tuning’. Unless the orientation of policies is right, mere adjustment of the status quo is irrelevant”. The more orthodox and no less brilliant liberal economist, Professor Pius Okigbo, came to similar conclusions as regards the attainments of SAP. In a lecture delivered under the auspices of the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation in 1993, Okigbo had noted that “In Nigeria, after six years of SAP, two of the major indices used to evaluate performance have begun to show substantial gain. The rate of growth of gross domestic product had turned from 3.4% per annum from 1980-1985 to a positive rate, on the average, of 3.5% per annum in the period 1987-1991…Secondly, the current account in the balance of payments has turned into a surplus since 1989 hitting $5.1 billion in 1990 but slipping to $1.3 billion in 1991. This performance is a strong vindication of the underlying logic of SAP”.

    Okigbo was however quick to note at the same time a “strong degeneracy” in the performance of SAP in terms of inflation, unemployment, investment and capacity utilization. If we are to learn from history, the appropriate question should be, How then do we move from addressing the challenges of the current severe economic crisis, which is an indispensable and critical objective in the short term, to dealing with the structurally embedded crisis of underdevelopment? The most concise and incisive response I have found to this question was given by Professor Nnoli in a lecture at the University of Lagos in 2010 during a Summit to commemorate fifty years of nationhood in post-independence Nigeria.

    Stressing the need for a new political and developmental discourse in Nigeria, Nnoli submitted that “Is it not the responsibility of politics and the state to assist the people in the rural areas and elsewhere in the country to apply science, technology and creativity in the production of food to satisfy their needs and traditional consumption habits at increasing levels of modernity; using local and, therefore, affordable resources; construction of shelters for self and family, using local and, therefore, affordable resources; and the creation of modern health products, again using local and, therefore, affordable resources? How to carry out all these tasks certainly deserves political discussion”.

    Continuing, Professor Nnoli was of the view that “Also deserving of political discourse is the need for economic enterprises at all levels, all sectors and irrespective of whether they are public or private, to possess research and development (R and D) divisions. Their  job is to create new products using local resources. Such products must be geared towards the satisfaction of the basic needs and consumption habits of the people,  ensuring that exports are the excess of local consumption, while imports are predominantly items which satisfy their needs and traditional consumption patterns but are not produced within the country or are more efficiently produced abroad”.

    Such a notion of development predicated first and foremost on patriotism and self-reliance would at once severely limit the criticality of foreign exchange (dollars) in our developmental process. It would unleash the trapped potentials both of our intellectuals and the people as a whole and enable them regain their self-confidence in their ability to actualize the development of their country.

    Let me end with a quote from another work by Professor Nnoli titled ‘Nigeria: The Failure of a Neo-colonial Society’ published in 1993: “What is needed is a concept of development which is neither viewed as catching up with the advanced countries nor fixated on the procurement of artifacts. Under certain conditions, artifacts emanate from the development process and reflect it. This is so only when they are the end products of the efforts of the population to apply their creative energy to the transformation of the local, physical, biological and sociology-cultural environments. This is the case in advanced countries. They cease to mirror development when they are provided by foreigners; the local population merely acquires the products of other people’s development”.

  • Seyi Tinubu and his critics

    Seyi Tinubu and his critics

    It is unfortunate that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has decided to drag the name of an innocent and industrious young man, Seyi Tinubu, son of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, into his ever increasingly desperate politics occasioned by  his serial losses in his bid to become Nigeria’s President. To Atiku, Seyi’s crime now is that he has been on the board since 2018 of a company owned by the Chagoury family that won the bid of a portion of the transformational Lagos-Calabar Coastal road project. As Mr Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Tinubu has rightly said, Seyi cannot be denied his right to chart his own path in life all because he is the President’s son.

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    Seyi is an adult, 38 years old. Those who know him readily acknowledge that he is respectful and restrained, a true Omoluabi. He is a qualified lawyer who, through hard work and dynamism is establishing himself as a frontline accomplished businessman. His business interests as an innovator in several aspects of outdoor advertising, for instance, justified his presence at the last Climate Change summit, which some ignorantly criticized. Seyi was with his father throughout the last campaigns both within and outside the country. On his own, he created a platform that played a significant role in mobilizing youth support for Tinubu’s candidacy. It is certainly no crime for him to be interested in and working in his own way at ensuring its success.     

    Every administration has its style. Donald Trump gave his daughter and son-in-law prominent roles to play in his White House. President Bill Clinton tapped his wife, Hillary’s cerebral resources to formulate and push his ambitious healthcare plan. President Kennedy appointed his brother as Attorney-General. Many children born into high profile political families understandably develop an interest in public life and service. It is well within their rights. Seyi Tinubu surely has committed no crime. His critics should let him be.

  • Nigeria: Economic crisis or crisis of underdevelopment? (1)

    Nigeria: Economic crisis or crisis of underdevelopment? (1)

    The duo of Mr. Wale Edun, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) along with other key stakeholders in the management of the economy in the administration of President Bola Tinubu have been doing a yeoman’s job trying to rescue what is essentially a trapped economy and seeking to retrieve it from the brink of insolvency and bankruptcy to the path of accelerated growth, recovery and sustainable development. Happily, only a few voices in the administration have resorted to the easy blame game of heaping the challenges confronting the economy on the polices and excesses of the preceding President Muhammadu Buhari administration. The key economic actors in the Tinubu administration have rolled up their sleeves and are toiling day and night to confront inherited dysfunctions largely through painful economic reforms – removal of fuel subsidy and merger of parallel exchange rate markets – that have regrettably but unavoidably brought pain to the majority of the populace.

    The most serious problem the administration has had to confront just like its predecessor is the challenge of safeguarding the lives and property of Nigerians from the ravages particularly of kidnapping, banditry and terrorism in volatile states of the North. This in turn has had negative repercussions on the economy especially with thousands of farmers abandoning their farms and communities in fertile, arable belts of the country due to insecurity.

    The administration does not have the luxury of confronting and seeking to transcend these twin challenges sequentially but is having to do so simultaneously with a not insignificant number of citizens hoping it makes no headway in finding solutions all because of their grievances over the outcome of the last elections. The concern of this column this week is with the economy since it is logical to conclude that with increased economic growth, stability, enhanced generation of jobs, improvement in power supply and growing prosperity, for instance, there is also likely to be a marked decline in the rate of criminal activity across the country. And with the tentative steps being made towards the decentralization of power supply through laws empowering states and private entities to generate, distribute and transmit electricity within their jurisdictions as well as the new national consensus on decentralizing policing functions, the structural imperatives for multisectoral development are being addressed.

    As the administration continues with the arduous task of systematically strengthening the value of the Naira, detecting and plugging sources of resource hemorrhage, aggressively combatting industrial scale  oil theft and motivating states and local government councils to offer meaningful palliative succor to the vast majority of Nigerians particularly as a result of enhanced Naira revenues accruing to the three tiers of government following the removal of fuel subsidy, it becomes critical once again for the administration’s brain trust to seriously consider if the transient economic crisis is synonymous with the more fundamental and trenchant crisis of underdevelopment. I do not think so. The economic crisis will most likely respond relatively positively to the neoliberal economist’s policy toolkit such as anti-inflationary measures, interest rate manipulations or greater dexterity in the management of foreign exchange rates with hardly a dent made on the more deeply rooted problem of underdevelopment.

    The abnormal pattern we have seen since the inception of this civilian dispensation in 1999, to cite an example, of impressive growth during periods of heavy accruals to the nation’s coffers in terms of abundant oil revenues without any concomitant concrete improvements in terms of measurable and specific development indices aptly captures the point I am trying to make here. In my recent piece in this space titled ‘Is Nigeria Developing’? I had referred to the political economist, Professor Okwudiba Nnoli’s irrefutable contention that the mere acquisition of the artifacts of modernization such as modern road networks, airports, fast track trains, sports stadia, large scale industries all predicated on foreign investment, partnerships or expertise without any accompanying transfer of knowledge and skills to local or domestic productive forces can hardly be described as development. In his classic, ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, the great Walter Rodney defines development as one, mastery by man of the laws of nature (science) and two, the application of such knowledge to create the necessary tools and mechanisms to master, subdue and manipulate the environment (technology).

    This implies even if Rodney does not explicitly say so, that all meaningful development must, first and foremost be local. The most fascinating and expansive projects and facilities built for us by Chinese, American, European, Japanese or other external financial or technological expertise cannot rightly be described as development – at least for us. This is why, in many cases, long after such projects have been completed and handed over, further maintenance contracts are signed for their supervision and management still by the same external forces. Thus, Nigeria lacks the capacity, for instance, to get the massive Ajaokuta steel complex to work or even carry out what has become the unending Turn Around Maintenance of our comatose petroleum refineries.

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    With a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) degree obtained as an external student from the University of London before he went on to study law at the same institution in 1944, Chief Obafemi Awolowo tutored himself to become a brilliant Keynesian economist and first- class manager of financial resources. His unrivaled distinction in this regard was demonstrated when as Minister of Finance and Vice-Chairman of the Federal Executive Council in the Gowon administration, he helped in managing the nation’s finances so dexterously that the federal government prosecuted the war with no external borrowings. In a lecture in Ibadan on 16th May, 1967, on the financing of the Nigerian civil war and its implication for the future economy of the nation, Awo did not resort to esoteric economic jargon. Rather, he identified strict and unflinching fiscal discipline as the most critical factor in handling a country’s economy in times of grave national crisis.

    Noting the three principles that guided the military regime’s financial management during the duration of the war, Awolowo identified these as (1) to economize our financial resources; (2) to raise additional revenue; and (3) to save our foreign exchange reserves from being run down to a dangerous level, thereby avoiding balance of payments difficulties and preserving the strength of the Nigerian pound. Continuing, he cautioned that “In any situation similar to the one in which we found ourselves, where recurrent revenue trails behind fleet-footed expenditure, the obvious first line of attack is to economize and maximize available resources. Unless this was done, and done with Draconic firmness, it would be futile to raise additional revenue; and any claim to prudent financial management would be sheer reference”. Firm and unwavering national discipline anchored on a strong national ideology to mobilize the citizenry to cooperate towards the attainment of set national objectives was thus for Awo a minimum desideratum for economic recovery and national development.

    He believed seriously that at the time he spoke in the early 1970s, it was within the power of Nigeria within two decades, to raise the agricultural, industrial and commercial competence of the country to make her not only able to feed her teeming populace but to contribute effectively to finding solutions to the problems of international hunger and liquidity. But to achieve this, Awo returned once again to the theme of discipline stressing that “But in order to succeed in attaining these ends, we need a strong national motivation generated by enlightened patriotism and sustained by an intense, absorbing and unflagging desire to advance our own economic interests, backed by clear-headed forward planning, hard work, and the constant application of acute and disciplined minds dedicated to the accomplishment of our declared objectives”.

    There is certainly much of importance for President Tinubu and his economic policy advisers to chew on in these words of wisdom. How much are our political office holders at all levels willing to curtail their appetites and cut down drastically on avoidable wastages as necessary sacrifices to return the country back to the path of economic sanity and growth? Only if the leaders set the requisite examples will the majority of the citizenry be persuaded to adopt discipline, restraint, self-control and self-reliance as habitual philosophies of life. Let us never forget the example of Pandhit Nehru who was said to have declared at his country’s independence in 1947 that “What India does not produce, she will not consume” and that “if India cannot clothe herself, let her go naked”. It is no surprise that India is today a global economic power.

  • Tope Awosika’s blueprint for the born again

    Tope Awosika’s blueprint for the born again

    In his famous dialogue with the pharisee and member of the Jewish ruling council, Nicodemus, who secretly sought him at night so as not to incur the wrath of the Jewish religious establishment, the Lord Jesus had declared that unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Although not an ignoramus in spiritual matters being a teacher of the law himself, Nicodemus was startled by the words of Jesus and wondered how a grown man who could not go back into his mother’s womb and experience a second birth could be born again. Jesus’ answer to Nicodemus as stated in the book of John was, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, “You must be born again”. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit”.

    Jesus, in essence was speaking of a spiritual rebirth when he utilized the ‘born again’ phrase. Of course, only those who are spiritually alert and conscious can make anything sensible and meaningful of the words of Jesus referred to above. For the ardent materialist, for instance, the supposedly spiritual does not exist. As far as he is concerned, man is no more than his physical, material make up that we can see. He cannot believe in a spirit world that cannot be seen, heard, touched or felt. This was probably what the great revolutionary intellectual, Karl Marx, meant when he famously declared that “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness”. Most avowed communist are thus inclined towards atheism. Many famous scientists and philosophers have also outrightly disclaimed and denounced any notion of the existence of the spiritual insisting that only that which can be concretely perceived is real, all else is illusionary and a product of man’s imagination.

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    Even then, there are hundreds of no less cerebral scientists and philosophers who believe in the existence of a God they have not seen and in the reality of the spiritual and supernatural. Indeed, those who do not recognize and believe in the existence of the spiritual, a realm that plays a critical role in the evolution of affairs in the material plane in which man exists appear to be a microscopic minority among the nearly 8 billion people that inhabit the universe. Indeed, it is their belief in a maker, a supreme being that created and sustains all that exists that unites adherents of various religions including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism among others. On a personal note, I have always found it difficult to believe that creation can exist without a creator or that the universe in all its diversity, complexity and the iron regularity of the laws that govern the material, natural world could have happened by chance.

    In his new book titled ‘The Believers Blueprint: Frontend and Backend Engineering’ published to commemorate his 60th birthday, Pastor Taiwo Modupe Awosika, Senior Pastor of the Army of David Ministries, elaborates on the concept of being born again and the requisite guidelines for growing in faith as a Christian. The book runs into 153 pages and is compartmentalized into eleven chapters. In his introduction, the author explains what he means by the concepts of backend and frontend engineering in relation to the Christian faith. In his words, “In this book, you will find a pattern of growth that will help you see that there is no height in God that is unattainable if you can just move steadily. You will also see that there are two aspects to our live in our journey as believers: the backend, which is our relationship with God and the frontend, which is our ministry to others and our service to God”.

    Expatiating on these concepts further, he writes that “The purpose of what I termed “backend engineering” in this book is to help you understand and take care of your personal walk with God. Designing, building and managing the server side of web apps is the job of a backend engineer. When put another way, a backend engineer’s main job is to build the framework of a software program. Your fellowship with God is supposed to be the structure for everything that goes on in your Christian walk. It should be at the very core of your walk with him. If this part of your faith is not well tended to, you cannot thrive at the forefront. The backend engineering of the believer is fellowship with God”. Thus, in discussing the backend of the Christian’s fellowship with God, various chapters in the first section of the book deal with such issues as ‘The miracle of being born again’, ‘Transforming your life through Bible study and prayer’, ‘Faith’, ‘Bearing the fruit of the Spirit’ and ‘Discovering your purpose and living in God’s will’.

    In section 2 of the book in which he dwells on the frontend of the Christian walk with God, Pastor Awosika focuses on such themes as spreading the good news through evangelism, manifesting the gifts of the Spirit, the importance of mentoring and discipleship, living out God’s vision for the believer’s life, financial stewardship and investments as well as nurturing marriage and family. Stressing the importance of the word of God, the Bible, for the transformation of the Christian, he writes, “In my personal work with God, I found that the more I look at the word consistently, the more I am transformed by it. Most times, I am not even conscious of this transformation while it is happening; the majority of us usually aren’t. We just know we were one thing before and after following God for some time, we realize we are another thing that God has made us. Some of us can’t even recognize the people we were before God did this marvelous work in us”.

    Despite the giant strides mankind has made in diverse spheres including science and technology, information and communication technology, medicine, the arts, humanities, and social sciences, etc, the world is still plagued by diverse ills that stem largely from the seemingly inherent perverseness of the human heart. Consequently, the world has to deal with the consequences of gross moral perversion, selfishness and self-centeredness, terrorism, hatred, humongous corruption and avoidable conflicts and wars all of which threaten the very survival of humanity. The world is thus in dire need of a new species of being, the equivalent of Pastor Awosika’s conception of the born-again Christian. Incidentally, this concept, although most prominent and pronounced in Christianity is also expressed in different ways even among non-Christians.

    Through their annual celebration of the Ramadan fast, Muslims are enjoined to cast off their former acts of sin and renew their walk with God in accordance with the tenets of their faith. Among the Yoruba, there is the saying that being born into the world is not as important as the individual recreating himself to become a new person adding value to society. And the motivational speaker and writer on success principles and the art of wealth accumulation, Napoleon Hill, asserts that “What I am is God’s gift to me; what I make of myself is my gift to God and to society”. The only difference is that the Christian believes that the fundamental spiritual and moral transformation of man cannot be achieved in his own strength but only through the power and grace of God as pastor Awosika demonstrates throughout this book.

  • EFCC and fleeing White Lion

    EFCC and fleeing White Lion

    Ordinarily, for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and indeed other anti-corruption agencies, the fear of a mere mortal who christens himself the ‘White Lion’ of Kogi State, the political entity he presided over for eight years like a feral beast with neither conscience nor compassion, ought to be the beginning of wisdom. But alas, what have we seen ever since Mr. Yahaya Bello formally quit office in May last year and handed over to his minion and irredeemable stooge, Usman Ododo? The EFCC has turned out to be the lion-hearted and the self-styled white lion, Yahaya, no more than a feeble-hearted rat on the run for fear of having to answer questions the anti-graft agency has raised as regards the expenditure of over 80 billion Naira under Bello’s watch in the confluence state, one of the most richly endowed with natural and human resources in the country, yet whose long-suffering people are the most pathetically immiserated. 

    When he assumed office in a legally questionable manner following the death of the winner of the 2015 governorship election in the state, Prince Abubakar Audu, before the result of the poll was announced, Bello incessantly harped on the fact that he was the youngest governor in the country. He was a little above 40 at the time he became governor. But his performance during his eight-year tenure has proven, once again, that age cannot be the sole criteria for determining suitability for elective office. While you have many dynamic, gifted, focused, and result-oriented youth holding their own creditably in leadership positions in both the public and private sectors, there are also many who, like Bello, are hungry for public office but lack the discipline, character, vision, integrity, and capacity for the industry that such offices demand. Bello is surely the poster boy for this category of indolent and mentally vacuous youth.

    It is difficult to understand why Bello is creating so much needless drama and hysteria over his invitation to respond to allegations against him by the EFCC, which was acting within the bounds of its statutory responsibilities as stipulated by valid laws of the country. What exactly is so special about this ex-governor that he presumes himself to be above the law? I recall that after handing over to his successor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), on Tuesday, May 29, 2007, the former governor of Lagos State and now President of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, honored the EFCC’s invitation to clarify issues as regards the management of the finances of the state during his 8-year tenure. He reported at the EFCC headquarters in Abuja in the morning and left late at night after responding to questions by the commission’s interrogators on major contracts awarded by his administration and sundry matters. We can also all recall how a former governor of Ekiti state, Mr. Ayo Fayose, promptly reported himself to the EFCC after he left office and till date still has a case filed against him in court by the agency.

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    A former governor of Anambra State, Mr. Willie Obiano, also reported to the EFCC when he left office and is currently facing charges in court. Neither Fayose nor Obiano has been denied their liberty pending the determination of their cases in court. Under our laws, an accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. What then is Yahaya Bello running away from? Is it that he has confirmed himself guilty of the grave allegations against him and is thus seeking refuge in technicalities of the law with the aid of unscrupulous judicial officers who are trying to prevent anti-graft agencies from discharging their duties as stipulated by statute? Why should the Kogi State High Court give judicial orders that in reality seek to bind the EFCC from pursuing the cause of justice in the Yahaya Bello affair? This is not the first time that the courts would give blanket orders preventing anti-graft bodies from investigating and prosecuting politically exposed persons who lose their immunities once vacating office as governors. The case of Peter Odili, a former two-term governor of Rivers State, is an example. It is inexplicable why an injunction issued by a court restraining anti-graft agencies from investigating and prosecuting Odili if need be has remained unchallenged and the ex-governor continues to enjoy what can only be described as judicial immunity over two decades after leaving office and losing his constitutional immunity.

    In seeking to bring Yahaya Bello to book in accordance with the laws, the EFCC is not just performing its statutory functions; it is also acting on behalf of the hapless and helpless people of Kogi State who remain bound to poverty despite the stupendous natural and mineral endowment of the state. The giant strands that could have been taken in Kogi had the amount of N80 billion allegedly misappropriated by the Bello administration been invested in infrastructure, qualitative social services, and poverty alleviation can be best imagined. The many analysts, pundits, and civil society activists, some of them accomplished professionals, who have gone on radio and television as well as in the pages of newspapers to defend Bello and excoriate the EFCC surely have no idea of the degree of suffering the majority of people were subjected to during the ex-governor’s tenure, the squandered years of the locusts.

    Neither the workforce of the Kogi State public nor those of the state’s local government service ever received their full statutory stipulated salaries during Bello’s tenure. Most of the critical roads across the state are dilapidated or totally eroded. The state remains one of the least secure in the country and yet some professional associations of journalists offered him awards for his imagined accomplishments in the area of security. It was these kinds of dubious recognitions that encouraged Bello to think that he was more than qualified to contest for the presidency of Nigeria, a misbegotten venture that cost the state’s treasury billions in local and foreign currency all in the pursuit of a megalomaniac’s delusional fantasies. Beyond raising questions as regards whether or not the EFCC followed due process in seeking to arrest the ex-governor, most of those who have spoken out vehemently and vociferously in his support have paid scant attention to the grave allegations for which the anti-graft agency wants to interrogate the fabled white lion.

    Of course, Bello is only one example of persons of mere moderate means who become stupendously wealthy after occupying ‘lucrative’ public offices such as state governor. Their suddenly acquired riches cannot be traced to any productive enterprise, special or unique natural talents or endowments or investments that add value to the public good. One of the sources of the immoral accumulation of wealth by state governors is the security vote. This is a humongous amount that, for inexplicable reasons, is shielded from public knowledge and is neither audited nor accounted for. While security is very critical and requisite amounts of funds must be allocated to ensure the safety of lives and property within given jurisdictions, shrouding the security vote in secrecy and making it immune to audit screening actually undermines the security of the polity. This is because, in reality, most governors simply convert such funds to their private purposes and their respective jurisdictions remain as unsafe and insecure as ever.

    As the famous author of the classic, ‘Black Man’s Dilemma’, the late Chief Areoye Oyebola, a radical journalist and social critic, scathingly put it in a 2012 publication titled ‘Grave Issues Nigeria must Tackle’, “To millions of Nigerian workers who wallow in abject poverty, sickness and hunger, especially the lowest paid workers in the public and private sectors who earn starvation wages of N18,000 and below per month, will regard the recent disclosure by Transparency International that N241 billion per annum was expended on Security Vote in 2017 as very sad indeed. This unconstitutional illegality called security vote which was transferred by the Military Government to the civilian rulers who joyfully accepted it…has provided a direct way of looting massive public funds by Nigerian rulers without any accountability or sanctions whatsoever.”

    Another means of illicit material accumulation by governors in Nigeria is the alleged hijacking and diversion of local government funds. Indeed, it is alleged that it is in this area that much of the funds allegedly misappropriated by Yahaya Bello came from. It is perhaps no surprise then that the ex-white lion chose and imposed as his successor, the current Governor, Usman Ododo, who was Auditor General of Local Government under Bello. The underfunding of local government councils has been identified as a critical factor in the continued poverty, decay, and underdevelopment of grassroots communities across the country. Yet, if their potential and trapped energies are unleashed, the grassroots can play invaluable roles in helping to actualize the possibilities of Nigeria in the direction of greater productivity, self-reliance, and prosperity.

    The EFCC Chairman, Mr. Ola Olukoyede has been accused in some quarters of being overly emotional at a press conference organized by the commission to state its position on the Yahaya Bello affair. Others contend that he had subjected Bello to what they describe as a media trial. But it is noteworthy as a guest analyst put it on a TVC programme that the EFCC Chairman had, until the Bello affair, not held any press conference since his assumption of office. He cannot therefore be said to be in pursuit of publicity and self-glorification. But the commission could understandably not stand idly by when Bello’s horde of mostly paid defenders were running rampant particularly in the electronic media, peddling falsehoods in a bid to muddy the waters and portray the former governor as a victim of harassment and unjust persecution. The EFCC obviously had to prove that it had concrete allegations necessitating the ex-governor to defend himself.

    In any case, Mr. Olukoyede had given a foretaste of the passion he was bringing to the job when he was screened by the Senate before his confirmation. On that occasion, he had told the Senators that a survey he conducted between 2018 and 2020 revealed that the taxpayers lost $2.9 trillion to contracts and procurement fraud alone in those three years. The amount, he noted, was enough to pay for the construction of at least 1000 kilometers of roads, and 200 standard tertiary institutions and educate about 6000 children from tertiary to tertiary levels at N16 million per child. In his words, “For Nigeria to earn a reputation for transparency and accountability, there must be a collective decision that, indeed, corruption must be eliminated.  We must build an international reputation in transparency and as an agency I can investigate even the Senate President because we must call a spade a spade, we must look at evil and call it evil, no matter who is involved”. It is a good thing that so far President Tinubu has not sought to influence the operations of the agency as Yahaya Bello so obviously wanted. It is critical that the President maintains this stance.

  • Sanitising party primaries

    Sanitising party primaries

    Following the disenchantment of most of the aspirants who participated in the April 20 governorship primaries of the Ondo State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) with the outcome of the exercise in which governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa was declared winner and their rejection of what they perceived as a flawed verdict, the national leadership of the party moved swiftly to assuage bruised egos and massage frayed nerves. Governor Usman Ododo of Kogi State as Chairman of the Governorship Primary Election Committee had declared Aiyedatiwa winner with 48,569 votes with Mr. Mayowa Akinfolarin coming a distant second with 15,343 votes. Incidentally, Akinfolarin had reportedly collapsed his structures into that of Aiyedatiwa before the primary. Most of the aspirants including Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, Mr. Olusola Oke (SAN), Mr. Wale Akinterinwa, Mr. Olugbenga Edema, Dayo Faduyile and Jimi Odunayo among others dismissed the exercise as farcical.

    A former Speaker of the Ondo State House of Assembly, Hon. Bamidele Oloyeloogun, described the conduct of the primary as a ‘fraud’ against the party and its members in Ondo State. In his words, “It is on record including that of the INEC that there was no ward out of the 203 wards in the state that election was held, they just manufactured figures. The evidence is that today, our members are not jubilating because the process that led to the announcement and declaration of the winner was a fraud perpetrated against them”. At least five aspirants have reportedly forwarded their petitions to the Governorship Appeal Committee headed by former Bauchi State governor, Mohammed Abubakar, seeking for a cancellation of the primary and the conduct of a fresh exercise. At a meeting to reconcile all participants in the primary, the APC National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, appealed to aggrieved aspirants to sheathe their swords and rally round the winner to guarantee the party’s victory in the November 16 governorship election in the state.

    According to Ganduje at the peace parley, “The purpose of this dialogue is to appeal to you. This dialogue is not to dwell on what has happened, or what did not happen, what is correct and what is not correct during the primary. If we dwell on that, it can lead to what we call too much analysis, which will lead to paralysis. Our own is to appeal to you. The party belongs to you and only you. Our prayer is that our party should be the ruling party in Ondo State. It is already a ruling party. Our prayer is for it to continue to be a ruling party in Ondo State.” To achieve this objective of the APC continuity in governance in Ondo State, Ganduje obviously realizes that the party must contest the November 16 election as a cohesive whole. It was thus resolved at the reconciliation meeting that Aiyedatiwa should constitute an all-inclusive government by making sure that the interests of all aggrieved aspirants are accommodated. In the same vein, all shades of opinion and diverse interests will be catered for in the constitution by the governor of local government caretaker committees.

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    Interestingly, before this reconciliation meeting, Governor Aiyedatiwa seemed to have adopted a triumphal stance as his victory parade through the streets of Akure, the state capital, following his declaration as winner of the primaries indicated. Incidentally, from the visuals that I saw, there was not much excitement on the streets as his convoy drove through suggesting that not too many residents were interested in the spectacle. Given the circumstances that enabled his ascension to the office of governor following the transition of his boss, the late governor Rotimi Akeredolu, one would have thought that Aiyedatiwa would adopt a soberer mien in his carriage and demeanor. It would appear that he has a ruthless Machiavellian streak and it will be interesting to see how far this takes him in the complex political and cultural matrix of Ondo State and Yorubaland in general.

    It is understandable that Ganduje wants whatever lapses that characterized the Ondo State governorship primaries to be glossed over and that the aspirants should close ranks to ensure the party’s continuity at the control of the levers of governmental power in the state. That is logical. But the political analyst has the duty to interrogate the deficiencies in organizing and conducting intra-party primaries which has become one of the most serious challenges confronting the polity today and indeed a continuous source of political instability. Lack of integrity in intra-party polls, which is a malaise that cuts across parties, is partly responsible for the apathy that has been witnessed in general elections during which, in a vast majority of cases, only a microscopic percentage of the electorate turn out to cast their votes. Free, fair and credible general elections must be rooted in transparent primaries in which the candidates that emerge genuinely reflect the will of a majority of the rank and file of party members.

    While political parties are given a cardinal role in the operation of the political system in the extant 1999 Constitution, no provision is made for them to have formal organic and functional institutional structures. Thus, the leaders of the executive – president and vice president; governor and deputy governor – are elected on the platform of political parties. Members of the legislature can also not contest as independent candidates. They must pursue their ambitions as members of political parties. The concept of independent candidacy is alien to the constitution. This means that the mechanism of the party choosing its candidates for executive and legislative elections is the most critical aspect of the electoral process. Yet, this process is currently conducted in a most unstructured and informal manner. That is why, in the absence of proper institutionalization of structures for the conduct of primaries, parties appoint ad hoc committees headed by otherwise busy state governors to oversee the process.

    The lack of proper institutionalization of party structures played critical roles in the failure of Nigeria’s first and second republics. The collapse of the first republic was catalyzed largely by the fissure within the Action Group (AG) in the Western Region and the attempt of the breakaway faction led by the Premier, Chief Ladoke Akintola, who formed his own party, the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), to hold on to power at all costs against the will of the people who backed Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s AG. Popular and violent uprising in the West against the massive rigging of the 1965 regional elections by Akintola’s NNDP with the backing of Ahmadu Bello’s Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) in control at the centre led directly to the January 17, 1966, coup that torpedoed the first republic.

    In a similar vein, intra-party crises particularly within the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) mostly arising from grievances over the picking of candidates in states like Oyo and Ondo in particular for the 1983 governorship elections compounded the general instability that led to the collapse of the second republic on December 31, 1983. The ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) had capitalized on the cracks within the UPN to massively rig the elections in Oyo and Ondo states again with ultimately disastrous consequences for the stability of the polity and the sustainability of democracy. At that time, Mr. Akin Omoboriowo, erstwhile Deputy Governor to governor Adekunle Ajasin of the UPN in Ondo State had defected to the NPN because of his rejection of the decision of the party that its incumbent governors be given automatic second term tickets for the 1983 elections. Omoboriowo contested for governor against his former boss on the platform of the NPN and was declared winner by the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) in a massively rigged poll which was later reversed by the courts.

    With the declaration of Omoboriowo as winner of the election, the streets of Akure and other major towns in the old Ondo State erupted in an orgy of flames, tears and blood and a fleeing Omoboriowo surfaced at the studios of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) in Lagos hours later claiming he was the winner of the election. I can vividly remember an obviously mischievous Frank Olize asking the flustered supposedly victorious NPN gubernatorial candidate on national television what he was doing in Lagos when he should be celebrating with his teeming supporters in Akure! Interestingly, it was the military president, General Ibrahim Babangida’s transition programme that tried meaningfully to address the problem of properly institutionalizing political party structures. Its prescription was the formation of two government-created parties, the National Republican Convention (NRC) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) a little to the right and left of the ideological spectrum respectively. These parties had functional ward, local government, state and national secretariats with an emergent party administrative bureaucracy. Although critics dismissed the NRC and SDP as government parastatals, the truth is that the politicians took ownership of the structures and there is no way, for instance, that an MKO Abiola would ever have emerged as presidential candidate of a major party but for that unorthodox arrangement under IBB.

    To sanitize party primaries in Nigeria today and consolidate the gains of our ongoing democratic evolution, we must urgently adopt the proposal for the formation of an Independent Political Parties Administration Commission to be organized and run along the lines of INEC. It will be responsible for the registration, monitoring, supervising and auditing of political parties including conducting party primaries. That way the present situation where hegemonic cliques seize control of party structures and turn intra-party polls into cynical farcical exercises will become with time a thing of the past. Right now, with the systematically expanding institutional autonomy of INEC and the automation through technology of the electoral processes of general elections, the latter is far ahead of the standard of intra-party polls. Efforts must be made to concretely bridge the gap.

  • Tinubu’s electoral victory through prism of Omatseye’s ‘prosetry’ (2)

    Tinubu’s electoral victory through prism of Omatseye’s ‘prosetry’ (2)

    The diaries section of Sam Omatseye’s ‘Beating All Odds: Diaries and Essays on How Bola Tinubu Became President‘ takes in and records for posterity small and big points and issues of the campaign not excluding desperate attempts by Tinubu’s adversaries including newspapers and television stations as well as their columnists and anchors who took their antagonism to his candidacy to heights of unprofessionalism hitherto unknown in Nigerian journalism.

    At moments, it became difficult to distinguish between the jungle of social media and what was expected to be a saner, more restrained, and professional terrain of traditional, mainstream journalism.

    In many ways, Nyesom Wike continued to influence the tenor and texture of the campaigns as depicted in the diaries.

    In the week of November 18, for instance, Wike invited Peter Obi to commission a flyover in his state. At the event, Obi mouthed one of his untruths in a futile attempt to aim a blow at Tinubu’s jugular. As Omatseye puts it, “The Labour candidate also made news with another lie. He said he knew Peter Odili as a schoolmate at Christ the King College, and that he was a great footballer. He spoke as though a witness. But Odili was in CKC when Obi was still a toddler or at most a six-year-old. He wanted to translate that moment to launch a jibe at the APC candidate by showing that he had recognizable classmates but he turned out to make a fool of himself.”

    In another diary entry in the week of November 25, 2022, Omatseye records Tinubu’s wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, campaigning in flawless Itshekiri linguistic flourish in Warri, Delta State and Wike unsettling governors of the South-South by revealing that his plethora of projects were executed with funds released by Buhari to all the Niger Delta governors; monies which had been denied them since 1999.

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    Some of the diary entries depict in bold relief the dilemmas confronted by Tinubu in his maneuverings toward the presidency. For instance, what would be the attitude of the APC candidate to the incumbent APC administration of President Muhammadu Buhari? In Omatseye’s words, “Another development was the speculation from some pundits that it may not be easy for the APC presidential candidate to navigate the Buhari terrain in propagating his own candidacy. This is because of some bad news about ASUU, flagging currency, and a sense of disaffection with the direction of the country. Buhari is perceived as a huge albatross on the Tinubu candidate, and this has come up with the statements from the spokesman, Festus Keyamo, who is trying to play a delicate balance between selling Tinubu’s virtues without alienating the Buhari circle.” The diarist’s advice here is that Tinubu needed Buhari’s goodwill in key Northwest sweepstakes like Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, and Jigawa and that the candidate should continue along the shrewd path of not alienating the President.

    In the week of September 9, 2022, Omatseye notes in his diary the marked improvement in power supply and the lull in banditry. But he is disappointed that the media play these down. Even more strangely, the Buhari administration does not blow its own trumpet. “The bad part”, Omatseye writes, “is that the Buhari administration and the APC echelon are also quiet about it. No one can tell your story like yourself. The APC ought to seize the momentum. If power and insecurity go, the opposition and cynics have no word of contention with the ruling party…It is high time the Asiwaju campaigns seized this and explained why these pieces of good news and brag.”

    Although this book is a collection of diaries and essays on the 2023 presidential election, the first essay in the second part titled ‘The APC challenge’, was published in Omatseye’s column on February 18, 2013.  The first paragraph offers a good specimen of Omatseye’s ‘Prosetry’. Hear him: “It mocks us as well as it embraces us. It is the ultimate judge and its verdict can either bruise or boost us. But it is inevitable. It is history, a perennial guest at the contemporary dinner table. Whether or not we agree to fete it, its appetite gravitates to our feast.” This essay has as its focus the founding of the APC, an epochal development without which the outcome of the country’s electoral cycles as from 2015 would have been radically different from what it turned out to be. Analyzing the communique read on behalf of eleven governors by Kashim Shettima who declared their support for the new APC coalition, the author writes, “That is why I say that the governors and the party wheel horses behind the mergers must pray for history not to prey on the nobility of the idea”. Note the word play on pray and prey – ‘prosetry’ at work.  It is a stirring piece in which the writer deploys the tools of the historian to take a rear mirror view of our political evolution to recall how the progressive coalitions against erring parties at the centre in the first and second republics failed to achieve their objective of winning power through the ballot box as a result of contending vaulting ambitions, incompatible personalities, draconian utilization or outright electoral chicanery.

    One of the fascinating pieces in this book is titled ‘A Lagos Original’ published on January 17, 2022, after Tinubu had first publicly and formally unveiled his intention to contest for the presidency come 2023. Soaring to inspired heights of lyricism, the author paints vivid pictures of Tinubu’s strengths and attainments which placed him in great stead not only as the immediate front runner in the race but one aspirant with a bright possibility of achieving his ambition and occupying the coveted office. In Omatseye’s weekly essays on the no-easy route to the 2023 presidential election, the swirl of events and developments on an uncertain, often unpredictable terrain come alive in glowing colours of a gripping narrative. They are placed within a comparative historical context, enriched with literary anecdotes, seasoned with philosophical musings and elucidated for better comprehension through sheer analytic lucidity.

    On February 21, 2022, for instance, he wrote on ‘APC as a sick baby’. He refers to what amounted to a veritable coup d’etat within the APC when its Adams Oshiomhole-led party executive was decapitated mostly by conspiratorial governors who saw this as a first step to denuding Tinubu of whatever influence he had in the party and ultimately truncating whatever future ambitions the former Lagos State governor harboured within the inner recesses of his soul. Of course, we are aware of how the Buni-led caretaker and extraordinary convention planning committee that supplanted Oshiomhole came to an ignoble end and the APC had to return to a constitutional order.

    Another interesting essay is ‘The Bazaar’ penned on May 30, 2022, with its lens trained on Atiku’s emergence as the presidential candidate of the PDP. “So, to Apostle Paul again”, Omatseye writes, “Atiku won a corruptible prize, a dollarized victory. It was a bazaar of democracy, and what a bizarre duel. A democracy of the money men. Money and politics have never turned more obscene than the story of the PDP presidential primary”. And here, the essayist comes across as a futurologist when he avers that, with Atiku’s triumph as PDP candidate, for the APC “The only option is to have a Tinubu as the candidate. It promises to be a gladiatorial contest…Other than Tinubu, APC has no one near Atiku’s prowess…The option for APC is whether they want to win with Tinubu or lose without him. Do they want to fight a lion with a domestic cat or a bigger lion? It’s a battle of pound for pound and guile guile for guile. It will be a thriller. A week from now will prove it.”

    The essays focus on diverse issues around the campaigns such as the emergence of Tinubu, Atiku, and Obi as the major candidates, high points of the various campaigns, the characteristically foxy and wily interventions of Obasanjo, the heated debates on Muslim-Muslim ticket, the pastoral theatrics of ‘men of God in partisan political garbs, the merits of a Kashim Shettima vice presidency, the elections proper and the desperate attempts to discredit both the result and the electoral umpire by sore losers, the post-election attempts to blackmail, intimidate and harass the judiciary, Atiku’s futile fishing expedition to Chicago in search of what was not missing – all these and more attract the attention of the pen from Omatseye’s observatory.

    This is a work of history even if written with the hurry of journalistic deadlines in mind. It is a blend of prose and poetry as grounded in realism as in imagination. There is an intricate, intimate nexus between the first part, the diaries, and the second section, the essays. In the diaries, trends are teased out, questions are raised, posers are posited, the author airs his doubts sometimes debating with himself and conclusions are tentative. Not so, the essays. Here, the author takes definitive positions. He makes confident assertions and at times magisterial pronouncements and audacious predictions. In Omatseye’s political analyses, black and white stand in sharp contradistinction. There are no indecipherable shades of grey. For his admirers, this is strength, the hallmark of the opinion writer at his best. His critics would accuse him of a tendency to bias and lack of objectivity wondering why he hardly finds fault with Tinubu or sees any good in his adversaries. But partisan stands that don the deceptive garb of objectivity is difficult to distinguish from hypocrisy and Omatseye has chosen not to tread that path. 

  • Labour Party’s travails

    Labour Party’s travails

    In the aftermath of the February 25, 2023, presidential elections in which the Labour Party (LP) and its flag bearer, Mr Peter Obi, exceeded even their own expectations in terms of the number of states won and the spread of its support base, the party began to affect an exaggerated sense of its political worth and significance. Not even its far less stellar outing in the March 18 governorship elections in which the LP only managed to win in Abia State could bring the party leaders down to reality from their delusional flights of fancy.

    Indeed, having won 12 states including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as well as Lagos State, where he led with approximately 10,000 votes, Peter Obi scandalously claimed to have won an election in which he came third. Of course, no empirical or logically credible reasons needed to be offered for this utterly fictitious claim. Mr. Obi’s assertion and that of his fellow LP co-travelers were sufficient for those hooked on the opium and frenzy of the ‘Obidient Movement’, a largely amorphous and headless group within the LP, that came to constitute the core of Obi’s and the party’s electoral strength.

    Indeed, even beyond the LP, a number of pathetically naive elements, particularly youths, began to romanticize the party as the vehicle capable of midwifing the New Nigeria of our dreams. The first shocker for those who dwelt in this imaginary universe was the rejection by the LP members of the National Assembly of the suggestion in several quarters that they should dissociate themselves from the widely criticized decision of the National Assembly leadership to procure imported Special Utility Vehicles worth over N100 million each for members of the legislature in these hard times.

    Their turning down of the largesse, it was argued, would help to enhance their credibility and integrity and also portray the LP as being ideologically distinct from the other major parties. But they would not budge. Who would spit out a juicy morsel from his mouth in the name of a value like integrity lacking in concreteness to paraphrase the great Chinua Achebe? The LP does not necessarily stand on an ethically superior moral plane to the other parties.

    The breakout of the equivalent of a civil war within the leadership of the LP, leading to a bifurcation between Barrister Julius Abure and the Lamidi Apapa as well as Mr Abayomi Arabambi factions was again to help in reinforcing the notion that what bound the LP together was not necessarily more altruistic and noble than obtained in other parties. Charges of criminal infractions of the law including forgery of party documents and financial malfeasance were leveled against Abure by the Apapa and Arabambi faction. At this juncture, the presidential candidate, Mr Obi, and the ordinarily temperamental, impetuous, abrasive and belligerent Comrade Ajaero, President of the Nigeria Labour Conference, decided to hold their peace. Apparently, they heard nothing and saw nothing.

    Read Also: Tinubu appoints new Board for NAICOM

    But when it became clear that the wily Julius Abure was planning a National Convention of the LP in Umuahia scheduled for March 27, all hell was let loose. Critical stakeholders including members of the House of Representatives caucus of the party and the Trade Union veterans, comprising respected former leaders of the trade union movement, urged that the National Convention be put off. They insisted that ward, local government and state congresses should hold before the National Convention which must be planned, organized and supervised by an expanded Board of Trustees of the party taking on board all stakeholders including new members.

    Of course, the National Convention has since taken place in Nnewi, Anambra State, and Abure and other members of his executive re-elected as National Chairman for another term. The picketing of the LP offices nationwide by members of the NLC obviously under the instigation of Joe Ajaero failed woefully to frustrate Julius Abure’s plans. Until a political solution is found to the impasse or judicial intervention is sought, Abure is sitting tight unto the Chairmanship seat alongside other members of his executive.

    Speaking on the crisis on a national television station recently, Ajaero claimed that the LP was formed to allow ordinary members to contest and win elections, pointing out that even the party’s presidential candidate in the last election did not belong to any labour union. In his words on that occasion, “Any Nigerian that wants to belong to the LP is free. The reason we formed the LP is that Nigerian workers under the minimum wage cannot buy form and contest elections under any of the political parties be it APC or PDP. That’s why we say we must have our own political party where a messenger, or clerk can contest elections and win. Even Okada riders are in the National Assembly today through the Labour Party.”

    If this is the LP and NLC’s contribution to the evolution of political development and democracy in Nigeria, nothing could be more tragic. So for Ajaero and his LP, the quality of those who are elected into the national legislature in terms, for instance, of educational attainment or professional accomplishment does not matter? In any case, it is untrue that the idea of forming a LP was to give poor Nigerians the opportunity to contest for elections without stress. If so, how and why did the erstwhile National Treasurer of the LP, Ms Oluchi Opara, publicly allege that Abure be made to account for over N3.5 billion she claimed the party received from sale of forms and donations for the 2023 elections? In addition, Abure was accused of selling the nomination and expression of interest forms for the forthcoming Edo governorship elections for N30 million? Is it not instructive that she was suspended for six months for allegedly bringing the party to disrepute?

    There is no doubt that a party like the LP is direly needed on Nigeria’s political terrain. It is the kind of party, if properly conceived, organized and efficiently run, that can serve as a genuine ideological alternative to the APC and PDP. Unfortunately, the Labour careerists and aristocrats at the helm of the Labour movement in this dispensation especially, have opted to make the party available to all kinds of characters who cannot make it under their previous parties and thus seek to utilize the LP as a Special Purpose Vehicle to achieve their objectives. It does not matter how ideologically vacuous and philosophically barren such opportunistic aspirants are.

    A group within the NLC responsible for this appalling state of affairs in the LP, in the view of this column, are the Trade Union Veterans comprising illustrious past leaders of the NLC who are also, presumably, founding fathers of the LP. This group is made up of the pioneer President of the NLC, Comrade Hassan Sunmonu; the just departed 2nd President of the NLC, Comrade Ali Chiroma; the pioneer General Secretary of the NLC, Comrade Aliu Dangiwa; the second National Secretary of the NLC, Comrade S.O. Oshidipe; as well as BOT Chairman and pioneer Chairman of the LP, Comrade Lawson Osagie.

    In a written statement prior to the holding of the controversial National Convention by the Abure faction, these veterans had lamented that “We cannot sit down and continue to watch as the ideals, principles and ethical values of the Labour Party we toiled so much to build over the decades are being rubbished by one man. Consequently, we urge Abure to step aside now as the National Chairman of the Labour Party and in his place, the BOT should appoint a Caretaker National Chairman that will organize congresses in the states before the National Convention can be convened”.

    These eminent trade union leaders in my view spoke too little, too late and they apportion blame only on one side when the crisis is a function of the actions and inactions of various parties on different divides of the Labour movement. I find the statement issued at a press conference in Abuja by a former Vice President of the NLC, Comrade Isah Tijjani, more dispassionate and nuanced. He did a thorough analysis of the situation and concluded Abure had failed in his leadership of the LP while being encumbered by too many scandals and that Joe Ajaero had also failed abysmally in his role as National President of the NLC.

    In his words, “In this connection, our good members are hereby strongly reaffirming their cardinal demand that Abure must go. Hence, our members will not despair in pointing out the many failings of comrade Ajaero, especially in the sphere of Labour unionism, which clearly demonstrate that his well-known choleric temperament and overly undemocratic character have made him totally unsuitable for leadership”. In other words, both Abure and Ajaero must go if the LP is to be salvaged and given a fresh lease of life and also to enable the NLC retrieve its credibility and integrity as an essentially non-partisan organization.

    The trade union movement in Nigeria is older than any of the major parties. It is a tragic irony that both the NLC and TUC with reported combined membership strength of at least 10 million workers could not massively mobilize its members to vote for a credible, progressive and ideologically informed candidate in successive elections. Indeed, I do not see any party with an organizational reach across the country compared to the Labour movement. Rather, for the 2023 presidential elections, the LP had to surrender its ticket to Peter Obi who brought nothing but ethnic and religious sentiments to galvanize support for the LP. This is a great setback for both the Labour movement and the LP which they must begin to remedy now. The labour movement is also essentially a class-based one and no organization is better placed to mobilize people across primordial, religious, and ethnic divides and to vote on the basis of merit-driven criteria.

  • PBAT and political development in Nigeria

    PBAT and political development in Nigeria

    Being his first birthday after he was elected President of Nigeria at the 2023 presidential polls, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s 72nd year on this side of eternity last Friday, March 29, would most certainly have been celebrated with elaborate pomp and pageantry by his supporters and admirers. Yes, not a few of those who do not necessarily take a liking to him or his politics would equally but hypocritically have joined in the festivities with an eye to gaining some benefit sooner or later from the powerful office the Jagaban occupies.

    Such extravagant commemoration of a birthday that is not necessarily a landmark would have been prompted by the epochal obstacles and veritable mountains he has scaled at every critical phase of his still-evolving life trajectory. In particular, loud and lavish celebratory convivialities would have been prompted by the gargantuan scale of the ferocious and relentless opposition to his presidential aspiration by formidable forces both within and beyond his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the focused single-mindedness with which he met and trounced them all.

    But then, not only were the sounds of throbbing drums and triumphal, mellifluous music not to be heard, even media houses that made an annual kill from pages of celebratory adverts on the occasion had to painfully endure the equivalent of a Ramadan financial fast. In recognition of and identification with the excruciating pains being experienced by the vast majority of Nigerians as a result of his administration’s scorching but inevitable economic reforms, the President wanted all commemorative activities shelved and money that should have been expended on adverts diverted to provide succor for the poor and vulnerable.

    It is obviously this kind of uncanny ability to read the mood of the people and demonstrate empathy with them over the years that has given President Tinubu an edge over his often impotently feral political opponents and made him a formidable long-distance, marathon political athlete who today occupies the apex position of authority in Nigeria.

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    In commemoration of the birthday of one of the most deft and dexterous political actors in the country over the last three and a half decades, this column today focuses on Tinubu’s no mean contribution to the political development of contemporary Nigeria. The concept of political development has elicited much debate and contestation among political science scholars. It is what the late Professor Billy Dudley would describe as an ‘essentially contested concept’. But there is a general consensus, I believe, that it refers to some sort of improvement or progress towards a desired goal or ideal of the appropriate political structure and organization of society.

    But what constitutes progress or improvement in the character of political institutions and values? As Professor Jean Blondel wonders, “The very idea of progress has come to be questioned in the process. Is humankind truly capable of progress on the political front or is there only cyclical change? Are we so diverse in our views that we shall never be able to work together towards a common idea of political progress?” These are no doubt intriguing questions but which we must leave to competent academic political scientists to continue to dilate on in learned journals.

    Here our focus is on how President Tinubu has contributed in a concrete and indelible manner to the ongoing evolution of Nigeria in the direction of strengthening the institutions, values, and practice of liberal democracy and progressive ideology in contemporary Nigeria. When at a crucial phase in the gathering momentum towards the last APC presidential primaries and the intra-party opposition to his ambition was thickening, the President adumbrated his ’emilokan’ thesis in Abeokuta, he was subconsciously elaborating on his unequalled contribution to the strengthening of party politics and the deepening of federal practice in this political dispensation immediately before and after 1999. In the process, he built enduring friendships, forged strategic alliances, and accumulated invaluable political IOUs that played critical roles in his ultimate emergence as President of Nigeria.

    Let us take, for instance, the issue of a vibrant, vigorous and vibrant opposition without which liberal democracy is imperiled in any society. President Tinubu’s role in preserving and conserving an effective opposition that ultimately helped to thwart the bid by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to become a one-party-dominant behemoth at the steering wheel of governance in Nigeria for at least 60 unbroken years cannot be overstated.

    A critical date in this regard was the governorship election of April 19, 2003. It was an election in which the wily Ota General, who had cajoled and deceptively manipulated the chieftains of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) to win the majority of the votes in the South-West in the preceding week’s presidential elections, suddenly turned around to pull the rug from under the feet of the AD in the gubernatorial polls. Wielding the power of presidential incumbency, OBJ had commandeered a rampaging PDP to victory in the South-West in one of the worst electoral heists ever in the political history of Nigeria.

    As the results from the elections trickled in on the evening of the 20th April 2003, it was obvious that the PDP tornado had swept away the AD in five of the six states in the region- Ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun. Tinubu remained the only man standing as it was impossible for the PDP to dislodge the AD in Lagos despite its candidate, the late Funsho Williams’ relatively formidable structure in the state and OBJ’s deployment of troops to intimidate the electorate in the nation’s commercial nerve centre. Yours truly was in then governor Tinubu’s office at the Roundhouse in Alausa alongside some commissioners and other personal aides monitoring the results as they came in.

    The governor was devastated by the routing of his fellow AD governors in the other South-west states. PDP chieftains in Lagos openly boasted that he would have no choice but to defect to the ruling party as the sole governor of the AD. I had my doubts, I must confess, that Tinubu could resist for long the lure and pressure to join the fabled PDP mainstream of Nigerian politics. After all, it was not fashionable to be in the wilderness of opposition in Nigeria’s ‘come and eat’ political culture. But Tinubu was grossly underestimated. Not only did he not decamp to the then-ruling party, he rallied the ousted AD governors and together they began to rebuild and revitalize the party in the region.

    Had Tinubu jettisoned the opposition and clambered on the PDP bandwagon in the aftermath of the 2003 elections, it is doubtful if a formidable opposition to the domineering PDP would have been forged. The then-ruling party would most probably have achieved its dream of being in power for at least six decades. Let us not forget how Mr. Peter Obi, as two-term governor of Anambra State on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), had promised the late Chief Odimegwu Ojukwu never to desert the party. Yet, on completion of his second term, Obi wasted no time in dumping APGA, joining the PDP, and becoming a Special Adviser to then-President Goodluck Jonathan.

    In 2007, Tinubu had provided former Vice President Atiku Abubakar a platform, the Action Congress (AC), to contest for the presidency when the latter had been harassed and intimidated out of the PDP by a vengeful OBJ. Yet, after he had lost to the late President Umaru Yar’Adua in the 2007 polls, the Waziri Adamawa wasted no time in returning to his vomit in the PDP saying that he could only function in a national and not a regional party. Had Atiku been consistent and stayed within the progressive fold to nurture the then AC into a national party, it is doubtful if anyone could have denied him the presidency in an emergent national party.

    Today, the Waziri is paying the price for his ideological inconsistency and political vagrancy. Were Tinubu to be as fickle and politically unstable as Obi and Atiku have proven to be, it is unlikely that we would have an APC today and the PDP, despite its internal contradictions and congenital dysfunctions, would probably still be in control of the centre today. Between 2003 and the next electoral cycle in 2007, Tinubu led his ousted colleagues- Aremo Olusegun Osoba, Chief Bisi Akande, the late Alhaji Lam Adesina, the late Chief Adebayo Adefarati and Chief Niyi Adebayo- to work collaboratively to rebuild and reorganize the progressive movement in the South-West. And helped by the sheer lack of vision and utter incompetence of the PDP governors in the South-West, the progressives made a dramatic comeback in the region in 2007.

    Of course, once again, the imperial OBJ presidency, which treated the Maurice Iwu-led INEC as an appendage of Aso Rock Villa, simply announced fabricated results in Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, and Edo in the South-South awarding victory to the PDP in these states. But unlike in 2003, when the governors who were rigged out took their ouster with equanimity and refused to challenge the outcome in court, Tinubu once again motivated the party to successfully challenge the results announced in Ondo, Ekiti, Osun and Edo states in court thus recording another milestone in the political development of Nigeria.

    A related critical feature of a viable liberal democratic system is the existence of well-grounded political parties that are ideology-based at least to a reasonable extent. Here again, Tinubu’s role in nurturing and building bridges of national collaboration through party coalitions that can win power at the centre cannot be denied. True, the parties formed by the late sage, the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo – the Action Group (AG) and Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), were undoubtedly the most disciplined and ideology-focused in the political history of Nigeria. But Tinubu’s ingenuity in collaborating with diverse elements to forge a national party that succeeded in achieving pan-Nigerian success and wresting power at the centre from a ruling party is unprecedented. Of course, it is true that his working with others to achieve this feat came at the cost of bringing disparate bedfellows to cohabit under one political tent with negative consequences for organizational discipline and ideological coherence.

    When the fractures within the contending Afenifere camps created an irreparable chasm within the AD resulting in the party’s inevitable moribundity, Tinubu led other like-minded elements in forming first the Action Congress (AC) which was then further strengthened and consolidated to form the Action Congress of Democrats (ACD) and ultimately the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), which won hegemonic control of the South-West through the ballot box. Tinubu and other leaders of the ACN then led the party to work with others in the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), a faction of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the breakaway New People’s Democratic Party (nPDP) to form the broad-based APC that made spectacular electoral history in the 2015 elections and is the ruling party today.

    It is instructive that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and a chieftain of the Labour Party (LP), Professor Pat Utomi, have in recent times, on different occasions, spoken of the need to create broad-based political party structures by the opposition as a necessary condition for displacing the APC from power come 2027. Tinubu and the APC have a patent on this template in Nigerian politics. The attempts by opposition political leaders in the first and second republics to achieve this feat always failed abysmally.

    But the willingness of opponents of Tinubu and the APC to emulate the model without necessarily admitting it is a clear indication of its efficacy. If the ongoing surreptitious attempts of opposition parties to forge such an alliance work, it may have the desirable consequence of curbing the APC of any tendency towards overconfidence, putting it on its toes and pressuring it towards placing a greater premium on becoming a genuinely development-driven political party.

    No office holder either at the federal or state levels of government in this dispensation has impacted more on the welfare and strengthening of the judiciary as a critical arm of government than Tinubu. The judiciary settles disputes not only between individual citizens and corporate groups but also between different arms and levels of government. A well-remunerated and motivated judiciary is thus indispensable to the meaningful political development of any polity. When he assumed office as governor of Lagos State, the Tinubu administration set the pace in taking steps to considerably improve the salaries of judicial officers as well as providing them such amenities as free accommodation and transportation which they continued to enjoy on retirement.

    We have earlier referred to how Tinubu inspired governorship candidates who had been robbed of their electoral victories in Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, and Edo states, respectively, in the 2007 elections to challenge the purported outcome of the polls in court. The success of those litigations demonstrated that with careful, meticulous accumulation of forensic evidence and diligent prosecution, electoral fraud could be detected and overturned through the courts. It was again the instrumentality of the courts that Tinubu as governor of Lagos State and his Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, utilized to challenge the centre’s usurpation of state powers under the 1999 Constitution and in the process helped to significantly deepen federal practice in Nigeria.

    Under Tinubu’s leadership as governor, the Lagos State government challenged the federal government’s constriction of state rights on at least 13 issues and obtained victory in all of these at the Supreme Court thus substantially influencing the evolution of contemporary federalism in Nigeria.

    Suffice it to say that his contribution to the emergence of the constitutional rule we enjoy today through his frontline role at the vanguard of the struggle against the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election and the perpetuation of praetorian rule has reserved for Tinubu a cardinal place in the roll of catalysts of political development in Nigeria. But as President of Nigeria, this places on him the even greater burden of ensuring that under his leadership, the country experiences an unprecedented consolidation of the foundations of constitutionalism and the rule of law, respect for human rights, increased autonomy of the constituent units of the federation as well as greater integrity and credibility of the electoral process.