The Nation Newspaper

Category: Segun Ayobolu

  • A different coalition

    A different coalition

    Ever since his famous lamentation that rang across the country regarding his joining the coalition of opposition politicians against the re-election of President Bola Tinubu for a second term because he is hungry, not much has been heard along that line from former two-term governor of Rivers State and admittedly activist former Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi.  It may be that the leading chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) has realised that his not inconsiderable bulging paunch may not be compatible with a tale of personal famishment by a man who had the privilege of holding key political offices at State and national levels for an unbroken period of nearly two and a half decades.

    Leading actors in the ADC are noticeably now less boisterous than they were at the outing of the hijacked party about the presumed ease with which they would eject President Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from power in 2027. There has been no significant response so far to the party’s recent directive that its leading lights who are yet to leave their former parties and formally register with the ADC do so forthwith, indicating a general lack of confidence in the future of the opposition’s Special Purpose Vehicle to oust the APC from power. The party has not been helped by the outcome of by-elections in which it has participated, which suggests that its grand strategy of capitalising on the hardships attendant on the drastic economic reforms undertaken by the Tinubu administration has not borne fruit, as the APC remains not only electorally dominant but continues to receive defecting opposition politicians into its ranks on an unprecedented scale.

    Even as it struggles to get itself effectively organised as a potent political and electoral force, the ADC has not come up with concrete economic policy proposals different from the reforms currently being implemented under Tinubu’s leadership despite its strident criticism that the latter have imposed avoidable hardships on Nigerians. Were such reforms as the removal of fuel subsidy and the merger of the parallel foreign exchange markets introduced at the inception of the Tinubu administration avoidable? There was a consensus among all presidential candidates going into the 2023 elections that these far-reaching policy changes had become imperative.

    Some contend that they could have been implemented in gradual, phased-out stages to limit the pain. But the argument has also been made that the kind of decisive, frontal action taken by President Tinubu on fuel subsidy and exchange rate harmonisation was critical to guarantee the success of the reforms. Half-hearted and indecisive actions in this regard by previous administrations were responsible for the persistence of the structural distortions that had virtually plunged the economy into a state indistinguishable from coma before the present administration’s surgical intervention.

    Leading lights of the ADC coalition and other critics of the reforms are yet to avail us of the magic by which they would have implemented reforms without pain, which would have been tantamount to extracting a decayed tooth without discomfort to the patient or preparing a delicious omelet without breaking eggs. Just as the coalition of opposition politicians in the ADC are motivated primarily by a desire to terminate President Tinubu’s tenancy at the Presidential Villa at the end of his first term and seek to utilize the hardships engendered by his reforms as a propaganda weapon to achieve this objective, there is a coalition of other forces who have commended the reforms, testified that they are working and beginning to yield results and contend that they must be sustained in the best long term interest of the Nigerian economy. The latter coalition is not partisan, not even political. It is not consciously organized and accommodates interests both domestic and external to the Nigerian economy.

    Furthermore, the components of the latter coalition are in a better position than the ADC anti-Tinubu coalition opposition politicians to pronounce on the health of the economy and the efficacy or otherwise of economic policy. In its 2025 World Economic Outlook (WEO) report released this week at the annual IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington, DC, United States, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reflected the verdict of this non-partisan coalition on the impact and consequences of the reform policies of the Tinubu administration thus far. As this newspaper reported the event, “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised upward its Nigeria’s growth forecast to 3.9 per cent in 2025 and 4.1 per cent in 2026, citing improvements in the country’s macroeconomic outlook. The IMF stated that the upgrade of its national growth projection for Nigeria was also based on a favourable domestic situation… “.

    The report continues, “Nigeria’s upgrade was significant as many other economies saw significant downward revisions because of the changing international trade and official aid landscape. At a press briefing on the WEO, IMF Economic Counselor, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said the Fund based its outlook for Nigeria on several improving macroeconomic indicators and supportive domestic factors. He said factors responsible for the higher growth revision include higher oil production, improved investor confidence, a supportive fiscal stance in 2026, and limited exposure to higher US tariffs. He added that the fund also considered stability in the exchange rate, rising foreign reserves and rebasing of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as significant factors expected to propel the Nigerian economy forward in 2026.”

    And speaking during the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-four (G-24) press briefing in Washington, the Central Bank Governor, Mr Olayemi Cardoso, gave an insight into the extent to which the Tinubu administration’s reforms had gone in restructuring the economy, resulting in its greater resilience and lessened vulnerability to global shocks, including unpredictability in international tariffs. He noted that a positive trend in the economy is the increasing transition by large businesses from imports to exports of locally produced goods and commodities.

    In his words, “We now have a more competitive currency with the results that, for once, we have a situation where we have a positive balance of trade surplus, and we expect it to be six per cent in GDP for some time. So basically, what is happening is a complete restructuring of the economy, where we are encouraging people to go into domestic production, and, of course, discouraging imports. And I think we were very fortunate, because a lot of the things that were needed to have been done, we did them much earlier, and as a result of that, we’re able to create resilience and buffers against potential shocks “.

    Aligning with this growing coalescence of positive affirmation of the Tinubu administration’s economic policies, billionaire Chairman of First HoldCo, Mr Femi Otedola, recently revealed that his decision to invest personally over N320 billion in First Bank “all in cash, without borrowing a single Naira” was partly inspired by the economic reforms of the Tinubu administration. His investment journey, according to him, “aligns closely with the bold and visionary leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who deserves credit for championing the tough but necessary reforms in our economy. I also commend the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Yemi Cardoso, for his courageous and pragmatic policy reforms. His actions are restoring credibility to the financial system and giving investors like me the confidence to commit long-term capital to this country”.

    Also commenting on the tax reform bills of the administration, which will take effect as of January next year, Otedola stated on his X handle that they were a “bold, necessary step toward a more transparent, efficient, and investment-friendly economy,” asserting that “I am inspired to invest more, and many other investors share the same sentiment”. According to a report on the online medium, Nairametrics, Otedola “believes that the reforms will reduce complexity and promote fairness in tax collection; restore confidence in the use of public resources; fund infrastructure and unlock productivity; and fuel inclusive growth”.

    The President and Chief Executive of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, is a key actor in the Nigerian economy whose views and perspectives on economic and business policy cannot be taken with levity. Dangote has on several occasions identified with the coalition of thought on the positive import of the ongoing reforms for the economy. For instance, when he received the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, recently, Dangote did not mince words in applauding the administration’s economic policies. “I believe we must sincerely thank His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for ensuring that there have been improvements in the supply of crude oil,” he said, noting that “His insistence that all crude oil transactions be conducted in Naira has been particularly commendable. For us to effectively meet market demand – which we can do – it is essential that crude is priced and purchased in our local currency.”

    As this newspaper reported the event, “The leading industrialist noted that these initiatives, along with other economic reforms, have brought a measure of stability to the naira-to-dollar exchange rate. He expressed optimism that the Naira would continue to strengthen in the coming weeks as the effects of the reforms become visible. According to him, the improved market predictability has helped investors make sound business decisions and restored confidence in the investment climate. We are also beginning to see some stability in the naira-to-dollar exchange rate, which has had a positive impact. There is now less fluctuation, and this has brought a degree of predictability to the market. For those of us in the business sector, this is a welcome development, as it allows us to plan more effectively. Looking ahead, as conditions continue to improve, we can expect to see a more favourable exchange rate.”

    Read Also: $100b annual investment needed to bridge Nigeria’s $2.3tr infrastructure gap, says ICRC

    Another business and industry giant, President of BUA Group, Alhaji Abdul Samad Rabiu, shares Dangote’s optimism. Interacting with journalists at the Presidential Villa in Abuja in September, Rabiu commended what he described as the bold and decisive economic reforms of the President, pointing out that the policy changes are already yielding positive results for businesses and the currency. He told the reporters that “I expect that the exchange rate is going to strengthen even further. I expect that the rate should come down to maybe N1,300, N1,400 before the end of the year. And this is something that we should all celebrate”.

    According to a newspaper report, “Explaining the impact of recent reforms, the BUA Chairman noted that businesses no longer rely solely on the Central Bank of Nigeria for foreign exchange as many are now able to source FX independently through credit cards and international banking channels  “So, really, for all these, we must give full credit to His Excellency and the government. Their bold reforms and decisive policies are creating the foundation for a stronger economy, a more stable currency and a better future for businesses and Nigerians alike”.

    From the aviation sector, the Chairman of Air Peace, Mr Allen Onyema, echoes the coalition of support for the President’s economic policies and their impact on business viability. Speaking earlier in the year during an interaction between President Tinubu and stakeholders of corporate Nigeria, Onyema applauded what he described as the President’s ‘forward-thinking approach to Nigeria’s economic development’, especially by easing challenges faced by business owners. As reported in the media, Onyema said, “President Bola Tinubu is thinking of the Nigeria of the future. The ease of doing business is coming back gradually. I can attest to that in the aviation sector because of the people he appointed to head that sector”. Onyema also attested to efforts made by the High Commission in the United Kingdom in making Air Peace flights into Gatwick Airport a possibility, including proudly publicising it.”

    Some may contend that all the foregoing only show that the ongoing economic reforms favour and are being lauded by wealthy business owners. But Nigeria runs a capitalist system, and a key measure of the health of capitalist economies is the viability and success of businesses and business owners, on which depend millions of jobs, considerable tax revenue for the government and an economy’s global competitiveness. Others argue that statistics showing improvements in such indices as inflation rate, trade surpluses, exchange rate stability or rising foreign reserves are meaningless if they do not reflect the concrete existential conditions of the majority of people. But there is no other way to measure the performance trend of an economy or the appropriateness or otherwise of economic policies. In any case, if current data had indicated a worsening of these statistical indices, the coalition of anti-Tinubu politicians would have been exuberantly jubilant.

    •This article was first published October 18, 2025

  • The Nigerian state as ‘a country without countrymen’? (1)

    The Nigerian state as ‘a country without countrymen’? (1)

    The day was Thursday, August 14, 2025. The time was 3pm. The venue was the Rev. Chris Oyakhilome Auditorium of the Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. The event was the 133rd in the inaugural lecture series of the over four and a half decades old institution established by the administration of the former governor of the then Bendel State, Professor Ambrose Alli, in the Second Republic. The lecturer was none other than the revered scholar of Comparative Politics and Strategic Studies, Professor Babatunde Olusegun Agara. The intriguing topic of his intellectual disquisition was ‘The Nigerian State: A Country Without Countrymen’ and for nearly two hours he held the audience spellbound with his penetrating interrogation of the dilemmas, uncertainties and challenges of the contemporary Nigerian condition.

    Professor Agara kicked off his cerebral offering with a declaration of the credos constituting what he described as ‘My three guiding principles in life’ stating directly, unpretentiously and unrepentantly that: “In religion, I am a Christian and hence I believe passionately in God, the Almighty; In politics, I am a radical humanist, I believe in bringing about radical change that positively affect the masses through the instrumentalities of violence (if need be); In economics, I am a committed Marxist and hence I believe in revolutions”. His affirmation of belief in and support for revolutionary change in society if necessary may sound sacrilegious to conservative defenders of the establishment and advocates of continuity of the status quo. But inherent in variants of Marxist theses is the belief that it is only rational to respond to what is perceived as the disguised and structural violence imposed on society by a ruling class or elite with a counter violence designed to engender a more just, equitable and fair social order.

    It is thus not surprising that Professor Agara ‘s lecture is suffused through and through with concerns about the challenges over the years of inept governance, paucity of leadership vision, structural inequities and debilities among others contributing to what he perceives as the deepening fragility of the Nigerian State even if it is yet to degenerate to the condition of total state collapse. On his choice of the topic of the inaugural, he explains that “The Nigerian State is seriously under a siege being plagued by what I have referred to as ‘the evil triad’ of insecurity, threats of secession and herders’ invasion. All these are simply due to the fact that we, Nigerians, do not see ourselves as countrymen, rather primordial sentiments and loyalty have created a divisive fault-line among us. Our argument is that it is  our inability to see ourselves as countrymen that have not only brought the evil triad, but is escalating them on a daily basis”.

    Critical to Professor Agara ‘s characterization of the Nigerian State as a country without countrymen is the stalled progression of the polity from mere statehood to a more cohesive sense of nationhood. Can Nigeria be said to be any more organically viable today than she was when the great statesman and first Premier of the Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, described the country nearly eight decades ago as ‘a mere geographical expression’? Are there not still many Nigerians who would not disagree with the reference by Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of Northern Nigeria in the First Republic, to the colonial amalgamation as ‘the mistake of 1914’? With virtually every component of the country seeing themselves as marginalized and some groups advocating the outright breakup of Nigeria through secession, can it be plausibly contended that ours is indeed a country without countrymen?

    When he speaks of the absence of countrymen in a country, Agara obviously refers to a deficient emotional bond between citizen and state and the lack of patriotic commitment of the vast majority of Nigerians to the structural entity known as Nigeria. While noting that what he describes as ‘the evil triad’ – insecurity, threats of secession and herders’ invasion – have reached an international dimension, he states that the situation is complicated and worsened by “the domestic problems of governance with virtually no opposition party, recycling of wasted political elites, lack of ideological convictions and a lack of political accommodation for the minorities within the state as it is presently structured”.

    This, he argues, “has led to some questioning the legitimacy of the state and consenting to the fact that a state thus construed and not in total control of the means of violence added to the fact of its gross inadequacy in ensuring the security of its populace, is already a weak state on the path of being a failing, failed or collapsed state. These are the informing motifs for the choice of this topic”. Professor Agara interrogates the subject through an exhaustive examination of the concept of nationalism which, he states, “implies a national sentiment be it political, economic, religious or symbolic that unifies a people together and for which they are ready to sacrifice anything to sustain”.

    Some of the dimensions of nationalism x-rayed by the lecturer include cultural nationalism which “stresses the need to defend or strengthen a national language, religion, or a way of life rather than achieve overt political ends”; liberal political nationalism predicated on the belief that, just like the individual, all Nations have a moral status and right to self-determination; conservative political nationalism which stresses social cohesion, public order and deployment of the sentiment of national patriotism in defence of traditional values and institutions; ethnic nationalism which “emphasizes the commonality of ancestral heritage thereby implying a stronger and perhaps more intense sense of distinctiveness and exclusivity” and expansionist nationalism rooted in a chauvinistic world outlook and value system difficult to distinguish from racism.

    The political scientist sheds light on the notion of a country without countrymen when he submits that “Within a federal pluralist society filled with much sentiment of ethnic differences and more heterogenous factors than homogeneous, ethnic consciousness and differentiation becomes ‘natural’ and is ‘real’. In cases where some set of people feel that they are marginalized and that the political arrangement and structure does not provide enough or sufficient political accommodation for them to feel that they ‘belong’, primordial instinct of identifying with their ‘kind’ kicks in and national loyalty is transferred to ethnic loyalty expressed through ethnic identification and nationalism. Thus, ethnic nationalism and identification becomes an intellectual response to political, social and cultural problems of integration and legitimacy”.

    One of the theoretical frameworks or anchors through which Professor Agara analyses his subject is that of political accommodation which is particularly central to federalist theory and practice. Thus, he posits that in a complex, ethnically, culturally and religiously plural society, the adequacy of the arrangements for political accommodation and coexistence of diverse groups in the polity are critical to the achievement or otherwise of harmony, peace and stability. He submits that federalism as a political format provides a framework for managing differences and that “political accommodation is only possible within a context where competing demands and claims by constituent groups are reconcilable and the various groups making up the federation are agreed to stay together”.

    Critical to the viability of sustainable and productive political accommodation, the professor points out, are the mode of allocation or distribution of material and fiscal resources among component groups of the polity which must be reflective of justice particularly with reference to contributions to the polity’s collective resources; the opportunities offered the diverse component groups for peaceful, systemic and Judicial articulation and resolution of their demands as well as the imperative of achieving a balance between national cohesion and the desire for autonomy and self-determination by the federating units.

    Read Also: Fed Govt to remap Nigeria after 50 years, says Surveyor-General

    The second theoretical framework around which Professor Agara’s thesis revolves is that of contentious politics and violence which encapsulates such concepts as contentious collective challenge, contentious political behavior and social movements. He explains that contentious collective action through aggravated social movements comprising complex underlying social networks offers a critical avenue through which “the oppressed can draw an unresponsive state’s elites’ attention to their plight, or better articulate their grievances and confront the better equipped opponents or the state. Contentious collective action brings ordinary people together under the same umbrella, for the same purpose and to confront opponents, elites’ or authorities”.

    In this regard, Professor Agara cites ethnic militias as examples of a form of social movements mobilized to pursue or undertake a collective challenge against state authorities for failing to address collective grievances of, for example, the peoples of the Niger Delta or the Igbo nationality of the Southeast region. He avers that the easiest and readiest recourse of components of aggrieved social movements desirous of social change is ‘the power of disruption’. According to him, “Social movements employ the power of disruption basically because this draws attention to them; enables the social movement to spread uncertainty while giving them the necessary leverage they need against powerful opponents such as the state”.

    However, the deployment of the coercive apparatus of the state including the police, military and intelligence services to contain escalation in disruptive activities of social movements and eliminate their offensive capabilities tend to split the latter into two – moderate elements who tactically withdraw from the struggle and the more extremist and militant who resort to continuously intensifying acts of outright violence. Professor Agara makes profuse references in the literature to demonstrate that (1) political violence tends to progress from the onset of mild discontent to the politicization of discontent and ultimately the actualization of violence against political actors and structures; (2) political violence challenges the monopoly of force which is the defining essence of state authority while destabilizing normal political processes and (3) political violence tends to be directed not just at incumbent governments and their functionaries and facilities but also opposing political actors, forces and groups thus constituting a threat to the extant political order.

    In this inaugural lecture, we have a most exhaustive and rigorous analytic interrogation of the various incendiary and destabilizing groups running rampant in Nigeria today including terrorist organizations, separatist agitators, extremist religious proselytizers, invading expansionist herdsmen and criminal cartels with detailed examination of their comparative organizational structures, internal value orientation, diverse modes of operation, assorted psychological motivations, extraterritorial organizational linkages as well as inter-organizational relationships.

  • A different coalition

    A different coalition

    Ever since his famous lamentation that rang across the country regarding his joining the coalition of opposition politicians against the re-election of President Bola Tinubu for a second term because he is hungry, not much has been heard along that line from former two-term governor of Rivers State and admittedly activist former Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi.  It may be that the leading chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) has realised that his not inconsiderable bulging paunch may not be compatible with a tale of personal famishment by a man who had the privilege of holding key political offices at State and national levels for an unbroken period of nearly two and a half decades.

    Leading actors in the ADC are noticeably now less boisterous than they were at the outing of the hijacked party about the presumed ease with which they would eject President Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from power in 2027. There has been no significant response so far to the party’s recent directive that its leading lights who are yet to leave their former parties and formally register with the ADC do so forthwith, indicating a general lack of confidence in the future of the opposition’s Special Purpose Vehicle to oust the APC from power. The party has not been helped by the outcome of by-elections in which it has participated, which suggests that its grand strategy of capitalising on the hardships attendant on the drastic economic reforms undertaken by the Tinubu administration has not borne fruit, as the APC remains not only electorally dominant but continues to receive defecting opposition politicians into its ranks on an unprecedented scale.

    Even as it struggles to get itself effectively organised as a potent political and electoral force, the ADC has not come up with concrete economic policy proposals different from the reforms currently being implemented under Tinubu’s leadership despite its strident criticism that the latter have imposed avoidable hardships on Nigerians. Were such reforms as the removal of fuel subsidy and the merger of the parallel foreign exchange markets introduced at the inception of the Tinubu administration avoidable? There was a consensus among all presidential candidates going into the 2023 elections that these far-reaching policy changes had become imperative.

    Some contend that they could have been implemented in gradual, phased-out stages to limit the pain. But the argument has also been made that the kind of decisive, frontal action taken by President Tinubu on fuel subsidy and exchange rate harmonisation was critical to guarantee the success of the reforms. Half-hearted and indecisive actions in this regard by previous administrations were responsible for the persistence of the structural distortions that had virtually plunged the economy into a state indistinguishable from coma before the present administration’s surgical intervention.

    Leading lights of the ADC coalition and other critics of the reforms are yet to avail us of the magic by which they would have implemented reforms without pain, which would have been tantamount to extracting a decayed tooth without discomfort to the patient or preparing a delicious omelet without breaking eggs. Just as the coalition of opposition politicians in the ADC are motivated primarily by a desire to terminate President Tinubu’s tenancy at the Presidential Villa at the end of his first term and seek to utilize the hardships engendered by his reforms as a propaganda weapon to achieve this objective, there is a coalition of other forces who have commended the reforms, testified that they are working and beginning to yield results and contend that they must be sustained in the best long term interest of the Nigerian economy. The latter coalition is not partisan, not even political. It is not consciously organized and accommodates interests both domestic and external to the Nigerian economy.

    Furthermore, the components of the latter coalition are in a better position than the ADC anti-Tinubu coalition opposition politicians to pronounce on the health of the economy and the efficacy or otherwise of economic policy. In its 2025 World Economic Outlook (WEO) report released this week at the annual IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington, DC, United States, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reflected the verdict of this non-partisan coalition on the impact and consequences of the reform policies of the Tinubu administration thus far. As this newspaper reported the event, “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised upward its Nigeria’s growth forecast to 3.9 per cent in 2025 and 4.1 per cent in 2026, citing improvements in the country’s macroeconomic outlook. The IMF stated that the upgrade of its national growth projection for Nigeria was also based on a favourable domestic situation… “.

    The report continues, “Nigeria’s upgrade was significant as many other economies saw significant downward revisions because of the changing international trade and official aid landscape. At a press briefing on the WEO, IMF Economic Counselor, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said the Fund based its outlook for Nigeria on several improving macroeconomic indicators and supportive domestic factors. He said factors responsible for the higher growth revision include higher oil production, improved investor confidence, a supportive fiscal stance in 2026, and limited exposure to higher US tariffs. He added that the fund also considered stability in the exchange rate, rising foreign reserves and rebasing of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as significant factors expected to propel the Nigerian economy forward in 2026.”

    And speaking during the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-four (G-24) press briefing in Washington, the Central Bank Governor, Mr Olayemi Cardoso, gave an insight into the extent to which the Tinubu administration’s reforms had gone in restructuring the economy, resulting in its greater resilience and lessened vulnerability to global shocks, including unpredictability in international tariffs. He noted that a positive trend in the economy is the increasing transition by large businesses from imports to exports of locally produced goods and commodities.

    READ ALSO: Nigeria to add about 130 million people by 2050, says World Bank

    In his words, “We now have a more competitive currency with the results that, for once, we have a situation where we have a positive balance of trade surplus, and we expect it to be six per cent in GDP for some time. So basically, what is happening is a complete restructuring of the economy, where we are encouraging people to go into domestic production, and, of course, discouraging imports. And I think we were very fortunate, because a lot of the things that were needed to have been done, we did them much earlier, and as a result of that, we’re able to create resilience and buffers against potential shocks “.

    Aligning with this growing coalescence of positive affirmation of the Tinubu administration’s economic policies, billionaire Chairman of First HoldCo, Mr Femi Otedola, recently revealed that his decision to invest personally over N320 billion in First Bank “all in cash, without borrowing a single Naira” was partly inspired by the economic reforms of the Tinubu administration. His investment journey, according to him, “aligns closely with the bold and visionary leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who deserves credit for championing the tough but necessary reforms in our economy. I also commend the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Yemi Cardoso, for his courageous and pragmatic policy reforms. His actions are restoring credibility to the financial system and giving investors like me the confidence to commit long-term capital to this country”.

    Also commenting on the tax reform bills of the administration, which will take effect as of January next year, Otedola stated on his X handle that they were a “bold, necessary step toward a more transparent, efficient, and investment-friendly economy,” asserting that “I am inspired to invest more, and many other investors share the same sentiment”. According to a report on the online medium, Nairametrics, Otedola “believes that the reforms will reduce complexity and promote fairness in tax collection; restore confidence in the use of public resources; fund infrastructure and unlock productivity; and fuel inclusive growth”.

    READ ALSO: Nigeria to add about 130 million people by 2050, says World Bank

    The President and Chief Executive of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, is a key actor in the Nigerian economy whose views and perspectives on economic and business policy cannot be taken with levity. Dangote has on several occasions identified with the coalition of thought on the positive import of the ongoing reforms for the economy. For instance, when he received the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, recently, Dangote did not mince words in applauding the administration’s economic policies. “I believe we must sincerely thank His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for ensuring that there have been improvements in the supply of crude oil,” he said, noting that “His insistence that all crude oil transactions be conducted in Naira has been particularly commendable. For us to effectively meet market demand – which we can do – it is essential that crude is priced and purchased in our local currency.”

    As this newspaper reported the event, “The leading industrialist noted that these initiatives, along with other economic reforms, have brought a measure of stability to the naira-to-dollar exchange rate. He expressed optimism that the Naira would continue to strengthen in the coming weeks as the effects of the reforms become visible. According to him, the improved market predictability has helped investors make sound business decisions and restored confidence in the investment climate. We are also beginning to see some stability in the naira-to-dollar exchange rate, which has had a positive impact. There is now less fluctuation, and this has brought a degree of predictability to the market. For those of us in the business sector, this is a welcome development, as it allows us to plan more effectively. Looking ahead, as conditions continue to improve, we can expect to see a more favourable exchange rate.”

    Another business and industry giant, President of BUA Group, Alhaji Abdul Samad Rabiu, shares Dangote’s optimism. Interacting with journalists at the Presidential Villa in Abuja in September, Rabiu commended what he described as the bold and decisive economic reforms of the President, pointing out that the policy changes are already yielding positive results for businesses and the currency. He told the reporters that “I expect that the exchange rate is going to strengthen even further. I expect that the rate should come down to maybe N1,300, N1,400 before the end of the year. And this is something that we should all celebrate”.

    According to a newspaper report, “Explaining the impact of recent reforms, the BUA Chairman noted that businesses no longer rely solely on the Central Bank of Nigeria for foreign exchange as many are now able to source FX independently through credit cards and international banking channels  “So, really, for all these, we must give full credit to His Excellency and the government. Their bold reforms and decisive policies are creating the foundation for a stronger economy, a more stable currency and a better future for businesses and Nigerians alike”.

    From the aviation sector, the Chairman of Air Peace, Mr Allen Onyema, echoes the coalition of support for the President’s economic policies and their impact on business viability. Speaking earlier in the year during an interaction between President Tinubu and stakeholders of corporate Nigeria, Onyema applauded what he described as the President’s ‘forward-thinking approach to Nigeria’s economic development’, especially by easing challenges faced by business owners. As reported in the media, Onyema said, “President Bola Tinubu is thinking of the Nigeria of the future. The ease of doing business is coming back gradually. I can attest to that in the aviation sector because of the people he appointed to head that sector”. Onyema also attested to efforts made by the High Commission in the United Kingdom in making Air Peace flights into Gatwick Airport a possibility, including proudly publicising it.”

    Some may contend that all the foregoing only show that the ongoing economic reforms favour and are being lauded by wealthy business owners. But Nigeria runs a capitalist system, and a key measure of the health of capitalist economies is the viability and success of businesses and business owners, on which depend millions of jobs, considerable tax revenue for the government and an economy’s global competitiveness. Others argue that statistics showing improvements in such indices as inflation rate, trade surpluses, exchange rate stability or rising foreign reserves are meaningless if they do not reflect the concrete existential conditions of the majority of people. But there is no other way to measure the performance trend of an economy or the appropriateness or otherwise of economic policies. In any case, if current data had indicated a worsening of these statistical indices, the coalition of anti-Tinubu politicians would have been exuberantly jubilant.

  • Yakubu Mahmood, Pat Utomi and electoral integrity

    Yakubu Mahmood, Pat Utomi and electoral integrity

    Given the intense and unprecedented bitterness engendered in some quarters by the outcome of the 2023 presidential elections, the absurd extremes to which vested interests, many posing as altruistic activists, pro-democracy advocates and patriotic citizens, went to discredit and delegitimize the polls and the sustained efforts by these elements to reinforce the myth that the election was the worst in Nigeria’s history and unreflective of the will of the electorate, shouldn’t the immediate past Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, have left office in a deafening din of universal condemnation and unedifying opprobrium?

    No, the circumstances and atmosphere in which Yakubu formally vacated office this week at the expiration of his two-term tenure of ten years were markedly different from that in which Professor Maurice Iwu, Chairman of INEC from June 2005 to 28 April 2010, unceremoniously exited the position with little fanfare. The stridency with which Iwu proclaimed from the hilltops that the 2007 elections, which he superintendent, were the best in the universal history of elections, a claim that sharply contradicted the widely condemned appalling atrocities that marred the elections, contrasts with the calm dignity and quiet composure with which Yakubu quit the electoral arena leaving others and posterity as the final assessors of his record.

    Incidentally, the winner of the 2007 elections, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, admitted that the polls through which he emerged were flawed, while the courts upturned the governorship elections conducted by Iwu that year in at least five states. It was partly because of the undeniable significant improvements in the conduct of elections in Nigeria particularly as from 2015 as compared to what can be described as the ‘primitive era’ of electoral contestation in 2003 and 2007 that the majority of fair-minded analysts were generous in their assessment of Professor Yakubu Mahmood’s performance as INEC Chairman even while admitting that elections conducted under his watch were not perfect as indeed such contests for power can hardly be expected to be in most emergent democracies.

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    Although reforms to enhance the technical capacity, technological resourcefulness and institutional autonomy as well as integrity of INEC began under Professor Attahiru Jega as the Commission’s Chairman from 2010 to 2015, it was under Professor Yakubu that these innovations were consolidated, reinforced and substantially widened in scope. This was partly because he was the first head of the electoral umpire to complete a two-term tenure of ten years, ensuring leadership continuity and stability that enabled him to set and actualise long-term objectives.

    Comprehensively capturing the innovations that characterised the Professor Yakubu years, this newspaper’s columnist, Festus Eriye, writes that “You cannot discuss Yakubu’s legacy without talking about the Commission’s embrace of technology. Two key items have become household names in political discourse. The Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) with fingerprint and facial recognition was introduced in place of the flawed manual processes. Equally, the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) came into being, allowing Nigerians to view polling unit results in real time. Technology has also revolutionised voter registration through IVED and ABIS, eliminating 2.7 million fraudulent registrations. Digital portals for candidate nomination, party agent registration, observer accreditation, and media access are now available. In a first on the African continent, INEC has introduced the Artificial Intelligence Division, with an eye on the future of election management “.

    Festus Eriye continues: “Other achievements of the Yakubu tenure include expanding the Voter Roll by institutionalising Continuous Voter Registration (CVR). This has created year-round opportunities for people to register…He would be remembered for making inclusion a core part of his agenda with the establishment of the Department of Gender and Inclusivity to give structure and voice to representation. Quota slots were reserved for women in senior management, breaking long-standing barriers. Also introduced were assistive voting devices like Braille ballots and magnifying lenses. He created and implemented legal frameworks for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to vote, safeguarding rights even in times of crisis. To actually walk his talk, persons with disabilities were hired within INEC”.

    The consensus of informed opinion is that Professor Yakubu finished his tenure creditably and left office in what is difficult to distinguish from a blaze of glory. It is unfortunate that some of those who seek to discredit INEC as an institution, Professor Yakubu as a public official and the 2023 presidential election in its entirety simply because a candidate of their choice did not emerge as the winner in the exercise are supposed intellectuals for whom a commitment to truth and moral integrity ought to be uncompromising guideposts. Integral to the definition of the intellectual is an abiding respect for truth and fidelity to empirical facts. For the journalist, in this regard, the guiding dictum is that facts are sacred while opinions are free.

    At the forefront of efforts to demonise the 2023 elections and strip the President Bola Tinubu administration of all vestiges of legitimacy and credibility for patently partisan, possibly ethnic and obviously non-altruistic reasons is none other than the self-styled political economist, Professor Pat Utomi. I am unaware of any original contributions that Professor Utomi has made as a scholar to either the radical or liberal variants of political economy that compare even remotely with those of such first-class Nigerian economists as Claude Ake, Eskor Toyo, Bade Onimode, Ojetunji Aboyade, Sam Aluko, Pius Okigbo or Mike Kwanashie. Indeed, in February last year, the good professor predicted that the value of the Naira would soon plunge to N10,000 to the dollar, given what he saw as the ineptness and inappropriateness of the Tinubu administration’s economic policies.

    As one Ufuoma Bernard posted sarcastically on his Facebook page last week, “Professor Pat Utomi predicted a few months ago that the dollar would hit N10,000, but today it is N1,486. Man no be God”. Also commenting on Utomi ‘s prediction, Bode Opeseitan wrote, “In February 2024, during a political event, Professor Pat Utomi declared: ‘Nigeria is dying’. He went further to predict that the Naira could collapse to as low as N10,000 to the dollar, tying this grim prophecy to insecurity, lack of production, and distrust in leadership”. Continuing, Opeiseitan submitted that “Speaking in a politically charged environment as a Labour Party chieftain also may have sharpened his rhetoric. Yet, what he (Utomi) failed to anticipate was the multipronged approach of the Tinubu administration – bold subsidy removals, forex unification, Central Bank reforms, and investment courting – that kept Nigeria from plunging into Venezuela-type hyperinflation. Though the Naira briefly neared N2000/$ in forecasts, it stabilised below N1,500/$ – never reaching Utomi ‘s catastrophic scenario”.

    True, Utomi’s concerns about security and the country’s productive base are legitimate. But careless, rash and extremist assertions may be tolerated in journalism, but never from serious scholars, supposed to be authoritative and sober voices in their areas of specialisation. Only recently, Professor Utomi was clearly the brain behind the formation and outing of a new group, the Alliance for the Defence of Democracy (ADD) with the stated objective of championing the actualisation of electoral reforms in the country. Some notable senior lawyers, prominent academics, civil society activists and pro-democracy advocates were named as members of the group.

    Among the stated aims of the ADD are to “launch a mass movement to drive critical reforms in the electoral laws of Nigeria, especially those that dimmed the credibility of the 2023 elections namely; compulsory electronic transmission of election results, effective criminalization of votes buying, enactment of early and diaspora voting as initiated by the House of Representatives, proportional representation in government, especially seats for women and other vulnerable groups among others”. But as one of this newspaper’s columnists, Idowu Akinlotan, noted, Utomi and his group are grossly mistaken to assume that the 2023 presidential elections could be credibly and plausibly delegitimised on the basis of factors they have targeted for electoral reforms, such as electronic transmission of results.

    In the pertinent words of Akinlotan, “The facts of the 2023 presidential poll are clear. Each of the three leading presidential candidates won in 12 states, with Mr Obi, however, winning in 11 and the Federal Capital Territory. Where exactly did the purported rigging take place – in the 12 states out of 36 states won by the eventual winner, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC)? Or in the 23 states plus FCT won by the candidates of the PDP and LP, especially the latter, who won his Southeast region through a voter turnout troublingly out of sync with the national turnout? How more credible could an election be where there was neither a landslide nor outright and overwhelming dominance? President Tinubu lost Lagos, his base, Osun in the Southwest, Katsina, where the then sitting President Muhammadu Buhari of the ruling party came from, and in no state did he win by a huge margin on the scale Mr Obi did in the Southeast. But analysts have distorted the presidential election outcome, raised dishonest posers and comparisons with past elections, and illogically and unconstitutionally concluded that perhaps a runoff would have lent the results credibility “.

    At the head of this band of intellectual distortionists is none other than Professor Pat Utomi. Yet, nowhere has he come out to utilise his skills and cerebral prowess as a scholar and forensic political economist to demonstrate logically and empirically that his candidate, Mr Peter Obi, won that election as repeatedly claimed. In the same vein, during the 2020 #EndSARs protests in Lagos, Professor Utomi was one of the first prominent faces I saw on national television affirming authoritatively that the deployment of troops to contain the virtual descent of Lagos to anarchy at the Lekki Toll Gate was accompanied by a massacre of large numbers of protesters. To date, the slightest shred of evidence to prove this, including the hundreds of corpses so gruesomely murdered in cold blood, has not been provided. Yet, this patent untruth continues to be propagated and believed by significant numbers of people.

    Undoubtedly, one of the worst elections ever in the history of Nigeria was the 1983 presidential election, so brazenly rigged by the then-ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN). The election resulted in widespread violence in states like Oyo, Ondo, Niger and Anambra, among others. In the process of collation of the results, a super Minister in the Shehu Shagari administration,  Alhaji Umaru Dikko, Minister of Transportation, unaccountably forced his way into the headquarters of the then Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) to rancorous public outcry.

    It was only a matter of months before the military got rid of the administration on December 31 1983. Yet, a then much younger Pat Utomi was on the network of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) night after night, alongside the likes of Professor Walter Ofonagoro and Emeka Maduagbuena, proffering fraudulent intellectual justification for a criminally rigged election. Today, he is at the forefront of lending analytical artillery to delegitimise a 2023 presidential election infinitely more credible and demonstrative of integrity than the one he vigorously defended in his youth over four decades ago.

  • Atiku, Jonathan and 2027 (2)

    Atiku, Jonathan and 2027 (2)

    For the second time within a month, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has strongly, even vehemently, affirmed his determination to contest the 2027 presidential election and that he has no plans to step down for any contender. It was obviously in pursuit of this ambition that the Waziri Adamawa facilitated the hostile takeover of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) by elements of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as well as aggrieved members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), who believe they have been marginalised in the President Bola Tinubu administration. Professor Bola Olateju of the Achievers University, Owo, Ondo State, most certainly thought he was doing the former Vice-President a favour when, at a recent event, he averred that Atiku was not desperate to contest the presidency but rather was more interested in the emergence of a capable leadership for the country.

    As the professor put it at the defection of some political figures to the ADC, “Atiku Abubakar’s plan is to build a better Nigeria, it’s not about being President; it’s about establishing a government that works for Nigerians – that’s why some of us are with him, not because Atiku must be President at all costs”. In a statement suggesting that Atiku was not keen to be associated with such altruistic motivation as suggested by the Professor, the former Vice-President’s media handlers brutally shut down Olateju ‘s submissions, stressing that he was not authorised to speak for their principal. Again, refuting what he described as misrepresentations in the media of an interview Atiku granted the Hausa Service of the BBC, his media Adviser, Paul Ibe, emphasised that the politician, who has been attempting to become President of Nigeria since 1993, has no intention to step down for any other candidate.

    Rather than planning to step down in favour of a younger candidate as reported by sections of the media, Mr Ibe explained that “What Atiku Abubakar clearly and unambiguously said was that young people, as well as other prospective aspirants, are free to enter the contest. He further stressed that if a young candidate were to emerge through a competitive primary, he would readily support such a candidate without any hesitation”. Of course, the problem is that with the current constellation of political forces within the ADC, it is unlikely that any other aspirant can emerge as the party’s Presidential flag bearer apart from Atiku. There is thus the strong possibility that the ADC may come to electoral grief in the 2027 election just as Atiku’s ambition put the PDP to the electoral sword in 2023.

    For the rotation of the presidency between the North and the South for periods of eight years each has become a cardinal article of faith among members of the political class across party demarcations. As we noted last week, apart from his alleged strong faith in the prophetic vision of some spiritual mystics that he is destined to be President, Atiku has not articulated any alternative economic policy agenda to demonstrate that he would perform better as President than the incumbent administration of President Tinubu. In any case, his former boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo, gave such a ringing and brutally unsavoury verdict on the character, competence and integrity of his former deputy in his autobiography and the wily Ota farmer has neither recanted on his savage put down of Atiku nor has he made any effort to revise and amend his condemnation of the latter as his book is still very much in circulation.

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    Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s political moves, on the other hand, appear ‘curioser and curioser’ as certain political elements, especially from the PDP, try to lure him into contesting the presidential election come 2027. Although the ebullient former First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, publicly stated that she would back the re-election of President Tinubu, especially given his support for Dr Jonathan in the 2011 elections, the buck stops at the former President’s desk. The ultimate decision is his. Will he leave the certainty of his widely acclaimed post-presidency role as an African and global statesman, or will he dive headlong into the rough and tumble of politics with the record of his tenure up for scrutiny once again in the turbulent, often dirty, game of politics?

    Dr Jonathan must surely be aware that the only reason he is being offered the bait of contesting for the presidency in 2027 is because it is perceived that, having been sworn in twice before, he can only spend one term of four years before power shifts back to the North. Of course, this itself is a matter of conjecture as he may face a bruising legal challenge as regards his eligibility to contest for the highest office in the land after having taken the oath of office twice before. It is unlikely that any serious party will be willing to take such a risk with the very possibility of not being able to field a candidate for the presidential election if the courts ruled against the eligibility of the former President.

    It has been reported that Dr Jonathan has been consulting with leaders in different parts of the country before taking a formal decision. Apart from meeting former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, he also reportedly had a closed-door meeting with the Interim National Chairman of the ADC, Senator David Mark. At the latter meeting, he reportedly demanded to be presented as the consensus presidential candidate of the party, thus making party primaries unnecessary. It is not surprising that Senator David Mark is said to have turned down the request, insisting that any candidate should contest and emerge through competitive primaries. It is hardly likely that any party will grant Dr Jonathan his wish.

    But even if the PDP, for instance, indulges the former President by fielding him as a consensus candidate without primaries, there is no way he will escape scrutiny of his governance record during the campaigns for the general election. The greatest need of the hour is to have a President who will build on and consolidate the economic reforms of the Tinubu administration. Unfortunately, there is no indication that Dr Jonathan can offer such leadership. It has been claimed by some of his supporters that he would have removed the corruption-ridden fuel subsidy payments as far back as 2012 but for the vehement protests of the opposition. But that exactly is the absence of courageous leadership on the part of the former President that defined his tenure.

    Referring to Dr Jonathan’s seemingly revived ambition, the presidency, through the President’s spokesman, Mr Bayo  Onanuga, submitted that “It is his inalienable right to contest the presidency again, but any such bid would face Judicial scrutiny. The jury will determine whether Jonathan, who was sworn in twice as President, satisfies the constitutional requirements and is eligible to contest the presidency and be sworn in, if successful, for a third term in office”. Turning to the no less substantial issue of Dr Jonathan’s governance record in office as President, this newspaper reports Mr Onanuga’s statement thus, “Recounting its view of Jonathan’s tenure, the statement said the administration “engaged in frivolous spending, ran the economy aground and put the country in dire straits” claiming that key indicators declined and that “the nation’s economic downturn actually began under President Jonathan”.

    Continuing, Onanuga stated that “Some business moguls, allocated foreign exchange to import fuel, simply pocketed the dollars without importing anything and that some still face court cases”. The statement also accused Jonathan and his National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), of distributing security funds to “friends and cronies”. The presidency also noted that Dr Jonathan in 2010 inherited $66 billion ($46 billion in foreign reserves and $20 billion in the excess crude account (ECA) but left foreign reserves “below $30 billion” and the ECA depleted to $2 billion” by 2015 “despite generating record revenue from crude oil sales”. It also noted that oil prices averaged $100 per barrel between 2010 and 2013, yet by December 2014, “the federal government could no longer pay salaries to Federal Civil Servants” while “at least 28 states owed workers arrears”.

    Speaking sometime in 2023 at a birthday event in honour of Dr Udenta Udenta, former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi tendered an apology to former President Jonathan over the vehement opposition to the attempt of his administration to remove fuel subsidy in 2012. Dr Fayemi was quoted as saying that “All political parties in the country agreed, and they even put it in their manifesto that the subsidy must be removed. We all said the subsidy must be removed. But we in ACN at the time, in 2013, we knew the truth, sir, but it is all politics.”.

    Responding to Fayemi ‘s claim at the time, cerebral journalist, editor and now Executive Commissioner (Operations) of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Mr Louis Odion, submitted thus on an online platform, “Well, I think the issue is Fayemi ‘s volte face on the ACN stand in 2012. There is nothing to be apologetic about why the ACN opposed fuel subsidy removal in 2012. One, there was about zero safety net to protect the vulnerable then. With the ruling party more interested in splurging oil money on frivolity than and Jonathan using fuel importation license as patronage to party donors, there was no guarantee of any shelter for the poor. Subsidised petrol would then appear to be the only benefit the poor received from Nigeria. Two, Nigeria had a relatively healthy foreign reserve then, plus an excess crude account. So, the position of the ACN was in good faith and on behalf of the vulnerable population who would have been left stranded had the subsidy been removed then”.

    Louis submitted further that “But the situation in 2023 was quite different, necessitating subsidy removal. One, the APC government of Buhari had, between 2015 and 2023, laid out a comprehensive safety net in terms of a social investment programme, the most ambitious in Nigeria’s history. This included a cash register for millions of Nigerians who began to receive direct money transfer monthly, and also school feeding for pupils. Two, subsidy removal became inevitable in 2023 when Tinubu took over because, from a Nigeria that had over $46 billion foreign reserves in 2012, under Jonathan, Nigeria of 2023 had a net foreign reserves of $4 billion with over $7 billion unpaid immediate IOUs and the prospects of earning a kobo from crude oil virtually zero by June 2023…Worse, more than 90% of Nigeria’s earnings were already going into debt service. This was the choking economic climate Tinubu inherited on May 29, 2023”. Surely, there will be interesting policy and economic debates ahead should Dr Jonathan decide to contest in 2027.

  • Atiku, Jonathan and 2027 (1)

    Atiku, Jonathan and 2027 (1)

    Although they are impelled by divergent motivations and actuated by competing strategies, the emergent variegated opposition to a second term for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is united by a common loathing bordering on hatred for a man who, against all odds, beat them to the electoral crown in the 2023 presidential polls. Perhaps that is not too accurate after all. For, the opposition waged a most intense and unprecedented campaign of calumny against his election before and during the campaigns, worked assiduously to delegitimize the contest after his triumph, tried without success to blackmail and intimidate the judiciary into nullifying the election based on fragile and untenable evidence that the jurists found unconvincing, instigated calls for military intervention to abort his being sworn into office when the courts ruled in his favour and have unceasingly demonstrated their utter disregard for the expressed will of the electorate since PBAT’s assumption of office.

    Barely two years into his tenure, they announced the formation of a coalition to unseat him at the next election in 2027, even though moves towards this end were said to have commenced well before his administration had clocked even one year in office. Congregating ultimately in the existing African Democratic Congress (ADC), which had a leadership enthusiastic to sell its platform to the highest bidder, the likes of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar;  presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, Peter Obi;, former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir ‘el-Rufai; former Rivers State governor and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi;  former military administrator in the inglorious era of praetorian dictatorship and Senate President, David Mark; former governor of Osun State and Minister of the Interior, Rauf Aregebesola; former Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal; former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal; and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, among others have been vocal in propagating what they perceive as the strength of the party.

    The outcome of the recent by-elections across the country, however, indicates that the media prominence and assumed political status of leading lights of the ADC are at variance with their actual electoral value in reality. Alhaji Bolaji Abdullahi, the National Publicity Secretary of the coalition, has deftly tried to play down the import of those polls as a credible measure of the political weight of the coalition, but he would no doubt have been singing a different tune had the ADC lived up to its pre-election boast of demonstrating its emergence as a major electoral force in the exercise. Despite its poor showing in the by-elections, at which it won only one seat in Oyo State, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) affirmed its position as the main opposition party in the country even though it has been embroiled in a debilitating crisis.

    Even as the prospects are bright that the successful holding of its National Convention slated for November in Ibadan may usher in the restoration of normalcy and stability to the PDP, it is instructive that the opposition may be heading into the 2027 elections even more divided than it was in 2023. Against a ruling APC rendered more cohesive by the power of incumbency and the advantage of patronage which this confers in Nigerian politics, the opposition is splintered along PDP, ADC and an embattled LP lines. It is instructive that the ADC on Thursday directed that its members still in other parties resign and formally join its ranks, indicating a lack of confidence of some of its key sympathisers in the efficacy and sustainability of the coalition.

    Interestingly, at the end of its last caucus meeting, reportedly attended by former Vice-President Atiku; its National Chairman, David Mark; National Secretary, Ogbeni Aregebesola, Mallam Nasir ‘el-Rufai, Chibuike Amaechi, Aminu Tambuwal and with Peter Obi absent but sending his apologies, it was agreed that they would all support whoever emerged as presidential candidate in the primaries. According to Bolaji Abdullahi, “All the presidential candidates have agreed to support whoever wins the primaries election”. This appears to be an astute move by Atiku, who is believed to be the moving spirit behind the ADC coalition and seems poised to clinch its presidential ticket, although it is unlikely that Mr Obi, in particular, will agree to play second fiddle to the emergent candidate if he does not win the ticket. For if he does, he is not unlikely to lose political traction and relevance in his South-East Igbo ethnic redoubt and among his truculent ‘Obidient’ base.

    Although Atiku and his minders have tried to routinely punch holes in the economic policies of the PBAT administration, he has not come up with any coherent alternative policy framework that indicates what he would do differently from and better than the incumbent administration if elected. The former Vice-President, who has been attempting to be elected the country’s President since 1993, cross-carpeting from party to party in the process, seems obsessed with realising some mystical/spiritual prophecy as revealed by his nemesis, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in the latter’s autobiography. To achieve this end, he would make any promise, such as his sudden declaration of support for restructuring of the country in the 2019 and 2023 presidential elections, even though he gave no indication of any such ideological inclination throughout his eight years as vice President of Nigeria.

    Atiku’s frequent moral strictures against the PBAT administration sound hollow as his track record in public life, particularly his role in the dubious privatisation exercise under the Obasanjo administration, or the sordid revelations as regards the handling of the funds of the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) under his superintendence, preclude him from any ethical grandstanding. He is just another grasping member of the Nigerian predatory political class and with no redeeming record of any transformative role in public service. In 2023, he sought to contest the country’s presidency against the unwritten credo of commitment by the political class to rotation of the presidency between the North and the South in the interest of national cohesion and stability. His Machiavellian success in deploying all means, no matter how gross, to the attainment of his goal not only cost his party the election but was fundamentally responsible for the protracted crisis from which the PDP is only gradually recovering.

    The Waziri Adamawa did not hesitate at several fora to call on northerners to vote only for a northern candidate in the 2023 elections and he succeeded in winning in key northern states, including Yobe, Gombe, Adamawa, Katsina, Bauchi, Kaduna, Kebbi, Sokoto and Taraba states. Osun and Bayelsa were the only southern states in which Atiku won. However, not only did Tinubu win in such northern states as Jigawa, Kwara, Kogi, Benue, Borno, Niger and Zamfara, he came a close second in those core northern states where Atiku won. Although he is too astute to openly accuse PBAT of discrimination against the North in appointments and infrastructure projects, Atiku has left that distracting lamentation that flies in the face of the facts to the likes of his one time trenchant traducer and now fellow traveler in the ADC, Nasir ‘el-Rufai, Babachir Lawal and those socio-cultural groups in the region known to be sympathetic to his cause over the years.

    However, prominent voices in the North, including el-Rufai’s successor in Kaduna State, Senator Uba Sani; Niger State governor, Umar Bago;  Nasarawa State governor, Engineer Abdullahi Sule; Speaker, House of Representatives, Honourable Tajudeen Abass; Deputy Senate President, Jibrin Barau; Senator Kabiru Gaya, as well as such former governors as Umar Ganduje, Aminu Bello Masari and Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, among others, have risen to debunk the allegations against Tinubu and counter the orchestrated campaign against the PBAT administration in the North. Just as in 2023, eminent northern politicians insist that the principle of rotation of the presidency must be respected till the South’s turn ends in 2031 and declared their support for the re-election of the President.

    Still pushing an essentially northern electoral agenda, Atiku is counting on southern votes being split in 2027 while he will seek to galvanise block northern votes in his favour. Towards this end, he is assiduously cultivating the support of elements of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the political group of the late President Muhammadu Buhari, who harbour grievances against the PBAT administration. His desire is to inherit the 12 million votes that Buhari always garnered in elections in the region. But then, several eminent members of the CPC have declared their continued support for the APC. Again, virtually all those CPC members who have jumped on the coalition bandwagon did not deliver their constituencies for Tinubu in 2023. These include Abubakar Malami, ‘el-Rufai, Babachir Lawal or Hadi Abubakar Sirika.

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    Furthermore, neither the CPC elements supporting Atiku in the ADC nor Waziri Adamawa himself has built the kind of reputation for simplicity, humility, an austere spirituality, incorruptibility and integrity that endeared Buhari to the millions of northern talakawas. It is mere wishful thinking that they can automatically inherit the support base of a leader whose values, their lifestyles and conduct in public office flagrantly contradict. Atiku will no doubt be hoping that, if they contest, Peter Obi or former President Goodluck Jonathan will help facilitate his victory by dividing PBAT’s electoral support base in the South. Of particular interest in this regard is Jonathan, whom some prominent PDP leaders are reportedly wooing to join the party with a view to flying its presidential flag in 2027.

    For one, these pro-Jonathan PDP leaders believe that only a Southern candidate can defeat PBAT at the next election and that the former President is their best bet in this regard. Again, they believe that the goodwill he garnered by the meek and unassuming way he accepted his defeat in 2015 and his subsequent transition to a statesman for good governance in Africa will make him an electoral asset for their party. From his body language so far, there is no indication that Dr Jonathan is not quietly enthused about the prospects of his returning to power in 2027, even though some of his close aides are said to have counselled that any such attempt carries the risk of tainting and discrediting his new status as a nonpartisan statesman.

    It has been speculated that the only condition under which Jonathan will accept to be the presidential candidate of any party is if he emerges as a consensus choice who will not have to contest primaries. This seems to be the same condition he had given to those elements who sought to draft him to contest the 2023 elections on the platform of the APC. It is difficult to see how any party can meet this condition by preventing their members interested in contesting from exercising the democratic right to do so. This is particularly so as the former President’s emergence as the flag bearer of any party will most likely generate intense legal battles with unpredictable outcomes.

    Even more importantly, Jonathan’s husbandry of the country’s economic resources played a critical role in worsening the economic crisis into which Nigeria was plunged and that the PBAT administration is striving to address through ongoing painful but inevitable reforms that a consensus of experts agree are yielding positive results. The key reason proffered by advocates of Jonathan’s return to power is that he can only constitutionally spend one term of four years, after which power will shift back to the North. Has he, since 2015, demonstrated that if given a second chance, he will manage the country’s economy any better than he did between 2010 and 2015?

  • Eye-witness account of #ENDSARS panel of inquiry

    Eye-witness account of #ENDSARS panel of inquiry

    For almost two weeks from 8th to 21st October, 2020, various parts of the country were gripped by fervent protests, mostly organized and actualized by aggrieved youths, tagged #ENDSARS, which expressed the widespread fury, disillusionment and exasperation of large numbers of Nigerians at the atrocities and human rights violations routinely perpetrated by the now defunct unit of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) known as the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS). Perhaps because of the role and status of Lagos State as the country’s commercial nerve centre and industrial hub; it being a melting pot of the diverse ethno-regional components of Nigeria where people of virtually every ethnic group reside, and the understandable concentration of the highest number of youth population in the state, Lagos was the epicentre of the anti-SARS demonstrations.

    What started as peaceful protests against brazen and rampant violations of the human rights and dignity of Nigerian citizens by the FSARS soon degenerated into mindless violence resulting in bitter harvests of blood, sorrow and tears no less gruesome than the pains and torture inflicted on mostly innocent people by a police outfit maintained by public funds and established to protect, not and tyrannize members of the Public. Unfortunately, Lagos was the worst victim of this degeneration of the protests and its hijack by hoodlums and criminals who were not actuated by the high-minded ideals of the original organisers of the protests. Thus, the level of destruction of private and public property, business and infrastructure in the state resulted in losses estimated at no less than N2 trillion. Yet, the NPF is an outfit of the federal government and not Lagos State.

    The disbandment of the FSARS by the then Inspector General of Police on the  11th of October 2020, and the federal government’s acceding to the 5-point demand of the protesters did not, unfortunately, stem the tide of the protests. Rather, the intensity of the demonstrations heightened as the protesters widened the scope of their demands and thus, inadvertently, allowing those with an utterly different agenda to perpetrate arson on public property and private businesses, commit arrant criminality, and launch destructive assaults on security personnel as well as their work stations and residential barracks and inflicting grievous injuries on many while snuffing out several lives. The police were the most affected by this onslaught, and again Lagos was the site of the worst devastations and depredations in this regard.

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    Following the directive of the National Economic Council (NEC) to the various state governments on 14th October, 2020, to establish panels of inquiry to look into petitions of reported cases of brutality, abuse of human rights and the rule of law by the FSARS, the Lagos State government set up the Judicial Panel of Inquiry and Restitution to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by the FSARS in the state, determine degree of culpability of affected police officers with a view to recommending requisite punishment for those found guilty as well as paying compensation to victims of police brutality and oppression.

    As governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu noted while swearing in members of the tribunal, “In Lagos, beyond setting up this Panel which we hope will serve as a representation of our broader interests, we have established a N200 million fund for compensation to families and individuals who have been victimised by officers of the disbanded SARS”. The 9-member Panel was headed by a retired jurist, Justice Doris Okuwobi, and had representatives of civil society, the ENDSARS protesters, the police and the National Human Rights Commission as members. Although initially billed to sit for six months from 27 October 2020, the Panel sat until 18th October 2021, given the volume of petitions and complaints brought before it.

    In a new landmark publication, a well-known civil rights and pro-democracy activist, public affairs commentator and analyst on the print, electronic and social media and seasoned election observer and monitor, Mr Nelson Ekujimi, has documented in exhaustive detail an eyewitness account of the deliberations of the Judicial Panel of Inquiry and Restitution, which lasted for one year. The compendium spanning 1139 pages features reports on not less than 128 petitions and complaints brought before the Panel and the decisions reached by the Panel in several cases.

    Mr Ekujimi acknowledges the support of various journalists that covered the deliberations of the Panel for the one year duration including reporters and correspondents from Television Continental (TVC), Channels Television and Lagos Television, as well as the legal team of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the legal team of the Nigeria Police Force “who came to our rescue when some EndSars movement members harassed and assaulted the team leader for the offence of covering and reporting the Panel ‘s work as witnessed instead of embellishing it; in line with vested interest narratives.”

    Suffice it to say that this document of invaluable historical record was possible because of the fidelity of the governor Sanwo-Olu administration to its promise to ensure that the Panel did a meticulous job in probing the alleged injustices suffered by citizens at the hands of the FSARS and recommending the requisite compensation. To achieve this objective, the Panel was given a free hand to operate by the state government, which also made the necessary resources available to ensure the success of the Panel’s deliberations. Earlier, the governor had been widely commended for the composition of the Panel, which included well known civil society activists who had been known to be highly critical of government at all levels over the years, representatives of the aggrieved ENDSARS protesters, the police, the NBA and of course, the Chairman, a respected retired jurist not known for any partisan political proclivities.

    The petitions and cases pleaded before the Panel, which are copiously documented in this book, vividly portray the depth of dehumanization of mostly innocent citizens by the FSARS. Many of the stories of injustices suffered by the various victims are harrowing and heart-rending. As Nelson Ekujimi states in the preface to the book, “The Lagos State Judicial Panel on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuse and other matters sitting afforded the Nigerian people the opportunity to hear directly from the victims of security agencies’ abuses and brutality in an atmosphere devoid of the regular court procedures and tension. The Panel allowed indigent victims to air their petition with the assistance of pro bono services from the Nigerian Bar Association, in a record time that the workload of the regular courts will not allow for the quick dispensation of justice, as witnessed. Through the Panel sitting, one heard of the painful and bitter experiences of what some victims encountered in the hands of the disbanded notorious Nigeria Police unit, SARS, which could best be described as “man’s inhumanity to man”.

    But then, there were also unsavoury sides to the proceedings, which were clearly unveiled in the verbatim reports of the proceedings as recorded in this book. Thus, the impression was created, for instance, that some members of the Panel, lawyers, civil society activists, and sections of the media were determined to reinforce and impose on the public consciousness the allegation that a massacre actually occurred at the Lekki Toll Gate where soldiers detailed to enforce the curfew imposed by the state government at the height of the degeneration of the protests to sheer anarchy allegedly fired live bullets into a crowd of protesting youths.

    According to Ekujimi, “We also heard of some testimonies that on the scale of probability, could best be described as fiction or a film making session, most especially the petitions of the “Lekki Toll Gate incident, where alleged victims and even a volunteer, narrated how the Nigerian Army personnel were firing live ammunition indiscriminately at protesters and they were dodging bullets by running in a zigzag manner, dodging and escaping being shot at, while at the same time during the indiscriminate shooting period, were helping those who were shot to be ferried to the hospital for treatment. These bizarre stories are more fiction-like than reality; they can best be described as magical.”

    The author notes that the thoroughness and diligence with which the Panel discharged its duties during its sittings were not reflected in its conclusions and recommendations, especially on the Lekki Toll Gate incident of 20th October, 2020. In the words of Ekujimi, the Panel “stated that there was a “Massacre in context” and even went ahead to name victims of the massacre whose deaths were never proven through police report, medical report,  case notes, autopsy report and death certificate throughout the Panel’s sittings. Not one of the alleged victims’ testimony was substantiated with the critical elements of fact and evidence but shockingly, the Panel went out of its way to even affirm that a petitioner who petitioned the Panel over the death of his brother and testified before the Panel in September 2021, was listed as one of the alleged “victims of the massacre of 20th October, 2020”.

    Among anomalies cited by Ekujimi included “medical experts who issued medical reports not based on case notes of victims treated, but based on a victim’s inconsistent oral statements on the cause of injury and when confronted with the contradictions in the medical report and case note, distance themselves from the report or, in some cases, were exposed as liars under oath. We also had a medical practitioner who wrote a medical report on an incident of October 2020 in June 2021, based on a phone conversation between a nurse in the hospital and the brother of the victim, after receiving the Panel summons in 2021. The Panel sittings witnessed all manner of absurdities that questioned the sincerity and integrity of some of the stakeholders.”

    The good thing about this book is that it factually reports the proceedings at the Panel’s sittings without any opinionated commentaries, thus affording readers the opportunity of ascertaining the veracity or otherwise of the author’s prefatory remarks by reading the reports of the various cases before the Panel. Also listed in an appendix to the book are the names of 69 persons whose petitions were successful and who were awarded various sums in compensation ranging between N750,000 and N10 million. Significantly, the victims received their monetary awards immediately, even before the Panel formally wound up its sittings. This is no doubt a publication of tremendous importance on a momentous event in the annals of the country’s history that will facilitate productive reflections on the root causes of the protests, the benefits gained and the avoidable errors on all sides that should be useful in guiding future actions in similar circumstances.

  • Rethinking local government autonomy

    Rethinking local government autonomy

    This week, the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, called on President Bola Tinubu to enforce the judgement of the Supreme Court granting local government councils what amounted to financial and administrative autonomy, consistently advocated by many as critical to the effective functioning of that level of government. In its judgement delivered on July 11, 2024, the apex court granted a request by the Tinubu administration that the local government councils be paid their statutory allocations from the Federation Account directly, such that such funds would no longer be subject to alleged widespread deductions and diversions by state governments to the detriment of meaningful grassroots development.

    The NULGE was piqued that, over a year after what was widely celebrated in many quarters as a landmark judgement that would considerably enhance the capacity of local governments to discharge their constitutional responsibilities, the decision of the country’s highest court is nowhere near being implemented. State governments continue to be the recipients and distributors of local government statutory allocations from the Federation Account through the State Joint Local Government Account. The desired financial autonomy at that level, which presumably motivated the federal Government’s legal action, thus remains largely in abeyance, rendering the apex court verdict essentially theoretical so far.

    It is thus understandable that NULGE views the continuing non-enforcement of the judgement as an “undue delay” that “undermines the principles of democracy and denies the people at the grassroots the numerous benefits associated with the autonomy of local government administration” while stressing that “It is expected that a democratic and people-oriented government should abide by the tenets of democracy and respect the rule of law”. The union reiterates the conventional wisdom that an autonomous local government system would facilitate better service delivery, accountability and participatory governance, thus ensuring more effective realisation of governance dividends at the community level.

    But can it be that there are concrete and complex intricacies and impediments that make the attainment of the desired degree of autonomy at the local government level less straightforward and feasible than it appears, thus placing formidable obstacles on the path of the smooth implementation of the Supreme Court judgement? This column has always taken exception to the view expressed in certain quarters that the idea of the local government as a constitutionally recognised tier of government and thus part of the federal compact violates the federal principle and is thus undesirable and unworkable.

    Although Brazil is one of the very few federal systems that, like Nigeria, confer constitutional recognition on local governments, objections to the desired autonomy of a third layer of community governance that spurred this initiative cannot, in my view, be predicated on reflexive, doctrinaire and ideological considerations. With its relentless foray into areas hitherto considered exclusive preserves of sub-national jurisdiction in the United States, for instance, the Trump administration is demonstrating with the continued backing of the country’s Supreme Court so far that assumed ideal models of federal practice are essentially mythical.

    However, in his contribution to public discourse on the matter in a recent interview on national television, former Lagos State governor, federal Minister and senior lawyer, Mr Babatunde Fashola, opened fresh dimensions of thinking on the issue of local government autonomy not on the basis of ideology but concrete legal, political and administrative considerations. Arguing that the Constitution did not envisage autonomous local government councils, he pointed out that this is demonstrated by the fact that state Houses of Assembly are empowered to make laws guiding local government economic activities in contradiction to the assumed principle of autonomy.

    As he put it, “If you look at the legal and ordinary meaning of the word autonomy, it suggests that you are acting independently without any outside influence. So, when a State Assembly makes laws for how a local government functions, that is clearly external influence”. Again, with reference to the responsibilities of local governments as provided for in the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution including primary education, healthcare, road construction, cemeteries and the operation of slaughter houses, Fashola contended that these functions are largely dependent on land, which is controlled by state governments.

    In his words, “Those responsibilities are all dependent on one item – land. To the extent that state governments control land, I don’t think that autonomy was intended. What I think was intended was some form of collaboration, supervision, or oversight by states over local governments”. It was the need for such supervision over local government finances, informed by the experience of most local governments defaulting on meeting their financial obligations to their workers including primary school teachers and primary healthcare workers when they received direct allocations from Federation Account before 1999, he noted, that necessitated Section 162 of the constitution, “which provides for the State Joint Local Government Account as a deliberate mechanism of financial oversight”.

    Strongly opposing Fashola’s position, Chief Niyi Aborisade, lawyer, human rights activist and governorship aspirant in Oyo State in 2027 on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), contended that “I cannot subscribe to what the former governor said. Local government autonomy is realistic. It is the governors of states that arrogate power to themselves. The law is clear on the autonomy of local government.  We have done it before. What we have now is due to the excessive power of the governors to control money; now, many governors are just giving out peanuts to the local government Chairmen and using them as effective tools to control the people. That is why there is no longer development in the local government.”

    But it would appear to me that, beyond emotions, Fashola has raised concrete issues on local government subordination to states – constitutional regulatory functions of states over local councils and control of land by states – which have implications for state-local government relations and cannot be easily glossed over. There is also Section 7(3) of the 1999 Constitution, which, as explicated by Wikipedia, “mandates that a local government council must participate in economic planning and development within its area, and that the State House of Assembly must enact a law to establish an economic planning board to facilitate this. This section ensures that local councils have a role in their area’s economic activities, requiring state governments to provide the legal framework for such boards”.

    It is difficult to credibly fault the position that local governments are too territorially intertwined with states to allow for the kind of autonomy that is difficult to distinguish from independence that a union like NULGE understandably desires. And the Constitution demonstrably makes no provision for such. But is the current situation, where most state governments incapacitate local governments financially and thus obstruct meaningful development at the grassroots with negative implications for national progress and transformation, desirable or sustainable in the long run? Most certainly, no. What then is to be done?

    Fashola has demonstrated that the Constitution envisages collaboration between states and local governments, and even some degree of supervision of the latter by the former. But is this incompatible with a reasonable amplitude of autonomy on the part of community-level governments? Again, I don’t think so. However, the most critical emphasis must be on the democratic autonomy of the local government councils, which in my view is even more critical and fundamental than financial or administrative autonomy, which were the main areas of focus of the former governor.

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    Indeed, the Supreme Court judgement in question directly addressed this problem when it made it illegal for state governors to dissolve elected local government councils or appoint caretaker committees for the councils. Indeed, this decision has been complied with across the country, with all state governments now conducting local government elections at which officials to run the councils are chosen by the electorate. The critical question now is that of the integrity and credibility of local government elections in which parties in control of the state governments win virtually all Chairmanship and councillorship positions. Such elections are farcical and constitute a gross waste of time and financial resources. Such flawed and perverse electoral systems at the grassroots will necessarily render nugatory any assumed benefits to be derived from granting greater financial or administrative autonomy to local governments.

    It is unfortunate that the anchor of the television programme on which Mr Fashola featured did not seek to tap his insights on how democratic governance can be deepened and made more meaningful and realistic at the grassroots. Some have advocated that the responsibility for conducting local government elections be transferred from state electoral commissions to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). It is just the same way that fears are expressed on the likelihood of State governors abusing the control of state police if sub-national police outfits are constitutionally sanctioned. We cannot perpetually run away from instituting the requisite checks and balances that will enable sub-national jurisdictions to discharge with credibility and integrity, responsibilities that they must bear in a federal system.

    If the votes of the people counted at the grassroots and local government elections reflect the will of the people as expressed in free and fair elections, it will not matter if councils receive their statutory allocations directly or through Joint State Local Government Accounts. Rather, non-performing councils will be aware that they will face the verdict of the people in polls that are difficult to manipulate by state governments. But is the direct payment of statutory allocations to local government a sufficient condition to guarantee accountable, efficient and maximally productive governance at the grassroots? Mr Fashola has raised issues of the capacity, both of skilled personnel and resilient administrative and organisational structures at that level, which are critical for financial autonomy to achieve the desired objectives.

  • Semper Fidelis

    Semper Fidelis

    I came across the Latin phrase, Semper Fidelis, some years ago in the writings of the Christian thinker and inspirational writer, Steve Farrar. Translated in English as ‘Always Faithful’, it is the motto of the famed Marine Corps of the United States. The novelist Leon Uris’s novel on the Marines, titled ‘Battle Cry’, offers a fictive but gripping account of the tenacity, sheer doggedness of will, extraordinary capacity for endurance in the face of adversity and inflexibility of the will in the pursuit of a stated mission characteristic of this elite corps of the world’s still undisputed military superpower.

    According to Farrar in his book ‘Point Man’, “More than two hundred years ago, when the United States Marine Corps was being formed, much time was given to considering an appropriate motto. They finally chose the Latin phrase, ‘Semper Fidelis,’  which is engraved on the mind of every United States Marine. What does it mean? ‘ALWAYS FAITHFUL.’ Expatiating on this, he wrote, “Those are two powerful words. But of the two, the first is the most important, for it explains ‘how’ a marine is to be faithful. A marine is not to be faithful only when it is personally convenient, or when the circumstances will guarantee his personal happiness. Semper Fidelis means always faithful – regardless of personal convenience or happiness”.

    The phrase, Semper Fidelis, came to my mind when I received the news that renowned mass communications scholar, journalism teacher, elevated prose stylist, esteemed columnist, biting satirist, public intellectual and unobtrusive fighter for social justice, Emeritus Professor Olatunji Dare, had, last month, donated his expansive country home in Kabba, Kogi State, to the Kogi State University (KOSU) located in the town. For this gesture did not just drop uncharacteristically from the blues. Rather, it mirrored and simply marked the apogee of the scholar and writer’s life-long demonstration of consistent fidelity to those self-sacrificial values he sees as indispensable to the pursuit and attainment of the public good.

    Now, it was not just some base, unremarkable and easily disposable property that the professor had gifted the KOSU, Kabba community and environs and indeed Kogi State as a whole. For, as this newspaper stated in its report, “The elegantly furnished five-bedroom duplex was named the Olatunji Dare Building. Located along Late Pa Peter Seleke Road, Oluwatobi Quarters, Kabba, it is a model of comfort and aesthetic taste. It boasts two spacious living rooms, all en-suite bedrooms, dual kitchens, a dining room, stores, laundry, a borehole, a new soundproof generator, a gatehouse, and boys’ quarters.

    The report continued, “The compound is landscaped with flower gardens, paved with interlocking tiles, fitted with solar lighting, and secured by twin gates”. A perhaps little noticed aspect of the story noted that “The domestic staff are to be retained for one year by the institution”. The donor did not just hand over the property to the institution and move on; he exhibited faithfulness to his domestic staff that would be catered for by the new owners for one year to enable them some breathing space to plan for the future. That is the essential Professor Dare, ever humane and compassionate.

    When the name Olatunji Dare is mentioned, it is not a notion of a life devoted to the accumulation of wealth and its vulgar exhibition that comes to mind. It is not of one who is part of the elite preoccupation and obsession with a ceaseless rat race in which even seasoned academics are eager to show their fellow competitors in material acquisition that ‘my domiciliary bank account is more luscious than yours’, my expansive residence more palatial, and my latest SUV more spectacular.

    Rather, he exemplifies an uncompromising commitment to the life of the mind in the service of the higher causes of the advancement of knowledge and the promotion of communal wellbeing. It is a reflexive example of the virtues of servant-leadership that prioritizes the collective good over personal interest; the invaluable wealth of compassion, kindness and generosity of spirit over grasping accumulation in which the superabundance of possessions justifies the means of their acquisition, no matter how detrimental to the health of the Commonwealth.

    His celebrated immense cerebral endowment could easily have been channelled to the purpose of being counted among the society’s nouveau riche if Professor Dare were so minded. He could have easily leveraged on the sheer influence and subliminal power of his columns over decades to jostle for public office, particularly during the military regimes that would have paid any price to have an intellectual and journalist of his stature in their corner. He would easily have been counted among the financial movers and shakers of society even if he was not necessarily a billionaire.

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    But the story of the property he has just gifted to the KOSU is one of sweat and sacrifice over the years to develop. In his words, “My mother, Charity Ajoke Dare (nee Lewu), acquired this site in 1974, hoping that I would put up a building on it within a year or two. I regret that I did not fulfill her expectations… Construction on the site began 40 years later, and 17 years after her death. My immediate younger brother, Emmanuel Dare, kept land grabbers away, but unfortunately passed away in the final phase of the construction. My primary school classmate and friend, Samuel Olowosulu, a retired specialist in stores and supplies, supervised the building with scrupulous integrity. He witnessed the completion but passed away some three years ago”.

    Professor Dare’s generous gesture to KOSU certainly was not a decision taken lightly. It came at considerable cost. As a scholar, he belongs to a global community that transcends narrow sectional boundaries. He has demonstrated in his contributions to public discourse over the years his indisputable credentials as a patriot and nationalist. Yet, his has also always been a life of faithful commitment to the community that sprang him.

    Thus, on his motivation to endow KOSU with the property, he states that “Long before the creation of Kogi State, the people of Okunland had been yearning for a University. After all, education is their industry. At the very least, they expected the College of Agriculture, Kabba, established in the 1960s as an affiliate of Ahmadu Bello University, to be upgraded to a full-fledged University. The basic infrastructure was in place…Also guaranteed was a faculty of senior and middle-level academics of Okunland origin, willing and ready to relocate from universities in Nigeria and abroad… Everything was in place, except the political will.”

    With the summoning of the requisite political will to establish the University, Professor Dare has identified with the institution and the community in a gesture that will surely endure and inspire similar acts of selflessness on the part of future generations. Professor Dare’s gesture also illustrated his abiding faithfulness to academics, the pursuit of knowledge and the society’s responsibility to offer the youths every opportunity to fulfill their potentials in this regard. Thus, his admonition that “Kogi State University, Kabba, should not strive to be just another university. It should, instead, explore opportunities provided by the history, culture, ecology and environment of its location to expand the frontiers of knowledge and widen the mental horizons of its students and members of the larger community.”

    Continuing in this vein, he advised that “We shall always have with us those who thirst for knowledge but have had no opportunity to do so. Help them in their quest for self-actualisation through promoting and sustaining literacy and through teaching those skills so vital to functioning in a world that waits for no person. Do not leave them behind .”

    Reflecting on his decision to bequeath the property while watching the inaugural matriculation ceremony of the institution, he said, “I had just turned 75 at the time, and realised that I had fewer years ahead of me than behind me”. But is it not exactly the lack of appreciation by our elite of the all too obvious brevity of life, the ultimate ephemerality of material accumulation, that motivates the desperate quest for the acquisition and maintenance of political power and the mindless pursuit of wealth by all means and at all costs, including massive corruption that impedes development and deepens poverty and inequality?

    One thing that struck me about Professor Dare’s speech on the occasion was his graciousness of spirit and readiness to acknowledge and praise positive qualities in others. He did not take it for granted that, in representing him at the event, his nephew, Colonel Yomi Dare (Rtd), was simply doing his duty. Rather, he thanked him as “an Officer and Gentleman in whom I am well pleased” who “has taken precious time away from his demanding law practice and incurred considerable personal expense to hand over the edifices on my behalf. “

    He commended the Chairman of the Governing Council of the University at the time, Emeritus Professor Olu Obafemi, who “With his accustomed dynamism…quickly devised a ceremony for the formal transfer of the property. Perhaps he was fearful that I might change my mind. There was no chance “. Fulsome in his appreciation of the institution’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Kehinde Eniola, he noted that “Even if I had been minded to change course, Professor Eniola ‘s courtesies alone would have dissuaded me…he displays those attributes, rare these days, that our people consecrated in the term, OMOLUABI”. And even “To the artisans who built the house” he expressed” my grateful thanks for the cordial relationship we enjoyed from start to finish”.

    Yet, the professor’s humility, modesty and unassuming disposition belies the fierceness with which he opposed military dictatorship in Nigeria, worked largely from the background to oppose and seek to ensure the rectification of such unjust acts as the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election or refused to be part of a delegation to apologize to the military dictator, General Sani Abacha, to plead for the reopening of The Guardian newspapers which had been shut down by the regime.

    Recalling the latter incident, Editor, ace columnist and now Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Gbenga Omotosho, writes that the Guardian management had resolved that those who refused to participate in the placatory trip to Abuja should not benefit from the outcome of the trip. In Omotosho’s words, “In fact, I learned that Prof. Dare was specifically named by proponents of that proposal. As the management was contemplating how to break the news to Dare, he tendered his resignation letter. It was shocking. “Since I didn’t participate in the resolution of the crisis”, he was quoted as saying, “I think it will be unfair to those who did if I benefit from the gains of the trip”. If this is not courage, I wonder what it can be called. Such is Dare’s stubborn disposition towards the principles he holds dear.” Semper Fidelis.

  • Akogun Tola Adeniyi’s take on politics and ‘betrayal’

    Akogun Tola Adeniyi’s take on politics and ‘betrayal’

    After more than five decades in practice as one of Nigeria‘s most noteworthy, versatile and courageous columnists, Akogun Tola Adeniyi’s pen remains as pungent, unsparing and hard-hitting as ever, even as he clocked eight decades this side of eternity earlier this year. Popularly known as ‘Aba Saheed’, his pen name during the golden era of his career at the defunct Daily Times conglomerate, easily Africa’s leading newspaper in the 1970s, his pen was an unrelenting thorn in the flesh of the military dictatorships of the time. In a recent characteristically fire-spitting article published online, he unleashed his undisguised wrath against what he described as ‘God-complex and Sycophancy’ in Nigerian politics.

    Akogun Adeniyi was particularly irked by occupants of public office in Nigeria at all levels – local government Chairmen, State governors, all the way to presidents – who tend to play God and “frighten, humiliate, suppress, oppress and victimise whosoever of their constituents that have the courage and guts to challenge their authoritarianism”. Of course, the veteran journalist offers no concrete examples to validate his allegation, and so his assertion remains at the level of unproven analytic generalisation. For him, “These political office holders at the top of the ladder see themselves as mini-god! And they are made so by the pitiable farmers and praise-singers who worship at their feet”.

    Continuing, he avers that “It is people who have lost self-worth or personal dignity and an otherwise honourable family identity who constitute the bulk of the unfortunate beings that have now created gods in political office holders and sadly, insist that others, those who still have their heads screwed on their necks, should follow them in their blind servitude”. Akogun Adeniyi’s vitriol in this regard is quite interesting given his own journalistic career trajectory. The earlier Aba Saheed’s vehement and thunderous denunciations of the excesses of power-drunk dictators at the Daily Times of the 1970s were a key factor in my being attracted to journalism as a medium of speaking truth to power and fighting for the greater public good.

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    But the Tola Adeniyi who moved on to the Nigerian Tribune during the second Republic (1979-1983) was far different from the Aba Saheed I had earlier idolised. Though a fervent admirer and supporter of Chief Obafemi Awolowo myself, indeed a polling agent of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in the 1979 elections as a secondary school student, I found the fawning and uncritical reportage of the activities of Awolowo and other UPN top shots of the time by the Tribune titles as unprofessional, irritating and largely unhelpful to the party.

    Akogun Adeniyi’s column, such as ‘Till Death Do Us Part’ or Tai Solarin’s ‘The Stolen Presidency’ in The Tribune, lionised Awolowo and scathingly denigrated his opponents. If such journalism is borne of personal conviction, it has its own acceptable place in the profession. But Akogun unfortunately gives the impression that such idolization of political figures could only be a function of pecuniary considerations and servile sycophancy, a damning self-indictment.

    One of my criticisms of Akogun Adeniyi and many other columnists of the period, not excluding the National Concord set up by Chief MKO Abiola to counter the pro-UPN media and fight Awolowo, was excessive over-generalization in analysis without the requisite theoretical or empirical contextualization or validation. The Punch to some extent but more especially the emergence of the path-breaking ‘Guardian’ titles provided a corrective to this unsavoury tendency.

    We find this trait in the write up under consideration when Akogun Adeniyi submits with magisterial presumptuousness that “Nigeria is entering another stage of their comical and usually tragic political engineering cycle which invariably awards purchased victory to losers, blinds the actual winners with curious electoral loss”. Again, no concrete examples to prove the point. No attempt at logical or empirical justification. We must simply take the omniscient columnist’s word for it. Another example of the fabled ‘God-complex’ at work? His columns thus contributed significantly to entrenching the notion that the 1979 presidential election was won by Chief Awolowo, who was allegedly rigged out when a detached analysis of the polls and the dynamics of the politics of the time demonstrates that there was no credible pathway to an Awolowo victory in that election.

    But then, the veteran journalist’s main grouse in this piece is with what he describes as a development over the last decade in which some Nigerian politicians claim to have ‘created’ or ‘made’ other politicians and thus demand undiluted loyalty from their supposed ‘creations’. In an essentially appeal to emotion, Akogun Adeniyi goes on to administer savage blows to this straw man of his creation, without citing even one instance of any politician allegedly claiming to have ‘created’ a fellow politician.

    Adopting a rather romantic notion of democracy, he says that it provides “a guarantee for freedom of association, freedom of choice, and enhancement of fundamental human rights” in which “children of the same parents, husbands and wives can compete against one another in their bid to render service to the community. The husband may say he wants to provide roads, while the wife says she wants to provide clothing for the masses. No offence. No name-calling. No character assassination”.

    It is doubtful if such a mythical rendition of democratic practice exists in most parts of the world that lay claim to adherence to liberal democracy – a system, by the way, under severe illiberal strain in most parts of the world. Akogun cites with approbation Mazi Samuel Goomsu Ikoku running in an election against his own father in an election and winning in the first Republic. I have no details of what led a son to such ruthless de-robing of his own father in the political marketplace, but it is the exception rather than the norm. In any case, following several political and ideological somersaults in his political career, suggesting an infirm philosophical and ethical foundation, SG Ikoku did not necessarily exit the political terrain in a blaze of glory.

    In Akogun Adeniyi’s school of political thought, there can be no credible talk of ‘betrayal’ in politics. Politicians are free to pursue any line of action at any time. He defines politics in basically moral terms but endorses an essentially amoral disposition to political behaviour on the part of political actors. Of course, the perception of ‘betrayal’ is value-laden and, like beauty, may be in the eye of the beholder. Most active participants in politics who rise to prominence possess certain innate qualities that work in their favour. But it is illusory to pretend that there are no mentors or benefactors in politics; that there are no codes of conduct that bind leaders and the led, the violation of which may be construed, albeit debatably, as betrayal.

    Of particular interest to me is the example of Chief Awolowo’s politics in the Western Region that Akogun Adeniyi cites to justify his thesis of democracy offering what amounts to a morally anarchical terrain in which political actors are free to act in any way they choose while pleading the right to democratic free choice as justification.

    According to him, “Chief Obafemi Awolowo invited the best of the best to form a formidable team to constitute the best government there ever was in Africa in his time, but he never claimed he created Chief Adekunle Ajasin, Chief Samuel Akintola, brilliant journalist and lawyer, Chief Joseph Oduola Osuntokun, Dr Stephen Oluwole Awokoya, Professor Samuel Aliko, Chief Anthony Enahoro and several others. He regarded them as colleagues and assets. They were distinguished in their own right. He needed them. He saw quality in them. He was their leader, the team leader “.

    This is at best a partial reading and rendering of history. For, what in the final analysis was the cause of the crisis between Akintola, Premier of the Western Region, and Awolowo Leader of the Action Group (AG) as well as Leader of opposition in the federal parliament; a crisis that not only led to a descent to anarchy in the Western Region but also directly resulted in the collapse of the First Republic and ultimately the tragic civil war? Some saw it as a result of differences in political strategy, with Awolowo wanting the AG to continue its quest for power at the national level, while Akintola preferred the party to restrain itself to the West while having a working accord with the NPC in the North.

    Others saw the conflict as an inevitable result of the unrealistic divorce of the leadership of the party from the leadership of the government it controlled in the Western Region.

    But the widespread perception, which is perhaps only gradually receding into distant memory with the passage of time, was that Akintola betrayed his leader in a bid to gain political control of the Western Region, and he acted in concert with extraneous forces bent on destabilising the West and decapitating Awolowo politically. Perhaps the most vociferous critic and opponent of Awolowo’s politics in the West was the exceptionally brilliant and charismatic Adegoke Adelabu of the ‘Penkelemesi’ fame. Instructively, no one ever accused him of being a betrayer.

    In his interview with the famous Peter Enahoro in the ‘Africa Now’ magazine in the Second Republic, Awolowo had remarked that, while he had forgiven Akintola, he wished the site where he was assassinated was preserved to serve as a lesson to future generations on the consequences of treachery. I thought this was a rather chilling and extreme proposition at the time. Some of Yorubaland’s most illustrious sons were politically opposed to Awolowo in the Second Republic. They included Chief MKO Abiola, Chief Adisa Akinloye, Chief Olu Akinfosile, Chief Soji Odunjo, Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya, Chief Richard Akinjide, Chief Remi Fani-Kayode, Dr Omololu Olunloyo, Chief Adeyinka Adebayo, Chief Adeleke Adedoyin, Chief Areoye Oyebola, Chief Toye Coker and Chief Akanbi Onitiri,  to name a few. Although politically unpopular in the South-West, nobody labelled them as traitors or betrayers.

    However, when Chief Sunday Afolabi, Chief Akin Omoboriowo, who had authored a book on ‘Awoism’ as a political ideology, and Chief Busari Adelakun revolted against the UPN’s decision that its five governors be given automatic return tickets for a second term and dumped Awolowo for the NPN, they were promptly labelled traitors in the popular consciousness. I remember that Awolowo was on the campaign trail in Ekiti State when Afolabi and Adelakun decamped. The following day, he cut short his campaign and headed back to Ibadan. A mammoth crowd had gathered from morning at the historic Mapo Hall and waited patiently, dancing and singing, until the leader arrived at around 5 pm.

    The crowd carried coffins bearing RIP inscriptions of the political decampees. The root of the perception of politics and betrayal, particularly in Yorubaland, runs deep and requires profound sociological, political and philosophical investigation to facilitate understanding, not simplistic and superficial analysis.