Category: Segun Ayobolu

When this column wrote on the triumphant return of James Ibori recently, I thought I was drawing attention to a serious problem in which Nigerians would appear to condone and tolerate, even condone corruption. Unfortunately, some readers believed that one was condoning and celebrating graft. In fact, a female professor from the University of Ibadan sent a text message calling this writer a bastard Yoruba son for supporting ibori. I just could not understand how anybody could read into my piece the insinuation that I was supporting Ibori’s conduct. What I was pointing to was the ethno-regional condoning of corruption that makes absolute nonsense of any talk of waging war against corruption. Those perceived as thieves and criminals by the Nigerian State are celebrated as heroes and saints by the ir communities. That illustrates the moral and psychological gap between state and society that must be confronted in any meaningful bid to rid the society of corruption.

Luckily, the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, confronted this issue this week at the opening of a two day National Dialogue on corruption. He condemned the celebration of looters by Nigerians. According to him ‘Today, someone who is corrupt is celebrated. There is a problem that we must resolve and if we don’t resolve it, it will hurt us very, very badly as it is hurting us already”.  This is acknowledging a severe societal problem. It is not pretending to be holier than thou. Until we can get Nigerians to see corruption for what is, the danger to development it represents, any fight against the evil will be purely illusionary.

In the words of the Acting President, “When the very best people say that there is no consequence of bad actions, they suddenly turn bad”. The problem here is that Professor Osinbajo assumes that there is a consensus by at least a critical minority on what constitutes bad or good actions. No such consensus sexists. And here we confront a fundamental dilemma. Most of us are ardent Christians and Muslims. Our traditional cultural values advocate the highest standards of moral integrity and virtuousness. Yet, our public life exhibits the most despicable levels of ethical depravity and decadence,

This column is in a position to know the herculean efforts of Professor Osinbajo for the eight years he served meritoriously as Commissioner of Justice and Attorney General of Lagos State in the Tinubu administration. As he said in his speech, he introduced far reaching judicial reforms in Lagos State devoid of ethnic considerations and pecuniary interests. There is no doubt that the string of successes at the apex court recorded by Lagos State under Tinubu in the battle for state rights and true federalism was due to the vast elevation of standards under Osinbajo. Of course, he also had the unstinting support of a liberal and broad minded governor.

But then, beyond the rhetorics of the Buhari administration on the anti –corruption war, there is the need as this column has often reiterated for a deep psychological and sociological analysis of the problem so that appropriate solution can be found. For instance, how come that virtually none of those from whom millions and billions of Naira and dollars have been recovered are today pariahs or outcasts in their communities,? Rather   we seem to have federalized corruption such that there is a competition in which your corrupt big man or woman is bigger than mine and we can all go home and rest in peace.

The anti-corruption war cannot be won by slogans. It cannot be won by the self righteousness of an undeniably upright leader. It can only succeed as Professor Osinbajo said when institutions and processes are put in place to ensure that people are punished for violating the law and abusing their offices. N o one could have put it more bluntly than the Chairman of the              Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Professor Itse Sagay (SAN) when he said “Corruption is omnipresent in Nigeria; High and low office holders, public and private sectors, the executive, legislative judicial sectors, immigration, police, the civil service, everywhere. What is extremely disturbing is the fact that people’s attitude to corruption has hardened. There is no longer any fear of consequences. Bribe is demanded brazenly with a sense of entitlement. So too has insensitivity to misuse, abuse and waste of our common patrimony, even in these lean times”.

Again, the problem with the professor’s position is that it does not distinguish between legal and moral consequences. When a person is sanctioned legally for corruption but is morally approved in his ethno-cultural community, nothing is achieved. Until we bridge the gap between the legal and the moral, we are going nowhere in our war against corruption

There is no doubt that the management of President Muhammadu Buhari’s ongoing medical vacation in the United Kingdom could have been handled in a far more professional, credible and significantly less embarrassing manner. With the quality of medical advice that must presumably be available to Nigeria’s number one citizen, it ought to have been obvious even before the president left the country on January 19 that ten days would be insufficient for him to undergo all the necessary tests and ascertain his state of health. It was surely after all this had been done that the duration of his stay abroad could be more accurately and credibly determined. Why then didn’t the President just notify the National Assembly that he was taking his full annual vacation rather than specifying that he would be back within ten days, thus creating serious credibility problems when this proved unrealistic and raising doubts about claims that he was hale, hearty and in good spirits?

Beyond this, Buhari had fulfilled all constitutional righteousness by notifying the National Assembly of his vacation and even hinting that he would seize the opportunity to undergo medical diagnostics. That way, there was no vacuum in governance as the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) simply stepped in as Acting President in accordance with the law. What then was the point about the flurry of reports in the media about purported trips to see the President in London by assorted persons, his telephone conversations or his planned imminent return to the country? Perhaps the most credible and useful of the effectively publicized visits to Buhari were those of top chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande, as well as the leadership of the National Assembly. Most of the others, however, only spawned further needless and unhelpful media speculations.

I do not agree with the view that the public has a right to be told the details of the President’s medical condition. Yes, full disclosure may be morally desirable of the president. It is not legally obligatory. In any case, what purpose would it serve? Do those who so earnestly yearn and desire to be acquainted with every detail of the president’s health status have a cure for whatever the problem may be? Is the information being sought for altruistic and patriotic purposes or to fuel cynical jokes on social media with possible deleterious consequences for the president’s psyche and morale as well as that of his family? The final decision on such a sensitive matter rests entirely with the president himself, his doctors and close family members. In reality, those who demand full disclosure may be actuated by considerations that are no less base and vile than those who want to totally occlude information as regards Buhari’s health challenges.

Given what we know of their antecedents, I am confident that some of the administration’s information managers like Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture and Mr. Femi Adeshina, Special Adviser to the President on Media, would most likely have handled the situation differently if they were to have their way.  They are operating in challenging circumstances and it would appear have to give out information they are given without the benefit of first hand acquaintance with the facts. In any case, irrespective of whether or not they have access to the president, their hands are necessarily tied as to what they can tell the public. That is the nature of the job. Their opting out of the job as is often advocated in such circumstances would not change anything and so would be completely pointless.

There has, unfortunately, been too much hesitancy, tentativeness and unnecessary defensiveness in managing information on the president’s health. There is absolutely nothing to be apologetic about a 74 year old man taking ill. All of us are after all mortal and vulnerable to sickness even at the very prime of life. Buhari is still less than two years in office and cannot be blamed for a deplorable health care situation that compels the president to seek medical care abroad. In any case, if for whatever reason Buhari were to be declared unfit to continue as President today, his name will still be written in indelible gold in the annals of Nigeria. It remains a miracle that he is not a billionaire in diverse currencies given the critical positions he has held in various spheres of the country’s public life. Whatever may be his personal failings and that of his administration, Buhari has raised the bar of the anti-corruption war to a new pedestal that will clearly be difficult to roll back.

What has become evident in this political dispensation since 1999 is that although the presidency was conceived and designed as an institution to symbolize and strengthen national unity and cohesion, it has a very polarizing and divisive effect on the polity. Nobody can become President of Nigeria except he runs on the platform of a genuinely national political party or a coalition of political forces that transcends wide swathes of the country’s ethno-cultural, regional and religious divides. To emerge a President, a candidate must win not only the highest number of votes cast in the election but also score not less than 25% of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the states of the federation. The aim is to ensure that the president has a sufficient spread of electoral support to enable him rise above sectional divides and exercise effective authority as a genuinely national leader.

Unfortunately, the presidency remains as trapped as ever in the constricting prisons of ethnicity, regionalism and religion. In fact, the vicious struggle for control of the all powerful presidency by competing ethno-regional factions of the political class has itself become a serious destabilizing factor in the polity. This is worsened by the fact that once a president emerges, the party platform that produced him tends to be relegated to the background becoming no better than a parastatal under the supervision of the presidency. The place of the party in ensuring responsive, responsible and accountable governance in accordance with the party’s manifesto and ideology is thus easily hijacked by a mix of ethnic, religious, regional, old school boys and other predatory cabals that effectively hijack an unhinged presidency.

That was the situation during the 16 years of the PDP and was largely responsible for the insidious, even if unnoticed degeneration, and ultimately disastrous performance of the party in the 2015 election and its continuing implosion since then. Unfortunately, the APC, despite its slogan of change, is continuing along the same path with the party increasingly atrophied structurally and functionally and the consequent undesirable personalization of power around the presidency. Incidentally, the late radical historian, Dr. Bala Usman, who along with Professor Segun Osoba produced a minority draft constitution for the second republic had predicted this possibility.

 In a paper presented at a seminar on the draft constitution in March, 1977 and published in his collection of essays, ‘For the Liberation of Nigeria’, Usman said, “The justification they give for making the office of president so powerful is that he will provide effective government and become a focus of national loyalty. But it is not clear how this effectiveness and loyalty will develop if there are no provisions to ensure that the president will be elected and operate during his term as somebody who, with his team, stands for a definite political programme and policies. Unless this is ensured the president will be seen as standing for nothing more than his personality and ultimately his place of origin”.

Stressing further the critical importance of a clearly defined party policy and programme, internal party democracy and collective decision making at all levels both within government and the party, Usman gave insight into the provisions of the minority draft constitution saying “Without provisions to ensure this, the president and the governors will, far from being a focus of loyalty and effective leaders, be merely power- hungry, megalomaniac, political operators whose personality and ego will be the most important aspect of their governments. Such political leaders will only create national disunity because, ultimately, the personality, no matter what national garb it is sold in at the elections, will come out with its ethnic and religious colouring”.

And Bala Usman’s parting words four decades ago: “If their constitution is adopted, far from moving towards national cohesion, Nigeria will become torn with ethnic and religious disunity and sectionalism. Far from providing a basis and framework for the development of national cohesion and democracy, there will be an intensification of the present grossly uneven pattern of underdevelopment, greater capitalist and bureaucratic greed, individualism and chaos”.

 Could anyone have been more prescient?

I was not surprised that the Secretary to the Lagos State Government, (SSG), Mr Tunji Bello, was not particularly enamoured of this column’s endorsement last week of the view by the eminent American political scientist, Professor Richard Sklar, that the specific provision in the 1999 constitution for the existence and functioning of the country’s local governments as a separate tier of government and a federating unit in its own right is an exceptional and commendable Nigerian contribution to the development of federalist thought and practice. Engaging this writer extensively on his views in this regard during the week, he was of the emphatic opinion that the present local government structure contributes to the unhealthy over-centralizing trends in the constitution that erodes from the autonomy of the sub-national units of government, and imposes an organizational and structural rigidity that sap grassroots developmental creativity to the country’s detriment.

Mr Bello’s position is quite consistent with his record over the years as a progressive journalist and lawyer, a pro-democratic activist during the struggle against military dictatorship and commissioner for the environment in Lagos State particularly in an Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration that had to engage Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s imperial presidency in fierce legal battles to enforce the state’s constitutional rights. His perceptions of  the constituent elements of ‘true federalism’ have also no doubt been reinforced by his experience as a key functionary under a governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, who in this dispensation, has demonstrated an unprecedented and incomparable capacity to galvanize the local governments as effective vehicles of grassroots transformation without being unduly overbearing or stifling.

Rather than enhance rapid grassroots development, which is the aim of seeking to make local governments an autonomous third tier of government through direct funding from the Federation Account, Mr Bello avers that this can only create the danger of the federal government maintaining a stranglehold on the local governments in a political culture like ours characterized by excessive partisanship and unbridled impunity. Thus, we would be substituting the perceived undue dominance of state governments over the local governments for an even more distant and dysfunctional tyranny of the centre over what should be grassroots administration.  This was best evident when the Federal Government under Obasanjo arbitrarily and illegally seized statutory allocation due local governments in Lagos State for over three years in utter defiance of the Supreme Court, which ruled that it had no powers to do so.

Some of the drawbacks of a completely autonomous local government structure as the purported third tier of the federation, according to Mr Bello, are avoidable conflicts when the party controlling a local government differs from that in control of the state, the opportunity for a mischievous and unscrupulous  president at the centre to destabilize a state through the manipulation of a local government controlled by his party as well as the blunting of developmental initiatives by the local governments, which come to become chronically dependent on hand outs from the federation account rather than developing the capacity to exploit revenue generating opportunities within their jurisdiction.

This, he argues, is quite apart from the near physical, administrative and operational impracticability of running a local government in utter isolation from the overall ecology of the state within which it is territorially embedded. If I understood Mr Bello’s position clearly, the nature of federal-state relations as federating units cannot be equated to that of state-local government relations. The former will necessarily and inherently be less asymmetrically weighted against states than the latter is against local governments for the sheer reason of differential capacities in terms of quality of human resource personnel, fiscal and material resource endowment, organizational efficacy and disincentives of economies of scale.

Thus, while federalism offers a solution to the problem of over-centralization through the considerable devolution of powers, responsibilities and resources to the states, we must avoid the no less debilitating effects of excessive atomization as a result of reliance on uncoordinated and fragmented local governments as units of development. This explains why geographically and culturally contiguous states are now gradually coalescing into informal, integrated regional economic groupings without surrendering their political autonomy in order to tap collective zonal strengths towards accelerating their individual rates of development.

Professor Eghosa Osagie in his book, ‘Crippled Giant: Nigeria since Independence’ (page 118) acknowledges the difficulties encountered by the drafters of the 1979 constitution in their bid to effect fundamental structural change  to guarantee local government as the third tier of government. Thus, although the local government were given stipulated areas of legislative competence and were also entitled to statutory revenue allocation from the federation account, they were “in important ways…still under the control of state governments – e.g. state governments were required to pass laws to ensure their very existence”. Beyond this, under the 1999 constitution, local government statutory allocation from the federation account is paid into a ‘State Joint Local Government Account’ and distributed to the local governments in such a manner as is determined by the state House of Assembly. Most governors are, however, accused of diverting fund from this account for other uses to the detriment of grassroots development.

Under the current arrangement, local governments are listed in the constitution and no new local governments can be created and constitutionally recognized unless they are approved by the National Assembly and the constitution amended accordingly. This is why the 37 new Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) created in Lagos State by the Tinubu administration, bringing the total number of local government councils in the state to 57, which have become viable units of grassroots development, are yet to be constitutionally recognized by the National Assembly for simply partisan political reasons and this even after the supposedly progressive All Progressives Congress (APC) has assumed power at the centre.

Thus, the current number and distribution of local governments across the country reflects neither rhyme nor reason but continue to mirror the arbitrariness and biases of the military era. I can thus understand why Mr Polycarp Onwubia (JP) Features Editor of Orient Daily, sent me an angry text message in response to my column: “You disappointed me today in your column, ‘Nigeria’s federal Exceptionalism’. When have you become a parrot of northern Moslems (caliphate)? Haba, Segun! How are the mighty fallen. It was the military that created three tiers of government. It was never debated by the politicians (military is not elite). It’s the caliphate that conspired to bastardize the federal system as practiced in the first republic”.

 As I responded to him, however, “the 1999 constitution is virtually a carbon copy of the 1979 constitution with only marginal differences between the two. The 1999 constitution was largely the product of deliberations by some of the country’s best and brightest brains from all walks of life though it took place under the aegis of the military.  I really don’t know what an autonomous, financially viable, transparent and accountable local government system that is constitutionally guaranteed has to do with the caliphate…”.

In a telephone conversation during the week with Professor Tam David West, the renowned virologist at the University of Ibadan, who was one of the 49 members of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) that produced a draft of the 1979 constitution, he emphasized that there was absolutely nothing fraudulent about the document, which the 1999 constitution simply mirrors. There was not a single military man among the 49 members of the CDC and it included such legal luminaries as the late Chief Rotimi Williams and Professor Ben Nwabueze.

The work of the CDC was informed and enriched by an intensive and exhaustive state by state national discourse organized and coordinated by the now defunct Daily Times, which was later compiled into a useful working compendium. A Constituent Assembly popularly elected on a non-party basis later deliberated on and ratified the proposals of the CDC, which was then promulgated into law by the Supreme Military Council. All the major principles of federalism, separation of powers, local government autonomy etc thus had the imprimatur of popular affirmation hence the legitimacy of the phrase ‘We the people’ in its preamble, Professor David West submitted.

Mr Tunji Bello’s compelling case for a fundamentally restructured federation based on a leaner, smarter and more efficient centre as well as enhanced state powers, responsibilities and fiscal autonomy is, in my view, not incompatible with a reasonably free, administratively efficient and electorally credible local government system operating within the context of well-conceived and coordinated state and regional economic developmental plans.   This will not, however, be achieved on a platter of gold but will require back breaking work and organization as there are also forces interested, and with equal or even more determination, in maintaining the status quo.

A distinctive feature of Professor Bolaji Akinyemi’s political thought and praxis, either in the critical roles he has played as Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Ibrahim Babangida military regime, top member of the pro-democracy (National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) or simply as political scientist and public intellectual, is his unwavering faith in the possibilities of Nigeria. This is even as he has never hidden his disdain as regards the scandalous squandering of resources and opportunities that have been the lot of post-colonial Nigeria over the past five decades and seven years. It was thus not fortuitous that his tenure as Foreign Affairs Minister, for instance, witnessed such ambitious initiatives as the Technical Aid Corp (TAC) scheme, the Concert of Medium powers as well as the relentless advocacy for Nigeria to acquire nuclear capability albeit for peaceful purposes as a psychological fillip to the black man everywhere.

Akinyemi’s penchant for not allowing the country’s ills and challenges, which he frankly, even brutally, acknowledges – corruption, maladministration, ethno-regional strife, misapplication of resources, insecurity etc – to dampen his ardor for Nigeria’s potentials as a real giant not just of Africa but also as an aspirant to a critical global role was evident in his 2016 convocation lecture at the University of Ibadan titled ‘Nigerian Exceptionalism: Nigerian Quest for World Leadership’.

Yet, many Nigerians in their merciless self excoriation at their country’s social, political and economic shortcomings hardly give her any chance of overcoming current travails and actualizing her admittedly immense potentials. Those who are reluctant to admit that there is anything like a Nigerian exceptionalism, which could mark a departure from the accepted norm and chart an innovative path for others to follow, would readily perceive Akinyemi’s optimism as illusionary. I beg to disagree. Without strong belief in the positive qualities and diverse endowments of the Nigerian polity, including its numerous and highly resourceful population, our collective will to act decisively towards overcoming current limiting debilities will be effectively paralyzed if not irretrievably truncated.

The idea or undeniable reality of Nigeria’s exceptionalism, particularly in the areas of political and federalist thought as well as constitutional engineering, was brought forcefully home to me on re-reading an essay titled ‘Foundations of Federal Government in Nigeria’ by renowned Africanist scholar and author of the classic, ‘Nigerian Political Parties’, Professor Richard Sklar, which was published in a 2004 collection of essays in honour of another eminent Nigerian political scientist, Professor Oyeleye Oyediran. We often tend to blame what are essentially our behavioural and attitudinal lapses on constitutional arrangements, governmental patterns or structural defects, which are themselves manifestations of deeper sociological and psychological root causes. Hence our unending oscillation of advocacy for either presidential or parliamentary systems, two party or multiparty systems, highly centralized, decentralized federal or even outright confederal constitutions, rotational presidency, reversion to regionalism and so on.

If I understand him correctly, Professor Sklar’s well considered position is that, in terms of creative constitutional thought and praxis, something good and novel but largely unsung and unheralded has indeed come out of Nigeria. In Sklar’s words, “Nigeria is the world’s fifth largest federation after India, the United States, Brazil and Russia. Over the past quarter of a century, Nigerians have pioneered two main innovations in federalist thought and practice; they are known as the principle of federal character and the three-tier federation. Both ideas were introduced into public discourse at roughly the same time in the mid-1970s, an especially creative period for Nigerian constitutional thinkers”. On the constitutional recognition of Local Government as the third tier of government, Sklar contended that “Arguably, the inclusion of a constitutional guarantee for ‘democratically elected local governments’ by name, established principles of local government organization and supporting their viability by means of direct federal funding, should be reckoned an original Nigerian contribution to the science of government”.

Pointing out that this innovation in Nigerian constitutional thought marks a departure from the conventional federal practice of rendering local governments totally subordinate to the whims and caprices of states, Sklar noted that its chief aim, which was in response to experience during the first republic, was to protect local governments from threats of abolition and dissolution by over bearing state governments. Contrary to popular clamors in contemporary political discourse, therefore, the autonomy granted local governments by the extant 1999 constitution marks a significant step forward in the country’s political development particularly in terms of transparency, effective grassroots governance and accelerated development at the lowest rungs of administration in the country.

What this means is that seeking to subject the local governments, once again, to the financial and administrative stranglehold of state governments can only be a regressive and not a progressive step. The policy implication of this is the urgent imperative to strengthen financial autonomy of the third tier of government as well as reinforce mechanisms of accountability at this level especially through institutional reforms that enhance the capacity of State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIEC) to conduct genuinely free and fair elections into local government councils. Despite the brazen theft of humongous public funds at the Federal and state government levels over the years, the no less substantial but hardly discernible pillaging of fiscal resources at the grassroots level of government, perhaps takes a greater toll on Nigeria’s developmental enterprise and the wellbeing of millions of Nigerians at the very base of the governance pyramid than is recognized.

There is the need to jettison the inferiority complex, which assumes that we cannot chart an exceptional path of constitutional arrangement or governmental practice that departs from the norm and mirrors the peculiar historical trajectory and responds to institutional challenges that confront our polity. Apart from the three – tier constitutionally guaranteed levels of government, Sklar argues, that the federal character provision in Nigeria’s extant constitution is another exceptional and unique contribution to the development of federalist thinking and practice. Sklar notes that “Like the device of “double devolution” and its potential consequence of a three-tier federation, the principle of federal character is a distinctive Nigerian contribution to federalist thought”.

As we all know, the federal character provision in Nigeria’s constitution is meant to ensure equitable representation of diverse ethno-cultural groups in the composition of governmental structures at all levels- Federal, state and local. Contrary to the view in some quarters, the federal character requirement in apportioning appointments and allocating other valued resources by the state is not necessarily antithetical to or incompatible with the criterion of merit quite apart from boosting a feeling of inclusiveness by all in a diverse, plural and complex polity like ours.

Many students and observers of Nigerian federalism have dismissed some unique aspects of federalist innovation in the country’s constitution because of their departure from the practice in older federations particularly that of the United States on which the Nigerian federal variant is patterned. As Rufus Davis has pertinently observed, however, “For as all men don’t build their house just according to that model which the rules of architecture prescribe, so no federal constitutional system…has been built, or indeed could be built, in the mirror image of US model…In a word, each system has adapted the US model of its time, precisely as the United States composed its constitution in response to its own imperatives of necessity and circumstances”.

I remember, for instance, how the late legal titan, Chief Rotimi Williams (SAN), speaking on behalf of the political pressure group, ‘The Patriots’ once famously dismissed the preamble of the 1999 constitution, which claims to derive its legitimacy from ‘we the people’ as a fraud because of its largely military provenance. But the lesson throughout history is that constitution making is most times an elitist enterprise. Not many people are equipped with the requisite expertise to participate meaningfully in the exercise quite apart from the fact that millions of citizens do not have the necessary sense of political efficacy to consider it worth their while to engage the constitution drafting process. In any case, the drafters of the 1999 constitution did not drop from the moon and their exertions were not based on a constitutional tabula rasa. Their deliberations were no doubt informed by previous numerous constitutional drafting efforts spanning the pre-colonial to preceding constitution drafting exercises in the post-colonial dispensation.

Yes, by all means let us learn from the pitfalls in our current constitutional practice and make necessary amendments and changes to strengthen and deepen its democratic and federalist content. But in doing so, we must not fall into the trap of denigrating any aspect of our constitution that is a departure from the accepted norm but is derivative of our peculiar ecological realities.

It stands to reason that President Buhari’s decision to appoint Mr Ibrahim Magu as Acting Chairman of the EFFC on November 9, 2015, could not have been one taken lightly or casually. His suitability for the job, including his professional and ethical antecedents, must have been carefully scrutinized. And before making such an appointment, the presidency would have been very careless indeed not to have asked for routine security checks on the appointee. One of the foundation staff of the EFCC, Magu is said to have a reputation within the security community for honesty, diligence and courage. The trained financial crimes investigator has a background in forensic accounting. He honed his sleuthing instincts at such prestigious training centers as the FBI Institute and the London Metropolitan Institute.

As head of the Economic Governance Unit of the EFCC under Ribadu he proved his mettle. He was in charge of investigating high profile corruption allegation cases such as that of James Ibori as Delta State governor as well as the role of Dr Bukola Saraki, now the Senate President, in the collapse of Societe Generale Bank, when he was governor of Kwara state. By 2008, the political climate became unfavourable, even hostile, to the likes of Magu and his boss, Nuhu Ribadu, as some of those they had diligently investigated and sought to prosecute came to wield enormous influence at the highest levels of the country’s power structure. A distinguished senior lawyer who should know pointedly told me that “Magu was the most effective officer under Nuhu Ribadu”. Unfortunately, In November of that year, Magu was arrested and harassed when official files and a computer on which were stored classified documents were reportedly discovered in his residence in Abuja.

Ever since the resurrection of his career with his appointment as Acting Chairman of the EFCC by Buhari, Magu has proven that his reputation for incorruptibility and high performance is no fluke. There has been the rejuvenation of a previously comatose EFCC under his leadership. Of course, Magu has been lucky that Buhari’s uncompromising anti-corruption stance has given him necessary cover to operate with utmost boldness and courag. This is a far cry from the constricting political and moral climate under Presidents Umaru Yar’A dua and Goodluck Jonathan that led to the forced exit of Nuhu Ribadu and Mrs Farida Waziri in controversial circumstances and the complete incapacitation of an ordinarily proactive and resourceful Ibrahim Lamorde.

Under Magu, the EFCC has secured a total of 187 convictions within one year in addition to the recovery of billions of dollars of proceeds of corruption and assorted financial crimes. Once again, the fear of the EFCC has become the beginning of wisdom for the country’s political, economic and business elite.

Obviously satisfied with his performance in acting capacity, the presidency through Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, transmitted a letter to the Senate on June 17, 2016, requesting Magu’s confirmation as EFCC Chairman. Although President Buhari was on a ten day vacation outside the country at the time, it is inconceivable that Osinbajo, who was acting for him, could have sought the Senate’s confirmation of Magu without the knowledge and consent of his boss. Even though the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, read the confirmation request on the floor of the Senate on July 14, 2016, it was not until mid December, last year, that the upper chamber deigned to consider the matter. Even then, it was not at plenary on the floor of the chamber that the senators deliberated on Magu’s confirmation but at a closed executive session, whose proceedings were inaccessible to the public.

It was after this opaque session that the senate’s spokesman, Abdullahi Sabi, in a most casual and cavalier manner, told the press that the Senate had rejected the request for Magu’s confirmation based on security report available to them. He said: “The nomination of Ibrahim Magu is hereby rejected and has been returned to the President for further action”. But can the Senate reject the request for confirmation of appointment without holding a confirmation hearing at plenary on the floor giving the nominee an opportunity to respond to any allegations against him? After all, this was what was done in the case of Ministerial nominees when those with allegations levied against them such as Mr Babatunde Fashola (SAN) and Rotimi Amaechi, were cleared after they had publicly given their own sides of the story to the obvious satisfaction of the lawmakers.

Despite the purported rejection of his confirmation by the Senate, Magu has continued to function as Acting Chairman of the EFCC raising hopes that the presidency will re-present his name to the Senate. A former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr Joseph Dauda (SAN), insists, however, that the rejection of Magu’s nomination by the Senate “automatically ended his role within the EFCC”. Another lawyer and human rights activist, Ebun Olu Adegboruwa, concurs. He has filed a suit urging a Federal High Court in Lagos to stop Magu from parading himself as acting Chairman of the EFCC.

Distinguished human rights lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Femi Falana, contends that the senate can neither confirm nor reject the request without a proper and transparent confirmation hearing at plenary giving the nominee an opportunity to respond to allegations and enabling the voice and vote of every senator to count. The Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Corruption, (PACC), Professor Itse Sagay, aligns with this view. Speaking to the online magazine, The Interview, he says: “Since Nuhu Ribadu left we have not had a man with such sterling qualities as Ibrahim Magu and whether they like it or not, Magu will be there until he completes his term under the law”.

The role of the Department of State Services (DSS) in the entire affair is enigmatic. It obviously did not advice the presidency against forwarding Magu’s name to the Senate for confirmation. Yet, it reportedly sent an unfavourable report to the Senate, signed on behalf of its Director-General, Lawal Daura, by one Folashade Ojo, which was the basis for the purported rejection of Magu’s confirmation. It does not appear that the DSS appreciates how much damage its action has caused the image of the presidency, which has been portrayed as tardy, inefficient, careless and administratively deficient.

Without prejudice to the merits or demerits of the allegations against Magu, it is this column’s view that he should be given the opportunity to defend himself on the floor of the Senate in an open and transparent manner before the upper chamber can arrive at a credible ad acceptable decision to confirm or reject his appointment. The vast majority of Senators who have nothing to fear from the EFCC must not allow themselves to be used to blunt the edge of the anti-corruption war by a tiny minority who have skeletons in their cupboards and dread their own shadows. Most importantly, President Buhari should know that if Magu’s confirmation is successfully blocked through spurious means and ‘mago mago’ tactics, his anti-corruption war will be as good as dead. Nobody appointed as head of any anti-corruption agency after that will ever have the confidence that he will have the president’s back when corruption fights back.

Day Lagos celebrated pensioners

‘Take a Stand Against Ageism’. That was the theme of the Y2016 Senior Citizens/Pensioners Day, last celebrated 12 years ago but was resurrected on December 22, last year by the governor Akinwunmi Ambode administration to honour pensioners and senior citizens in the state. The theme for the event was deliberately chosen to draw attention to the “discrimination and prejudiced attitudes towards older people, old age and the ageing process” said Governor Akinwunmi Ambode who was represented by the Deputy Governor, Dr (Mrs) Idiat Adebule, on the occasion. He cited the resuscitation of the annual event as a demonstration of his administration’s commitment to the welfare of senior citizens.

This commitment has been concretely shown, Ambode said, by the regular payment of salaries for those in active service as well as the prioritization of payment of Retirees benefits especially those that have accrued over the years. “For instance, under this dispensation, a total of N21.929 billion has been paid to 5,027 Retirees. Also, the sum of N1.5 billion intervention fund was approved for the payment of outstanding gratuities and accrued pensions to Local Government Retirees including the balance of 142%pension arrears”. And in the 2017 budget, the administration has made a provision of N2.698 billion for the construction of Elderly Care Centers in Ikorodu, Épé, Badagry, Alimosho and Lagos Island.

Alhaji, Comrade Nojeemdeen Adebayo Ibrahim, Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners for Lagos and the South West, acknowledges the Ambode government’s compassion for pensioners which is evident, he said through prompt and regular payment of workers salaries and pensions and aggressive clearance of the pensions liabilities the administration met on ground. But Alhaji Ibrahim could not resist playing the Oliver Twist by asking for more. He requested not only that remaining gratuities of all affected pensioners be cleared but also the harmonization of all pensioners in the state since they are all affected by the economic recession.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Establishment, Training and Pensions, Dr Akintola Benson Oke, said pensioners were worth celebrating because they had “at different times and levels served meritoriously and selflessly to ensure that our dear state become what it is today; a catalyst for development in Nigeria – a state of excellence”. He pledged the commitment of the Ambode administration not only to ensuring that retirees get what is statutorily due to them but they are empowered through socio-economic activities designed to make life worth living for them.

Ordinarily, it is the spiritual sphere that should set the highest standards of moral integrity for the secular realm to look up to and seek to emulate. In our context and with respect to the two dominant religions in Nigeria, Christianity and Islam, the spiritual should shine the light of ethical rectitude for the secular to find the way to higher levels of transparency, accountability and responsibility. If the spiritual does not exhibit the elevated values of honesty, trust, equity, fairness, restraint, modesty, justice or fidelity in the management of its affairs, how can it claim moral superiority over the secular? Unfortunately, it is the secular that has taken the initiative to enforce strict and firm adherence to corporate governance laws and regulations designed to ensure the proper management of the affairs of the spiritual in the interest of the vast majority of members of the latter.

There has been a sense of triumphalism particularly in Pentecostal Christian circles ever since the removal this week by President Muhammadu Buhari of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) Executive Secretary, Mr Jim Obazee, and the reconstitution of the organization’s board. This is understandable, perhaps even justifiable. Obazee’s insistence on enforcing Governance Code 2016 of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria Act, No. 6, 2011, which stipulates a maximum period of 20 years for the heads of all registered churches, mosques, and civil society organizations, had forced the stepping aside of the highly revered General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye and the announcement of his successor, Pastor Joseph Obayemi as the new overseer of the church in Nigeria. It also implied that other popular and charismatic Pentecostal leaders such as Bishop David Oyedepo, Pastor Kumuyi, Bishop Mike Okonkwo, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Pastor Ayo Ortsejafor, Rev. Chris Okotie, Pastor Mathew Ashimolowo, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, Pastor Samuel Abiara among scores of others would have to follow suit.

 Obazee’s naivety and overzealousness in the way he went about enforcing the FRC Act especially within the context of the sensitivity of religious politics in contemporary Nigeria is truly amazing. Perhaps it was not naivety after all and he was actuated by deep seated ulterior motives. And from all indications, he did not properly and maturely manage his relationship with other stakeholders under his regulatory purview outside the church.  It is emerging he appeared to have been of a harsh and temperamental disposition clearly ill suited to handle the enormous responsibilities requiring caution, patience, calm, diplomacy, serenity and a sense of balance that his position demanded.

Not only did Obazee appear to lack all these, he was also said to have positively taken some mean, unfair and draconian decisions designed to hurt certain corporate interests for self-serving reasons. Furthermore, the brazenness and boldness with which he defied the directive of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah is inexplicable and unprecedented. It depicts the gross systemic and organizational disarticulation that characterizes the Buhari administration.  Obazee clearly hardly had the moral authority and integrity to hold the office.

However, a distinction must be made between Obazee as an individual and the FRC as a corporate body with the responsibility of implementing and overseeing Governance Code 2016 of the Financial Reporting Council Act of Nigeria Act, No 6, 2011. Obazee may have been morally perverse and psychologically unsuited for the position he occupied but the FRC Act regulating the activities of Not For Profit Organizations (NFPO) appears to me to be a very good law from the aspects I have read even though its current suspension for more consultation among stakeholders is quite in order given its sensitivity and far reaching implications.

It does not appear to me that Obazee could have arbitrarily imposed the law. It must have gone through due process. Governance Code 2016 provides that the founder or leader of a NFPO shall not simultaneously occupy the three governance positions of chairman of the board of trustees, the governing board or council, or the headship of the executive management or their governance equivalents. It seeks to limit tenure of the leader or founder occupying any of these positions to no more than 20 years or attainment of the age of 70. It prevents blood relations from succeeding the founder or leader. The intent is obvious and the motive altruistic. It is to prevent excessive concentration of power in an individual or the transmutation of a collective enterprise into a nepotistic family inheritance.

Reacting to Obazee’s removal, the General Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) was effusive in his excitement. In his words, “Thank God the authorities have stepped in to right the wrong. He should have been fired a long time ago”. This is probably true. He then says “The entire code should be thrown out completely because government should not interfere with the church”. This is disputable. Arguing in the same vein, the Senior Pastor Living Spring Chapel International, Lagos, Pastor Femi Emmanuel, is of the view that “Government has no business meddling in the internal structure and governance of the church”.

Government, of course, has no interest meddling in the affairs of the church for as long as the church operates within the ambit of the law. It is the business of the state to protect the interests and guarantee the rights of every citizen including members of the church. The scope of the state is universal within its territorial jurisdiction while that of the state is partial. Membership of the state is compulsory through citizenship but that of the church voluntary by affiliation. If the internal structure of the church undermines the principles of fairness and equity and justice, it abridges the rights of its members. The state, in such a situation cannot be disinterested.

This is an opportunity now for Pentecostal churches to undertake a thorough introspection leading to the re-orientation and re-structuring of the way they manage their affairs. Even though many Pentecostal leaders are sincere and committed, the absence of effective internal organizational checks and restraints makes them vulnerable to the kind of ostentatious excesses in the midst of poverty that has brought the church into disrepute and severely impugned the image of Christ. Not every leader can be an Adeboye or a Kumuyi, for instance, who have the force of character and self control to remain modest, simple and humble despite their high intellect and the immense wealth, power and influence their churches control.

It is thus wise for Pentecostal church leaders to build a cohesive structural hedge around themselves and their organizations through functional and effective boards that can contribute to more qualitative decision making. Yes it is only natural for many Pentecostal church founders to want to be succeeded by their blood relatives as has happened in so many cases. After all, many of them invested so much time, energy and other resources in building the churches into what they are today suffering much in the process. But their business is a peculiar one. It is the voluntary investment of life in the business of God. Their reward is to be received in heaven when the Lord they have served faithfully on earth puts on their head a crown of glory.

In any case, does the Bible not say that this world is not our home and we are just passing through? Does it not say further that everything will pass away and only the word of God will endure forever? The Catholics seem to understand this very well. The Catholic Church is probably far wealthier than many of the biggest Pentecostal churches put together. But Catholic clerics right up to the Pope live the simplest and most modest of lives. They gave us the immortal Mother Theresa, an exemplar of ascetic, self-denying and sacrificial living.

Surely, it is not for nothing that in the secular sphere, Federal and State Executive Councils are constituted to assist Chief Executives in the process of governance. Beyond the constitutional imperative in this regard, a wise President or Governor will pick executive council members whose opinions and advice they are compelled to respect even if not necessarily agree with. For, ultimately responsibility for the final decision rests on the Chief Executive. But the appropriateness and degree of efficacy that decision achieves when implemented will be a function of the quality of thinking and expertise that went into its production.

It may well be that the Pentecostals, in fiercely opposing the regulation, are genuinely concerned about protecting the church from the undesirable and portentous intrusion of the state. They cannot be faulted on that. But they must not be unmindful of the popular, even if mistaken, perception that it is all ultimately about money and power. They should work hard to dispel this notion because as we all know perception is often stronger than reality.

Year 2016 was momentous  for the cause of South West economic integration even if the politics of the region remains as fractious, unpredictable and treacherous as it has and perhaps will always be. The year ended on a rousing note when the South West governors, irrespective of political affiliation, ideological orientation or temperamental disposition met in Ibadan to reiterate and reinforce their commitment to a common economic agenda for the region.  They agreed to work towards uniform tariffs on commodities as well as cooperate in agriculture, rail transportation, sports and other areas of developmental import. This meeting, which was one of the key activities that brought 2016 to a close, showed that the governors’ conclave that opened the year was no fluke. For, in January, 2016, the five owner states of the Odu’a Investment conglomerate – Oyo, Ondo, Ogun, Osun and Ekiti – met again in Ibadan and took the historic decision to admit Lagos State into the Odu’a Group as the sixth owner state. They also agreed that Odua’a would be re-positioned to drive the economic integration of the region.

It is significant that the Odu’a Group, perhaps the most enduring legacy of the region’s founding fathers, has become the pivot around which the South West’s economic engineering efforts revolve. Earlier in October, last year, Illuminations had an interaction with the Group Managing Director of Odu’a a, Mr Adewale Raji, in his expansive office on the 25th floor of the iconic Cocoa House, Ibadan, conceptualized and actualized over five decades ago by the trail blazing Obafemi Awolowo administration of the Western Region. From that height, one has a fascinating spectacle of a vast swathe of the sprawling city reminding one of the poet, John Pepper Clark’s, stunning description of Ibadan as “running splash of rust and gold; flung and scattered among seven hills, like broken China in the sun”.

Mr Raji was understandably upbeat and optimistic about the prospects of the company and its capacity to live up to the historic responsibility the South West governors have placed on its shoulders. Yet, but for the herculean efforts of the former Managing Director – Distribution Services, PZ of PZ Cussons Nigeria Group before his present appointment,  Odu’ a would have been in no position today to be at the vanguard of South West economic integration. Yes, Odu’a was once a giant in the African Sun. As at 2004 it had no less than 30 subsidiaries. The company then had an asset base of approximately N10 trillion – Africa’s largest conglomerate. The company the current GMD inherited, however, was a shadow of itself. Much of its valuable assets had been recklessly sold off. Many of the subsidiaries were – and still are – ailing. Staff morale across the group had plummeted. Partisan politics had been allowed to interfere unduly with its professional management.

The current GMD is reluctant to take issues with his predecessors. He is more predisposed to giving them credit for at least keeping the organization afloat in difficult circumstances. However, he does not deny that had the Group taken a different business and corporate trajectory over the years as well as built effectively on the illustrious legacy of its founding fathers, it should today be a major player in the regional economy not just of Nigeria but of Africa. “We lost a lot in terms of how the economy has been restructured as well as from the point of view of how we have managed our resources”, Raji explains.

He cites the example of the banking sector, which with the Soludo reforms has seen the participation in the ownership of banks by the federal or state governments limited to 10% as a matter of policy. Although, he believes this has been positive for the economy as participation in banking by government had undermined the credibility of the sector, the consequences for the Odu’ a Group have been severe. As Raji explains, “Whereas in the element of National Bank which was under us and the other side which is WEMA Bank, in which we had 42% ownership, what were we able to take out following the Soludo reforms? Because of the management and leadership deficit on our part, when we were exiting these entities we left empty handed. Whatever our shareholder value and other things were used to liquidate non-performing loans that we had perpetrated while we superintended these entities”.

Raji cites the manufacturing sector as another example. Odu’ a Group owned the Nigerian Wire Cable 100%. It had 70% ownership of Cocoa Industries Ltd. The GMD laments that “There were requirements to study the economic trends and make adaptive decisions as the economy was changing. There were challenges of declining power supply. We should have planned for alternative sources of electricity.  The cost of raw materials was going up. There are ways to mitigate this in management decisions. We knew equipment were growing old and getting obsolete. We should have planned proactively on how to renew our equipment.  Focus went more into ballooning operational expenses rather than value added investment to ensure our present and our future. Thus, it was not only what we inherited that shrunk, we were also not adding to it”.

The GMD also regretted the way Odua’s entry into the telecoms industry was managed through Odu’a telecoms saying “the kind of loss we accumulated in our investment was colossal”. Hence, one of the first key initiatives of the Raji management team and the company’s Board was a major Strategic Retreat supported by competent consultants from outside. The objective was, according to him “to look back in order to learn from the past and create a vision for the future. We tried to understand the basic principles on which thriving conglomerates operate”. A major case study was made of UAC, which also went through a major downturn and under Mr Ayo Ajayi as Chief Executive Officer in a single term of five years, achieved a complete turnaround. Another reference point for the retreat, Mr Raji says, was the Dangote Group, which was a trading company but is today Africa’s biggest conglomerate.

In the words of Raji, “We realized that we needed to ask the reason for our existence as an entity. We are a business and we need to focus on our business. We need to focus on our numbers and make sure that our responsibilities are met internally and externally. So this vision being shared by the management and the board with the buy in and input of our staff has helped us to refocus the company to say, we are a business though we are owned by government so the expectations of business everywhere to shareholders, which is profitability, we must deliver. That is why shareholder value is growing. That is what has enabled us to start on a new pedestal and shift to a new paradigm”.

The results have been impressive in the two years of Raji’s tenure. In 2014, the company recorded a revenue of N4.29 billion and profit before tax of N759 million representing a 53% increase over the 2013 figure of N95 million.  Odu ‘a Group paid dividends of N150 million to its owner states. It was unprecedented. No dividends had been paid to the owner states in the previous six years. Again, in 2016, Odu’a Investments paid N175 million dividends to its owner states as well as declaring a profit before tax of N597 million despite the adverse economic climate.

 Briefing the press after one of the South West governor’s meetings, Mr Ayodele Fayose, Ekiti State Governor, said that the management of Odua’ a Group as well as the nascent Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) have been admonished to remain apolitical and to play a neutral role in their relationships with the owner states. If that principle is adhered to, Odu’ a Group’s tomorrow and the possibilities of South West economic integration is very bright indeed.

I can still vividly recall the then simply Tunji Olaopa walking along the corridors of the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, a pen stuck between one of his ears, an open book always in his hand, reading as he walked some three decades ago. He was easily one of the most studious and precocious in our class both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. In the 1982/1983 session, Tunji suddenly decided to contest for the Students’ Union presidency. His campaign was a dazzling display of intellectual razzmatazz and philosophical exegesis. But that is not the stuff of politics Tunji learnt. He lost to an empty headed, sloganeering political buffoon  who turned out to be a colossal disaster and had to be impeached out of office. Today, Dr Tunji Olaopa, former Federal Permanent Secretary and now Executive Vice-Chairman, Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy, is one of Nigeria’s frontline academics, administrators and public intellectuals. His vivacious and no less brainy daughter, Opeyemi, got married to her heartthrob, Olanrewaju Omotosho, in an enthralling ceremony in Abuja on 15 and 17 December, 2016. Opeyemi, LL.B, B.L LL.M (Queen Mary, University of London) works in the Regulatory Division of the National Communication Commission (NCC). Olanrewaju, a Security Services Consultant, retired from the US Military service, where he served in Afghanistan and Iraq, among others, before relocating to Nigeria. It will be a fascinating home indeed. We wish the couple a union of marital florescence trumping this season of economic aridity. Blessings.