The Nation Newspaper

Category: Segun Ayobolu

  • Onyema Ugochukwu at 80: before their very eyes

    Onyema Ugochukwu at 80: before their very eyes

    Although published to commemorate the landmark 80th birthday in November this year of journalism icon, first class economist, accomplished administrator, polished politician and revered elder statesman, Chief Onyeama Ugochukwu, this collection of tributes actually contains reflections on the life and times of the subject at different critical epochs of his existential trajectory. Running into 319 pages and organized around eight sections, the book titled ‘Testaments and Testimonials: Celebrating Onyeama Ugochukwu at 80’, bears the trademark of exhaustive research and meticulous craftsmanship characteristic of its editor, Dr Tunde Olusunle’s style and flair. The 89 chapters that make up the book reflect diverse perspectives and insights into the character and values of a truly unique personality at the various arenas of life on which he has operated in both the private and public realms.

    There is no doubt that the central and defining essence of Chief Ugochukwu’s eight decades of existence on planet earth has been his journalism career which served as the launching pad to his latter attainments at higher levels of public service through politics, governance and statesmanship. The sheer array of stellar journalists across generational boundaries who pay glowing tributes to one of their very best in this collection is a function of the high esteem in which the former Editor of the Business Times, West Africa magazine in London and the then hegemonic Daily Times is held in the profession.

    Some of the brightest and best minds in journalism attest to his high intellect, impeccable ethical standards, exemplary industry, urbane cosmopolitanism and sheer charisma that defined his journalistic practice. Yet, rather than fuel an attitude of superior aloofness or dismissive arrogance, Ugochukwu combined these qualities with a simplicity and disarming modesty that inspired and encouraged others and refraining from intimidating or diminishing his associates.

    Some of the outstanding journalists and/or scholars who tell remarkable tales of their varying encounters with Ugochukwu in the book include Akogun Tola Adeniyi, John Araka, Lizzy Ikem, Lade Bonuola, Eniola Bello, Ayodele Akinkuotu, Lanre Idowu, Chidi Amuta, Olu Obafemi, Solomon Odemingwe, Segun Adeniyi, Femi Adeshina, Dan Agbese, Al-Bishak, Omar Farouk Ibrahim, G.G Darah, Angela Agoawike, Gboyega Okegbola, Emeka Nwosu, Tunde Rahman, Hakeem Bello, Martins Oloja, Dare Babarinsa, Idang Alibi, Felix Adenaike, Oluwole Olatimehin, and Gbenga Adeniyi to name a few. These are names that have carved enviable niches for themselves in different spheres of journalism or scholarship, are of divergent temperaments and outlooks but are agreed on the integrity and humaneness of the man in whose honour they write.

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    Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi, accomplished scholar and outstanding Managing Director of the Daily Times recounts graphically Ugochukwu’s critical contributions first as Editor of the Daily Times and later General Manager of the Times Publication Division, to the much lauded landmark revitalization and resurgence of the newspaper conglomerate’s titles under his leadership. One of the legends of Nigerian journalism, Mr Lade Bonuola, describes Ugochukwu as an exemplar noting that

    “No one feels old inside him. The body may wrinkle and it may begin to fold. It may be weak and the steps may be slow, aided by a walking stick; even then, everyone feels as he has always felt, ever young. Onyema is an example of an old young man: Young in the soul and fresh in the body. It is emblematic of a contented man and a loving soul who is ever holding himself in readiness for service. He is a friend to all, an enemy to none. Onyema Ugochukwu is on the last step of the staircase to enter the eighth floor of a chequered life. He did not use the elevator. He climbed and experienced every rung of the ladder!”.

    Paying the kind of tribute to journalism that Chief Obafemi Awolowo famously expounds on law in his autobiography, Bonuola submits that “All-rounded education which journalism provides as a newsroom is a school from where you don’t ever graduate! It impels you into constant reading, reading everything in print, as iconic Lateef Jakande was wont to say. In these days of technological wonders, whatever digital platform also has as its menu must be lapped up as well. Knowledge that is inherent in journalism, being currents driven by a market place of ideas, exposes the journalist to all manner of people. It thus gives one an insight into the nature and character of man, his fellow human beings if he is perceptive and alert. Journalism itself offers a stepping stone into another variant of public service: politics at the level of governorship and governance. Ugochukwu’s trajectory, therefore, begins with being an economist, then a journalist and an administrator in his eventful journey through life”.

    The story has often been told of how Chief Ugochukwu moved from being Editor of the Business Times in Lagos to become the first African to edit the West Africa magazine in London. But Mr Bonuola reveals some of the background dynamics that informed that development. According to him, “It was when he came to the Business Times that our paths crossed. We were to meet again during the planning and the debut of The Guardian in 1982-1983. He actually received a letter of appointment as associate editor to run the Economy and Business section of The Guardian. The appointment coincided with another offer he got at OPEC. When this was leaked to the management of the Daily Times, the management not wanting to lose him pulled a fast one on him. If what he wanted was to live overseas he could as well go to London to take up the editorship of West Africa Magazine in which the Daily Times had interest. When he returned to Nigeria upon the completion of his tour of duty in London, it was to assume office as the General manager, Publications, at the Daily Times. During his tenure the Daily Times recorded the stunning highest surplus in the annals of the company”.

    Politicians like Professor Tunde Adeniran, Senator Ben Obi, Chief Olusegun Runsewe, Chief Timi Alaibe and Eyo E. Nyong among others have fulsome praise for Ugochukwu’s graciousness, selflessness and lack of desperation as a politician. He ran an elevated campaign to be governor of Abia State on the platform of the PDP but moved on without bitterness when the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling of the Elections Petition Tribunal that he was the actual winner of the 2007 governorship election in the state. Other contributors reflect on his invaluable contributions to the electoral victory of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 as head of the campaign media team of a candidate that had a mostly rancorous relationship with the press.

    He played critical roles in managing the administration’s media relations after Obasanjo’s victory while also taking initiatives to overhaul national values as head of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in the administration. As pioneer Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC), he laid a firm foundation for the agency including drawing up an enduring master plan for the revolutionary transformation of the region. The kind of industrial scale corruption that later became a defining feature of the NDDC never reared its head under Ugochukwu’s leadership.

    This collection reveals that Chief Ugochukwu’s reputation is not just a matter of image laundering or public relations manipulations. For, contributions by close family members and leaders of his community demonstrate that his public conduct is predicated on values of care, compassion, integrity and fidelity in his private life. Describing Ugochukwu as ‘a quiet teacher’, a close relation of his wife, Dr (Mrs) Joyce Ugochukwu, Olamire Grant, writes

    “There are a few people that have a character worthy of emulating and, without any doubt, you are one of them. It was always a period of personal study of your personality for me whenever we were in close proximity. And I must say I took a lot away with me. You are a great example of an upright and humble man. And your ability to carry everyone along, as much as possible, is extraordinary.

    Happy 80th birthday uncle, with plenty of love, respect and admiration”.

    And his daughter, Dr (Mrs) Uzo Ugochukwu-Flake testifies that “Some of my favourite early memories of my father includes my brother, Chukwuemeka, and I sitting next to him as we would go through countries and capitals by spinning a globe and landing a target. Countries to which he had been, and coauntries to which he would eventually go. He instilled a love for knowledge in me, and inspired me to think beyond our shores. My father’s love of reading was also notable from a young age. It was not uncommon for him to disappear for hours, lost in a book. He fostered a love of reading and I have so many memories of going through random books in and the level of support I have received from him: getting through school, becoming a medical doctor, and finding my way to have a wonderful family. He may not have agreed with every decision but I knew he was always on my side and offered guidance in a caring manner.

    I have had many opportunities in my life that most never have, but through all this, one of my greatest privileges has been having Onyema Ugochukwu as my father and I am eternally grateful to God for blessing me with this remarkable, kind gentleman”.

    On behalf of the Ugboaja family, Ihuoma Tina writes that “You took over the mantle of total leadership and fatherhood when our father passed on and made sure we never missed him and stood up whenever the need arose. You believed in us even when we doubted ourselves, and your encouragement has helped us become better, either in our academic pursuits or in achieving excellence in our careers. Your wisdom and guidance have been invaluable throughout our lives. Your advice has helped us navigate life’s challenges and make important decisions. (When the young ones were desperate to get junior cadre jobs, you insisted that they must get higher and better qualifications so they can have better placements and be more productive and respected)”. As Nigeria grapples with an overly materialistic outlook that glamorizes wealth without industry and power without character, this book acquires added importance because it makes a vivid case for a life predicated on life-affirming values as the basis for a flourishing, thriving and wholesome society.

  • Professor Bene Madunagu: The woman who lives

    Professor Bene Madunagu: The woman who lives

    Nigerians have become amazingly numb and inured to shock as regards the astounding and ever increasing scale of corruption in the country and this is understandable. Hardly have we been dealt heavy blows by revelations of monumental theft of public funds by those in positions of trust who are custodians of such resources than yet another even more stupendous level of criminal raping of the public treasury is unveiled that dazes and baffles the imagination. Last week, for instance, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) sought and obtained a court order for the forfeiture of 753 duplexes in a choice area of Abuja allegedly procured by a former top public office holder through corruptly acquired funds.

    Although the anti-graft agency understandably was silent on the identity of the culprit since nobody showed up to claim ownership of the forfeited properties in the course of its investigations, the papers it filed in court to prosecute the case pointed unmistakably at the immediate past governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, who is currently undergoing trial for sundry acts of alleged corrupt enrichment and abuse of office.

    Of course, it is so easy to laugh at and deride the former CBN Czar over his current embattled fate; to assume a posture of superior self-righteous indignation implying that we would never descend to such levels of venality if we were in his shoes. But have we not seen too many instances of former anti-corruption activists and social critics who do not hesitate to feed greedily on public resources in an orgy of ravenous rapacity once they are opportune to occupy public office? Who indeed is qualified to throw the first stone at indicted public officers for corruption just like the Lord Jesus asked the Pharisees who sought to stone to death the woman caught in the very act of adultery in accordance with the law of Moses?

    The menace of corruption has become an epidemic under which the country has been haemorrhaging to death. It is fed by the fear of the appalling poverty from which many seek to extricate themselves and their future generations through outright looting of public funds. ‘Accumulate! Accumulate without end’ is the driving mantra as many strive to live up to the excessively materialistic value system that pervades contemporary Nigerian society.

    That is why those who have been caught and convicted – a minuscule minority – for engaging in what is difficult to distinguish from armed robbery utilizing the weapons of their public offices to gorge on public funds are treated as heroes and heroines in their communities, churches, mosques, social clubs and other circles of influence.

    I have always been intrigued by, admired and fascinated by those veritable paragons of virtue among us who refuse to descend into the cesspit and sewers of mindless material acquisition of public funds for themselves and their families. This is almost always invariably to the detriment of the rest of the vast majority of the society who sink deeper into the mire of poverty and immiseration. This category of Nigerians, mostly inspired by the vision of a socialist reorganization of society, are absolutely and unrepentantly committed to the struggle for a fairer, more just, less unequal and more equitable society where, given the depth of our resource-endowment, nobody should live in the kind of grueling poverty that millions of our people have no choice but to endure today.

    One of these spiritually and morally ‘beautyful’ ones (apologies to Ayi Kwei Armah), Professor (Mrs) Bene Edwin Madunagu, took her exit from this side of eternity on Tuesday, November 26, 2024, at the age of 77. Had she been some noisy and vulgar ‘socialite’ or emergency contractor moving around in convoys of luxury vehicles with official security cover to boot, her demise would have triggered clanging cymbals, sonorous ululations and grand perverse celebrations of a life of decadent opulence.

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    But Mummy Bene’s life was one characterized by virtue, character, integrity, compassion and empathy well lived for the benefit of humanity. Most certainly, long after the ‘living dead’ among us are gone and forgotten, the memory of this woman who, though departed, lives through a life of sacrifice, honour, decency, civility and dignity, shall resonate through the ages.

    Incidentally, I never met Professor Bene Madunagu personally but knew her by reputation. However, I had met and interacted with her husband, Dr Edwin Madunagu, the renowned mathematician, Marxist thinker, ardent revolutionary, fighter for social justice and compelling radical columnist both in person and by phone a number of times. Indeed, when she turned 70 on March 21, 2017, I wrote a review of a book of tributes in her honour edited by her husband, Dr Edwin Madunagu.

    The unflagging commitment of this couple to fighting for the poor and vulnerable, striving ceaselessly to banish poverty from Nigeria through revolutionary organization and action has never ceased to amaze me. For, the truth is that they were both first class scientific brains who could have pursued the accumulation of wealth in Nigeria or migrated to the numerous prestigious universities around the world where they would have been infinitely materially well off and professionally fulfilled than they were in Nigeria.

    Dr Edwin Madunagu is a brilliant PhD holder in Mathematics; a student of the great Professor Chike Obi at the University of Lagos. Professor Bene Madunagu holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Botany from the University of Lagos, a Master of Science degree in Mycology (Botany) from the University of Lagos and obtained a Doctorate degree in Phytopathology (Botany) from the University of Ibadan.

    Her courage, fortitude and tenacity are illustrated by the following narrative from one of her students and mentees. Both Dr Madunagu and Professor Bene had been dismissed along with 10 other academics by the military regime in Nigeria for their alleged roles in the “Ali must go” nationwide students protests of September 1978. One of her mentees reports that Professor Bene’s case was particularly harrowing because “Bene was instantly recalled from the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, where she had just begun a Ph.D programme on a fellowship. The fellowship was withdrawn, her salary stopped and her official quarters in the University sealed up. She was left stranded in London and had to be repatriated back to Calabar by the Nigerian Embassy”.

    The account continues, “Bene went to court to challenge her dismissal. She won the case, and almost simultaneously the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) forced the government to recall all the dismissed staff. Altogether she was outside the University for 32 months. Bene Madunagu was officially reinstated in April 1981”. Thereafter, she rose steadily through the ranks, became a Professor in 2000 and retired formally from the University in March 21, 2012, when she attained the age of 65.

    Among the groups and organizations through which she did mobilization and revolutionary work by playing leadership roles between 1973 and 1998 were Nigerian Youth Action Committee (NYAC), Society for Progress (SOPRO), Anti-Poverty Movement of Nigeria (APMON); Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Nigeria (REMLON); Calabar Group of Socialists (CGS); Women in Nigeria (WIN), Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and Movement of Peoples Democracy (MPD) to name a few. In 1993, she established and became Chair of the Executive Board of a Nigerian Non-Governmental Organization, the Girls Power Initiative (GPI) “to inform and educate girls of ages 10-18 years about their sexuality, their sexual and reproductive health and rights”.

    Professor Bene Madunagu writes and speaks with clarity and force about the multidimensional character of exploitation and oppression in Nigeria engaging in scathing critiques of their class, gender and other manifestations. In a paper presented to a group in 1985, for instance, she submitted that “There are some forms of oppression imposed on the working and toiling people of Nigeria by the neo-colonial (or peripheral) capitalist structure of the economy. On the most general (i.e abstract) level, working and toiling people of both sexes suffer these forms of oppression. This, we think, is the correct starting point for the consideration of the specific oppression of women in our society”.

    The Madunagus were a unique couple both in their joint and individual commitment to the cause of equity and justice in Nigeria and their participation in selfless struggles over decades against debilitating and dehumanizing poverty in Nigeria. Their fellow comrade and close friend, Professor Biodun Jeyifo, vividly captures the essence of their relationship thus, “If it is undeniable that part of the identity of Bene Madunagu derives from the fact that she is the wife of Eddie Madunagu, it is equally true that Bene stands so completely in her own shoes and in so many diverse areas of life that one can equally say that Eddie Madunagu derives part of his identity from being the husband of Bene”.

    And shedding further light on an aspect of their relationship in his tribute to his wife at 70, Edwin Madunagu writes, “All major decisions in our organizational, political, professional, occupational, financial and family lives since 1975 have been taken together and executed together- sometimes with one person above ground and the other underground. Beyond this, everything that can be called property (which, excluding literary acquisition is very limited) is collectively owned in a largely revolutionary sense – with the formal and legal ownership residing with Bene”. What utterly fascinating and awe-inspiring selflessness!

    As we said earlier, the Madunagus possess the requisite skills, intellects, energy, creativity, opportunities and dynamism to have successfully sought to accumulate as much wealth as they wanted for themselves and future generations of their families. They opted to live self-abnegating lives giving their today for the tomorrow of the disadvantaged, poor and downtrodden.

    Other such unrecognized and little appreciated treasures who constitute preservative salt of the Nigerian earth include such heroes of the Nigerian masses as Bade Onimode, Eskor Toyo, Comrade Ola Oni, Baba Omojola, comrade Michael Imoudu, Bala Usman, Dipo Fashina, Okwudiba Nnoli, Raji Abdullah, Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, Beko Ransome Kuti, Alao Aka Basorun, Kayode Komolafe, Owei Lakemfa, , Tayo Olorode, Ibrahim Imam, Ikenna Nzimiro, Aminu Kano, Balarabe Musa, Bala Mohammed, Biodun Jeyifo, Segun Osoba, Gambo Sawaba, Mokogwu Okoye, Marshall Kebby, Omafume Onange, Ehiedu Iweirebo , Margaret Ekpo, Mahmoud Tukur, Jubrin Ibrahim, Segun Sango, Lanre Arogundade, Frank Kokori among several other progressive and pro-poor intellectuals and activists of the Nigerian people. Such selfless heroes and heroines do not die. They live on in history through the human memory down the ages. May Professor Bene Madunagu’s soul Rest In Peace.

  • Petroleum and Nigeria’s underdevelopment conundrum

    Petroleum and Nigeria’s underdevelopment conundrum

    Once again, we are back to where we have all too often found ourselves in our developmental trajectory nearly six and half decades after the attainment of flag independence. I refer to the return of fuel scarcity, the resultant long queue of vehicles at fuel stations in towns and cities across the country with dire consequences for economic productivity, the inexplicable hide-and-seek game by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) on the root cause of the problem before its belated admittance of its humongous indebtedness to oil marketers and, again, another round of increase in the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) signaling further negative implications for inflationary spirals. I have lost count of the number of times that the pump price of fuel has been raised since my youth as successive administrations purport to remove a seemingly never-ending subsidy attendant on the continuous exportation of crude oil with which the country is abundantly blessed and the importation of refined petroleum at humongous cost.

    In the run up to the last presidential election, the major presidential candidates all pledged to remove the subsidy which one of them, Peter Obi, claimed he would do on day one if elected, describing the scheme as an elaborate scam. Yet, with President Bola Tinubu taking the decision on his inauguration on May 29, last year, to remove the subsidy, an unpopular policy option his predecessor had kicked down the line, his defeated opponents in the last election – Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi- have opted to play politics with the issue grandstanding that they could have pursued a different path. In truth, the country had hardly any room for maneuver. A sinister and cynical cabal had seized on the inexcusable non-functioning of local refineries for decades to turn the importation of refined petroleum into an expansive criminal self-enrichment enterprise.

    The option of the government continuing to bridge the gap between the combined associated costs of fuel importation and the relatively affordable price it was sold to consumers was unsustainable. The government had had to resort to incurring humongous debts in foreign loans to fund its operations with sizable amounts of dwindling total revenues dedicated to debt servicing.

    But at the time President Tinubu announced the ‘final’ removal of the subsidy, the new administration was not totally in the picture as regards the sharp decline in volume of crude oil production due to industrial scale oil theft, the large amounts of crude oil that had been sold upfront in the futures market with the revenue collected and expended in advance and, of course, the deceptive illusion of expectations that the Port Harcourt refinery would be functional by April 2024 as repeatedly confidently affirmed by chief executives of the NNPCL. The new target date of the Port Harcourt refinery commencing local refining and sale of fuel was set for August and yet we are now in September and there is no indication of the pledge being redeemed anytime soon. Remarkably, the NNPCL celebrated its achieving what it considered to be an appreciable level of profitability in the last financial year only for its huge indebtedness to oil marketers responsible for the current acute scarcity of fuel across the country to be made public. Is this not a contradiction in terms – high profitability co-existing with humongous indebtedness?

    Only the mischievous and crassly partisan would blame the a little over one year in office Tinubu administration for the complications, challenges, and mostly self-inflicted woes of the petroleum industry and the associated sufferings inflicted on the Nigerian people as exemplified, for example, by the fresh fuel price increases. Yet, the administration must take it as a cardinal responsibility to undertake a surgical organizational procedure on the NNPCL to sanitize and reposition the company to offer productive service to the Nigerian people. The NNPCL should not be immune from the kind of forensic audit conducted on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in the aftermath of Godwin Emefiele’s reign of impunity for which he is currently facing the due process of law.

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    Despite the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and the purported transition of the oil behemoth into a private company, its operations and processes are widely believed to be as opaque as ever. Some experts contend, for instance, that the cost of producing a barrel of crude oil in Nigeria is the highest in the world. The controversial but knowledgeable Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has publicly averred that the efforts of the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, and the CBN governor, Mr Olayemi Cardoso, cannot bear optimum fruit without a more transparent operation of the NNPCL and a more accurate data on the country’s crude oil sales and attendant revenues.

    The quagmire in which our petroleum industry finds itself today was quite avoidable had the country’s leaders at various times listened to and worked more closely with Nigeria’s conscientious and patriotic progressive intellectuals. For instance, as far back as 12th February, 1971, the late Dr Bala Usman had, in a paper titled ‘Petroleum in the Economy of Nigeria’ had undertaken an incisive analysis of the problems and prospects of an industry so critical to the country’s development. As he put it then, “All the proposals and plans for post-war Nigeria are based on certain assumptions about our oil. From the government which, according to its Commissioner of Finance, expects a revenue of several hundred million, to the foreign businessmen licking their lips and assuring us of our rosy economic future, to the ordinary man and woman – oil has become a basis for optimism about the future. This widespread awareness of our wealth in oil is combined with gross ignorance about the operations of the petroleum industry and its international context.”

    It is the unfortunate truth that ignorance about the operations of the country’s petroleum industry including the actual amount of crude oil extracted from the bowels of our earth and sold as exports by the oil multinationals has persisted for the most part of our post-independence history. In his submission over five decades ago, Bala Usman had pointed out not only the impunity of the international oil companies in their mode of operation in the country but even the reckless flaring of gas which he had identified as a major problem even then. In his words, “Put against the great potentialities of the oil industry as a generator of both industrial and agricultural growth in the whole of our country, what we have gained so far from the industry is paltry. The government in the seven years 1958 to 1966 received a sum of £68.7 million, cash, since that time this sum might now total up £150 million. A few Nigerians (actually about 5,000) have got jobs, mostly semi-skilled and unskilled. A few contractors have made a fortune. But the price of petroleum products from petrol and kerosene to fertilizer, drugs and nylon have gone up. The crude oil is sucked out of our sub-soil, piped straight to the tankers and taken straight to Britain and Western Europe to feed their expanding refineries and petrochemical works and fuel their industries”.

    Of course, there is a lot that has changed in the petroleum industry terrain since Bala Usman penned those words. It has generated much higher revenues for the economy over the years but the developmental impact of this has been mitigated by astronomical corruption. The Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas Company (NLNG) has emerged as a viable, profitably and relatively efficiently run company indicating better utilization of the country’s gas resources and with many suggesting this as a model for the NNPCL to follow. To some extent, the current travails of the petroleum industry are also partly a function of the perhaps inevitable politicization of what ought to be essentially purely technical economic public policy issues. On the decision to construct the Kaduna refinery, for instance, Cliff Edogun, in his study, ‘The structure of state capitalism in the Nigerian petroleum industry’, noted that “The issue was whether another expensive refinery situated hundreds of kilometers from crude source was necessary, especially when the mode of withdrawal was to depend on pipelines that are vulnerable and subject to sabotage. The technocrats were arguing for cost-saving but the bureaucrats concluded that it would be politically expedient to site a refinery in Kaduna to justify federal character”.

    The roll out of locally refined petrol this week by Dangote Industries Limited is good news from an embattled sector but the much sought-after relief that this is expected to provide consumers may not be immediately forthcoming due to continued inefficiencies and opacity in the industry as well as complications associated with the interplay of market forces. Beyond this, how much of the monumental Dangote Refinery is reflective of local knowledge and domestic mastery of the industry’s technology thus stimulating confidence in Nigeria’s enhanced capacity to autonomously optimize its potentials for the country’s future transformation?

    Even as we daily suffer from our incapacity to refine crude oil locally, we read and see daily in the media how security agencies ceaselessly destroy hundreds of illegal refineries operated by enterprising locals to refine the commodity admittedly in a rudimentary and crude manner. But can’t they be empowered with the requisite skills to refine the crude more professionally and thus add their output to our legal stock of local capacity? I recall once again the words of the late Professor Pius Okigbo at the First Obafemi Awolowo Foundation Dialogue in 1993 that during the civil war, the Biafran scientific community, among other feats, “succeeded in building out of entirely locally fabricated materials a giant petroleum refining facility and thereby made the technology so diffuse and more universally understood and applied than anywhere else in the world”. Surely this should not be unattainable rocket science to us in today’s Nigeria.

    •This piece was first

    published September 7, 2024

  • The PBAT administration and the national question

    The PBAT administration and the national question

    This is one of the most critical periods in the history of Nigeria particularly since the commencement of this dispensation in 1999. The old Nigeria, sustained largely on fuel subsidies that had become hardly sustainable and parallel exchange rate markets that bred criminal and humongous accumulation by a privileged elite, is dying. A new Nigeria is struggling to be born under the midwifery of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration which has introduced far-reaching reforms to correct fuel subsidy and exchange rate distortions, with painful birth pang consequences for the populace.

    Sections of the citizenry have severely criticized international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, which have endorsed the economic policies of the administration as being essentially on the right course and admonished that current hardships manifesting in inflationary spirals in food, healthcare, fuel, transportation, and electricity costs among others, be borne as a necessary condition for the economy transitioning to a more productive and prosperous phase. Beyond reflexive ideological opposition to the reforms, perceived in some quarters as IMF and World Bank inspired, there have been little of alternative pragmatic and realistic policy offerings to transform the nation’s economic course and unleash her latent potentials, by vehement anti-reform voices.

    Meanwhile, the administration continues to intensify its efforts to make palliatives available to cushion the sufferings of the most vulnerable sections of the populace while an increasing number of state governments are channeling their significantly enhanced revenues as a result of the fuel subsidy removal to ameliorate the plight of substantial numbers of their people. It is important that the federal government periodically briefs the public on the impact the various amounts it has channeled to micro, small, and medium enterprises are making towards boosting their operational and job-generating capacities.

    It is only natural and understandable that at a time of harsh economic hardships such as the country is currently experiencing, challenges around the national question will become more accentuated with some anguished voices questioning the rationality, desirability, and utility of our continued national coexistence. This is particularly so against the background of the intensively competitive and contentious nature of the last presidential elections, the outcome of which some are yet to come to terms.

    The national question refers essentially to the conditions for and dilemmas arising from the exigencies of diverse ethnocultural groups cohabiting in a complex, plural polity like Nigeria. Only recently, the Yoruba ultranationalist gadfly, Sunday Igboho, led a seemingly theatrical procession to No 10 Downing Street in London in a quixotic quest to seek support for what was described as the desire of the Yoruba to exit Nigeria. The group has not responded to queries on what confers legitimacy on it to speak for the Yoruba and at which forum such a mandate was given.

    On its part, the most clamorous and insistent voice for the secession of a part from Nigeria, the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), has apparently modified its strategies, for now, to secure the release of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, from detention from where he is currently facing trial for treason. There is no guarantee that should it succeed in this endeavor, IPOB will not return to its erstwhile uncompromising and sometimes violent campaign for the secession of eastern Nigeria even though the degree of its support base among the Igbo people is difficult to ascertain.

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    Given his antecedents not only as a pro-democracy activist but even more a fierce advocate for true federalism and the affirmation of state rights as governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007, there are those who expected a radical disposition to the resolution of the national question by President Bola Tinubu. The President has however been quite cautious and tentative on the issue since his assumption of office and the reasons are understandable. For one, he is the custodian of a national electoral mandate comprising disparate political constituencies with divergent attitudes, understandings, and orientations to the national question. His must consequently be a balancing act, particularly in a democratic context in which his party needs broad pan-Nigerian support to retain power at the centre.

    If there was any doubt about the unwavering commitment of the President and his administration to Nigeria’s continued cohesion, the Minister of Defense, who was a former governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, dispelled any such notion at a recent peace meeting among feuding communities in Plateau State. Reaffirming the indivisibility of the country and the unwillingness of the federal government to permit any form of balkanization, the Minister said, “The federal government will not entertain such demand capable of causing division and disaffection among Nigerians. Therefore, living together is not an option but an obligation. This is evident in Mr. President’s resolve to fight any secessionist agenda in any part of the country. My presence here is to fulfill my mandate as the Minister charged with the responsibility for the protection of our national territory both from external and internal aggression. Therefore, I will not relent until the Federal Government and the Ministry of Defence deploy all assets to ensure our people sleep with their eyes closed”.

    There is nothing new or strange about Badaru’s submission. An elected government does not have the mandate to endorse the balkanization of the country. Referring to his oath of office to defend the territorial integrity of the United States, President Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural speech on March 4,1861, bluntly told those seeking to secede that “In your hands my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not mine, is the momentous issue of civil war…You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect and defend it’”. Continuing, he argued that “Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism”.

    However, the PBAT administration must not create the impression that the component parts of the country are being kept together by compulsion and the force of arms. It is a far more costly and ultimately unsustainable approach to nation building. Rather, the idea of Nigeria must be made such an attractive and mutually beneficial proposition that its components will not only willingly and proudly identify with it but will also be at the forefront of voluntarily defending its continuity.

    Current disaffections with Nigeria by diverse groups stem essentially from the steadily worsening economic crisis of the last two and a half decades and the deepening impoverishment of the vast majority of the people. This is why PBAT struck the right note when he recently told a delegation of the eminent group, The Patriots, which visited him that his priority was seeing his economic reforms through before dealing with their demand for a new constitution.

    Of course, the administration must pay attention to the need to amend or reform those aspects of the extant constitution that hamper optimal economic productivity and efficiency, particularly of the sub-national units just as it has done with seeking greater financial autonomy for local government councils. But its central focus must be strengthening and fine-tuning its economic policies until the economy turns the tide and begins to deliver prosperity and dignified living standards for the vast majority of Nigerians.

    At the root of dilemmas posed by the national question are the economic problems of pervasive poverty, debilitating inequality, widespread ignorance and illiteracy, mass youth unemployment, desperate hunger, corrosive disease, chronic infrastructure deficit, inadequate and inaccessible power supply among others. As Chief Obafemi Awolowo asserted with characteristic perspicacity over five decades ago, “My case then is that, in order to keep Nigeria harmoniously united, and, at the same time, fulfill the natural, ultimate, supreme, and inalienable purpose of that unity, the present and future rulers of this country must place the most crucial emphasis on, and attach the utmost importance to, the advancement of the economic prosperity and social well-being of the individual Nigerian citizens”.

    Apart from staying the course in the implementation of its core economic reforms, the PBAT administration must also urgently address ancillary issues that have implications for the economy. For instance, if the cultural, psychological, bureaucratic and structural impediments to the speedy implementation of state police are proving difficult to surmount, the administration should fast-track its promised establishment of well-equipped, trained, and motivated forest rangers to protect farmlands and farmers across the country and help boost agricultural productivity to stem current food costs spirals.

    Again, the anti-graft agencies should be further motivated and spurred not only to proactively prevent corruption but also to trace and retrieve humongous amounts of stolen funds in private hands. The President has shown a commendable sensitivity to public opinion in his recent cost-cutting reforms to the machinery of government and reshuffling of his administration’s personnel. It is a path that should be maintained and intensified.

  • Thoughts and non thoughts of OBJ

    Thoughts and non thoughts of OBJ

    So pungent, incisive, convincing and irrefutable have been the several reactions to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s recent address at Yale University in the United States in which he not only excoriated the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration but, characteristically, held his own leadership record up as the ideal to follow, that there is no need to reiterate the well known arguments here. Sermonizing endlessly on the ills plaguing Nigeria and magisterially pronouncing solutions to them has been the routine pastime of the former military head of state and then elected President for two terms despite the fact that he did not avail himself of his latter day wisdom when he had the opportunity to steer the affairs of Nigeria and shape the destiny of the nation.

    The truth of the matter is that the Owu Chief, perhaps more than any other past leader, cannot escape culpability for the state of Nigeria today – her continued underdevelopment and poverty despite an abundance of natural, mineral and relatively qualitative Human Resources. Had he seized the opportunities placed on his laps seemingly on a golden platter to steer Nigeria’s ship of State particularly between 1999 and 2007 to deepen the country’s federal practice, diversify the economy, lay the foundation for the modernization and expansion of key infrastructure, revamp the country’s security architecture, institutionalize electoral integrity through the conduct of credible polls and pay more than lip service to the fight against corruption, the trajectory of the country’s socioeconomic and political development would be far different from what it is today.

    In his book, ‘Not My Will’, a personal memoir of his years in power as military Head of State between 1976 and 1979, Obasanjo, with characteristic lack of charity, derided the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo asserting that what the legendary politician and statesman had sought in futility all his life, which was to be elected President of Nigeria, he (Obasanjo) had attained at a relatively young age. Yet, he did not address his mind to the critical issue of whether or not he had maximally utilize this opportunity to pursue and promote the best interest of Nigeria and her accelerated developmental transformation. His military regime’s political transition programme ushered in a civilian dispensation in 1979 that was one of the most venal, corrupt and inept leading to the collapse of the Second Republic and the return of military rule within four years. Given another opportunity to redeem himself as elected President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007, Obasanjo demonstrated that he had learnt nothing from his past foray in power.

    In his address at an event to honour the memory of the great novelist and intellectual, Chinua Achebe, at Yale University, Obasanjo’s unsparing criticism descended heavily on the incumbent Tinubu administration in the same way that he had subjected every government to since his exit from power in 2007. It little occurred to him, as many analysts have pointed out, that the naturally reticent Achebe was forced to trenchantly criticize bad and lawless governance under the Obasanjo presidency and even rejected the national honour bestowed on him by the Ota farmer as a gesture of symbolic protest.

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    Some have attributed the former President’s relentless criticisms of successive administrations after him to a desire to be the focus of attention as well as the urge to portray his administration as the best in this dispensation if not in the post-independence history of Nigeria. Unfortunately, any such pretensions fly in the face of indisputable facts and cannot be supported by objective, serious minded analysis. It is my view that the former President’s serial critiques of Nigeria’s political economy under successive administrations and habitual indulgence in self-glorification stem from an innate lack of capacity to transcend superficiality in analysis as evidenced by the ephemerality of most of his books in which he makes magisterial pronouncements that have minimal impact on the polity because they are hardly deeply reasoned and well thought out. This is in sharp contradistinction to the immortal thoughts and works of Awolowo that still remain pertinent and relevant to Nigeria’s quest for a viable socioeconomic and political order decades after they were written.

    For instance, Obasanjo loves to flaunt his self-proclaimed patriotism and incomparable love for Nigeria. Yet, from his conduct when he had the opportunity to preside over the country’s affairs, there was no indication that he had reflected deeply on what patriotism really means beyond mere cliches and empty sentimentality. For instance, when a 20-man delegation of the League of Northern Democrats led by a former Governor of Kano State, Ibrahim Shekarau, visited him in Abeokuta recently, the former President reiterated once again his fabled love for Nigeria. In his words, “You said I am a believer in the greatness of this country. Yes, I am. I am also an incurable optimist in this country. I am totally committed to the goodness of this country. But I believe if we look back and we want to be sincere with ourselves, we can see some of the mistakes of the past which we must not fall into again”.

    But it is no less a person than Chinua Achebe who gives us an insight into the shallowness of Obasanjo’s understanding of patriotism and love for country. On page 15 of his slim but powerful classic, ‘The Trouble with Nigeria’, Achebe writes, “In 1978 or 79 General Obasanjo paid an official visit to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Of the academic community assembled in the Niger Room of the Continuing Education Centre and which rose respectfully to its feet on his entry, General Obasanjo made a totally unexpected demand. He asked them to recite the national pledge! A few ambiguous mumbles followed, and then stony silence. “You see,” said the General bristling with hostility, “You do not even know the National Pledge”. No doubt he saw in this failure an indictable absence of patriotism among a group he had always held with great suspicion”.

    Achebe then goes on to dilate lucidly on patriotism. His words, “Who is a patriot? He is a person who loves his country. He is not a person who says he loves his country. He is not even a person who shouts or swears or recites or sings his love for his country. He is one who cares deeply about the happiness and well-being of his country and all its people. Patriotism is an emotion of love directed by a critical intelligence. A true patriot will always demand the highest standards of his country and accept nothing but the best for and from his people. He will be outspoken in condemnation of their shortcomings without giving way to superiority, despair or cynicism. That is my idea of a patriot”. It is thus obvious that Obasanjo’s address at Yale and his several scurrilous denunciations of previous administrations both of the PDP and APC fall far short of Achebe’s thoughtful and exacting standards of patriotism.

    In the same address to the League of Northern Democrats, Obasanjo spoke on the vexed issue of Igbo presidency which is yet to be a reality in the country. According to him, “I think all of us in Nigeria have to rethink…It bleeds my heart when people say because the Igbo had carried out a secession and so an Igbo man cannot be the President of Nigeria. I say what nonsense? There is no section of Nigeria that has not planned secession? What is “Araba” in the North? The North planned to break up Nigeria…What is treasonable felony? So, who among us can say I am better than the other? None!”.

    In the first place, it is untrue that there is no part of the country that has not planned a secession. There were certainly tensions in the relationship between various parts of the country leading to threats and heated exchanges at various times which is natural in a complex, plural polity like ours. But it is only the Igbo of the Southeast that had actually carried out the threat of secession, an attempt that was militarily crushed after three years of bloody conflagration. Even then, I am unaware as Obasanjo posits that anybody worth taking seriously has ever suggested that an Igbo man cannot be President of Nigeria because of the abortive secession attempt. Indeed, as I have previously said in this column, within nine years of the end of the civil war, an Igbo man, Dr Alex Ekwueme, had become the Vice President of Nigeria. There is every possibility that within the dynamics of democratic politics an Igbo man would have since become President of Nigeria but for the truncation of democracy by military intervention in 1983.

    In the last presidential election, Mr Peter Obi, directed his campaign mainly at his fellow Igbo as well as Christians of the North and South and his support base was restricted to that limited constituency which cannot deliver a presidential victory in a vast country like Nigeria. A candidate who engaged in church tourism campaigns and openly called on Christians to “take back your country” understandably did not win a single state in the core Muslim North which constitutes at least one half of the electorate. In any case, if Obasanjo is so passionate about Igbo presidency, why did he emerge from nowhere to snatch the PDP presidential ticket from Dr Ekwueme in 1998 with the support of retired northern Generals even when Ekwueme, one of the founding fathers of the PDP, was on course to winning the ticket?

    Reporting Obasanjo’s address to the visiting League of Northern Democrats, The Punch newspaper wrote, “The former President blamed regionalism as practiced before obtaining independence in October 1960 as the foundation of the country’s prolonged lack of cohesion, adding that “the truth is that at independence, Nigeria emerged with three leaders and so it is a situation of three countries in one ever since”. Again, it does not appear that this submission is a reflection of rigorous thought.

    For one, it is simplistic to base an analysis of post-independence Nigerian politics on the three major ethnic groups when ethnic minorities have increasingly asserted their influence within the polity. Again, it is as misleading to blame the regional structure of the first republic for the collapse of democracy in 1966 just as it is to proffer a return to regionalism as the solution to current challenges. Rather than regionalism per se being the problem with the First Republic, it was the attempt by the ruling NPC/NCNC coalition at the centre to forcibly seize control of the Western Region from the Action Group (AG) and impose an unpopular Ladoke Akintola of the NNDP on the region through the brazen massive rigging of the 1965 Western Regional elections that ignited the flames of anarchy in the region which then had national implications bringing down the democratic edifice on everybody.

    Obasanjo lectured his northern visitors to the effect that “Yes, you have identified your group as the League of Northern Democrats, but how I wish you had called your group National League of Democrats, because where you come from should not be a problem. Where I was born should not be the enemy of my ‘Nigerianess’. I will be increasing by being a Nigerian rather than being a member of the Republic of Oodua”. This is hardly realistic. When asked to respond to allegations that he was a tribalist during his campaign for the presidency in 1979, Chief Awolowo submitted that he could not be a good Yoruba man without first and foremost being a good and responsible indigene of Ikenne and that he could not claim to be a good and patriotic Nigerian without first being a good and responsible Yoruba man. This sounds eminently sensible, practical and honest to me. The point, as the Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, was said to have told the great Zik is not to deny our differences but to understand them.

  • PBAT, governance and the poverty question

    PBAT, governance and the poverty question

    When the group of eminent Nigerian statesmen and leaders known as ‘The Patriots’ visited President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja recently, the Chief Emeka Anyaoku-led association urged the President to pursue as a matter of urgency the drawing up of a new constitution for the country predicated on a fundamental restructuring of the polity. In response, the President did not disagree with his August visitors but said the immediate priority of his administration was to see through its far-reaching economic reforms to elevate the country to a new pedestal of productivity and prosperity.

    Speaking this week as the Chairman at the launch of a new biography of renowned academic, diplomat, and administrator, Professor Jide Osuntokun, Chief Anyaoku, a former General Secretary of the Commonwealth, reiterated the view that the extant 1999 Constitution is at the root of Nigeria’s protracted multidimensional crises. Unless there was a fundamental change from the constitution and a return to the regional constitution of the first republic, which he considered more in tune with federal practice and the country’s complex cultural realities, Chief Anyaoku was of the view that not even angels presiding over Nigeria would succeed in extricating her from the current existential predicament.

    Of course, this point of view ignores the fact that the much romanticized 1963 Constitution could not prevent the massive corruption, political intolerance, rabid ethnicity, divisive regionalism, blatant election rigging, and brazen disregard for democratic norms that resulted not just in the collapse of the first republic in January 1966 but ultimately led the country down the slope of destructive civil war between 1967 and 1970.

    The ills we complain about in Nigeria today under the current Constitution were thus already prevalent in the first republic even if they have naturally expanded in scope and intensity in post-first republic Nigeria including this dispensation since 1999. It would thus appear that the more fundamental challenge we confront is that of a perverse and dysfunctional political culture which will sabotage and undermine any constitution no matter how elegantly and meticulously crafted. Just as the change from the parliamentary to the presidential constitution in 1979 did not eliminate the negative behavioral traits of political actors that continue to taint Nigeria’s politics and jeopardize her development, the adoption of a new constitution is no magic wand to usher in the Eldorado that idealists dream of.

    In any case, while it is easy to advocate the abrogation of the 1999 Constitution, there is no reasonable consensus on what type of legal framework and attendant political structure should replace it. That is partly why this column agrees with the Tinubu administration’s decision to prioritize its ongoing restructuring of the economy to create the material basis for a more stable and equitable political order rather than squander valuable time and resources on constitutional engineering adventurism with indeterminate and unpredictable outcomes.

    Central to the administration’s economic reform agenda are the twin policies of removal of fuel subsidy as well as the merger of hitherto existing parallel exchange rate markets, both of which had facilitated the criminal enrichment of a privileged few to the detriment of the public good. Unfortunately, these policies have occasioned existential hardships for millions of Nigerians arising largely from inflationary spirals affecting essential food items, essential drugs and healthcare as well as fuel, transportation, electricity and other costs among others.

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    Writing on the current hardships attendant on these reforms, a popular media scholar and columnist recently quoted at length President Tinubu’s arguments in opposition to fuel subsidy removal in 2012 when he was the country’s foremost opposition leader. He averred that nothing had changed fundamentally to warrant the President now implementing the same policy on assuming the country’s apex leadership position. But the Nigeria of 12 years ago is not that of today. As of 2012, the country was earning far much more from oil revenues while also exporting amounts of crude oil far in excess of today’s crude oil productivity levels. Unfortunately, such revenue bounty was not leveraged on to make the country’s comatose refineries functional, rehabilitate and expand critical infrastructure, promote economic restructuring and diversification or enhance self-reliance in diverse sectors.

    During the campaigns for the 2023 presidential elections, there had been a consensus across partisan political lines that the fuel subsidy in particular must go. The presidential candidates of the major political parties all committed themselves to the removal of the subsidy. This decision was informed among others by the reality of substantial revenue shortfalls, soaring indebtedness, unsustainable debt-servicing to revenue ratios and dearth of funds for the provision of critical infrastructure without which there could be no meaningful economic recovery of future development.

    Many economic analysts contend that the administration’s courage in making hard policy choices that successive administrations had refrained from is already yielding positive dividends. These include the attraction of foreign investments worth over $30 billion in less than two years, near-tripling of the revenue earnings of the various tiers of government, achieving a favorable trade balance of N6.5 trillion in the second quarter of 2024, growing the country’s foreign reserves to over $40 billion, reducing debt-servicing to revenue ratio from over 90% to about 60%, doubling the minimum wage from N30,000 to between N70,000 and N85,000, increasing the nation’s daily crude production by one million barrels to 1.8 million barrels per day and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) collecting total revenues of N5.97 trillion from January to November 12, 2024 surpassing its 2024 target of N5.07 trillion. All of these are indicative of an economy gradually emerging from distress with positive signs for the future despite current excruciating hardships.

    However, without losing focus of its long-term economic growth objectives, the PBAT administration must also treat as an emergency the high poverty levels that have become a threat to social harmony and national stability. It is obvious that the removal of fuel subsidy has negatively impacted more sectors than was envisaged by many before the implementation of the policy. One of the sectors most seriously affected with painful consequences for millions of Nigerians is agriculture. Prices of food staples such as yam, rice, maize, beans, eggs, poultry, fish, vegetables, pepper, tomatoes and groundnut oil among others have soared beyond reach.

    While experts predict bountiful harvest in the near future given current policy initiatives, it is believed that more concerted efforts can be taken to crash food prices in the short term. The food crisis can be utilized as an opportunity to mobilize and organize idle youths back to the land across the country to engage in massive food production. A few months ago, the Southwest Governors Forum announced with fanfare that states in the region would work in concert to boost agricultural productivity and food availability. Unfortunately, not much more has been heard of this effort despite the abundant fertile land available for farming that was the mainstay of the region’s economy in the first republic.

    Incidentally, the First Lady, Senator (Mrs) Oluremi Tinubu is showing an example for others to follow through various programmes of her Renewed Hope Initiative to promote and support farming among women and youths. Again, the impact of the waiving of duties on the importation of some essential food items is yet to be felt and the appropriate authorities must investigate why this is so with a view to expediting action on achieving concrete results in this area. Urgently boosting agricultural productivity and food availability to drastically bring down prices both through local farming and imports is key to decisively tackling the larger challenge of poverty.Considerably reduced food prices which more people can buy will minimize the need to resort to palliatives distribution which with few exceptions reach only a negligible number of people.

    Again, given the demonstrated impact of fuel prices across the economy, the NNPCL cannot continue to offer excuses on why domestic refineries under its control remain dormant while the Dangote Refinery, on which so much hope was invested, is having minimal impact on fuel prices despite coming on stream. It is critical to find out why the initiative of paying for crude supply in Naira and the stoppage of all importation of refined petroleum as announced by the NNPCL is not being felt both in terms of fuel prices and pressure on the exchange rate. Perhaps the NNPCL and the petroleum industry as a whole is in need of the kind of forensic auditing carried out at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), an exercise that has eliminated opacity, enhanced transparency and minimized opportunities for corrupt enrichment at the apex bank.

    When talking about poverty alleviation and the hardships in the country, the focus tends to be mostly on the federal government and the President in particular. While accruals to the states from the Federation Account have more than doubled since the removal of fuel subsidy, most of the sub-national units of government are not making the desired impact in terms of meaningfully alleviating the poverty of their people. True, some have argued that the rate of inflation and devaluation of the Naira have eroded much of the value of the Naira revenues to the states. Yet, the National Economic Council (NEC) which is a critical economic policy making body to which all governors belong can do much more in terms of peer review of the governors and ensuring improved service delivery to their people in consonance with the quantum of revenue available to them.

    Despite the empowerment of states to generate and distribute electricity within their domains for instance, why are efforts not being exerted in this direction by more states apart from Lagos given the key role of electricity supply in mitigating poverty levels? One of the positive developments under the PBAT administration is the resurgence of a body like the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) under the leadership of Mr Tunji Bello to curb price fixing, price gouging and practices injurious to fair competition. The unethical antics of unscrupulous middlemen also contribute to the unrealistically high prices of many commodities.

  • Missing links in the’T-Pain’ narrative

    Missing links in the’T-Pain’ narrative

    Last month, on October 10 specifically, former Vice President and serial losing contender for Nigeria’s presidency, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, referred to President Bola Tinubu as ‘T-Pain’ in a statement on his ‘X’ handle criticizing the handling of the removal of fuel subsidy and the undeniably painful consequences of the major economic reform policy for the majority of the population. Atiku borrows from current fashionable social media labeling of President Tinubu as ‘T-Pain’ on account of the harsh impact on living conditions of the far-reaching economic reform policies of the latter’s administration without demonstrating a capacity to rise above the shallow superficiality, careless over generalization and sheer lack of rigour that characterizes much of what passes as discourse on social media.

    The ‘T-Pain’ labeling of President Tinubu insinuates that the current economic crisis began and was instigated by the Tinubu administration particularly through its attempts at key structural reforms that have had excruciating implications for living standards for millions of Nigerians. But was the former subsidy on fuel resulting in humongous amounts of illicit funds accumulating in a few private pockets and the attendant ever increasing indebtedness of the Nigerian state sustainable?

    Could this administration have continued with a parallel foreign exchange management system that enabled a microscopic number of well-connected persons buy foreign exchange at relatively low official rates only to sell and make obscene profits at the unofficial market without any productive exertions whatsoever? Is it not true that the pains associated with the current administration’s reforms are fundamentally rooted in a dysfunctional structural crisis of the Nigerian economy that has prevailed over the last four and a half decades with successive administrations incapable of or unwilling to take the necessary ameliorative policy measures to tackle the source of the problems?

    Over three and a half decades ago, a Nigerian economist, banker and administrator from Kano State, Dr Ibrahim Ayagi, wrote a book on Nigeria’s protracted economic conundrum titled ‘The Trapped Economy’. He clinically dissected why at that time in 1990, the country’s economy remained seemingly irretrievably trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, indebtedness and underdevelopment.

    The situation has worsened ever since Dr Ayagi penned these words nearly four decades before Tinubu’s emergence as President thus demonstrating that the key causes of Nigeria’s economic disarticulation predated the current administration. If restless, impatient and angry Gen Z contributors on social media are unable to situate economic policy issues in their proper historical context, should we not expect much more in terms of nuanced and informed public policy analysis from a politician and supposed statesman of Atiku’s stature?

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    This week, Atiku in another statement on his ‘X’ handle offered his alternative economic policies to that of the Tinubu administration saying he was spurred by many people asking him what he would have done differently had he been elected. Regurgitating what would appeal to populist emotionalism, Atiku with dishonest subtlety sought to create the impression that as President he would have made omelets without breaking eggs by engaging in structural reforms without pain. He said his administration would have adopted a gradualist approach to fuel subsidy removal, repositioned the NNPCL and revived the nation’s refineries, ensured frugality by those in government, sequenced reforms to achieve fiscal and monetary congruence and introduced a robust social welfare programme to make life meaningful for the vulnerable.

    But beyond sheer verbosity, what do these assertions mean in concrete policy detail? As Presidential spokesman, Mr Bayo Onanuga, aptly noted “First, Alhaji Atiku’s ideas, which lacked details, were rejected by Nigerians in the 2023 poll…Abubakar lost the election partly because he vowed to sell the NNPC and other assets to his friends. Nigerians have not forgotten this, nor would they be comforted by Atiku’s antecedents when he ran the economy in the first term of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government between 1999 and 2003”.

    Mr Onanuga rightly noted that “Despite the futile attempt to hoodwink Nigerians again in his statement, it is gratifying that the former Vice President could not repudiate the economic reforms pursued by the Tinubu administration because they are the right thing to do. His advocacy for a gradualist approach only showed that he was not in tune with the enormity of problems inherited by President Tinubu…While advocating for gradual reforms may sound appealing, Tinubu took measures that should have been taken decades ago by Alhaji Abubakar and his boss when they had the opportunity”.

    Atiku makes a number of assertions that seem right but coming from him they sound hollow because he had a free hand to run the economy during Obasanjo’s first term but never demonstrated the ethical and moral standards he now advocates to the incumbent administration. The fraudulent privatization programme under his superintendency that saw several multi-billion Naira public corporations sold to his friends and cronies at giveaway prices is partly at the root of Nigeria’s contemporary protracted economic crisis. It was also under a PDP administration that the former Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) was unbundled and sold to Generating and Distribution Company owners who obviously lack either the technical or financial capacity to effectively and efficiently discharge their obligations. This is apart from the $16 billion squandered on the power sector under the Obasanjo administration with negligible impact on electricity supply.

    If the over $12 billion lump sum paid to our creditors by the administration in return for debt forgiveness had been invested on improving electricity transmission infrastructure, for instance, the frequent national grid collapses that continue to hobble economic growth would most likely have been overcome by now.

    When asked during the campaign for the 2019 presidential election about allegations that he had sold public assets to his friends at giveaway prices under the Obasanjo administration’s privatization programme, Atiku wondered cavalierly on national television if he should have influenced their sale to his enemies showing no remorse whatsoever for what was a national calamity he was responsible for.

    When Atiku avers that “I would not run a ‘palliative economy’ yet, we would have a robust social protection programme”, what is this but a mere play on words? As Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, told reporters at the end of the 145th meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) recently, under the Tinubu administration, the reach of the social investment programme has been expanded to encompass 25 million vulnerable Nigerians from five million households who have received N25,000 conditional cash transfers in two tranches so far with plans to sustain and continuously expand the exercise.

    To address the challenge of food inflation, Mr Edun said the government has introduced a programme allowing millers to import duty-free and levy-free brown rice to bridge the 2.5 million metric tons supply gap. Other poverty alleviation initiatives of the administration include the Consumer Credit Scheme, which has benefited 11,000 individuals with N3.5 billion within a week and the Student Loan Scheme that has reached over half a million students with N90 billion in interest-free loans for fees and student upkeep. There is also of course the doubling of the national minimum wage to take into account current cost of living realities. All these among others show that Atiku is incorrect or just mischievous when he accuses Tinubu of being “undisturbed by the economic hardship in the country”.

    Again, Atiku asserts that had he been elected, “We would have launched an Economic Stimulus Fund (ESF) with an initial investment capacity of approximately $10 billion to support MSMEs across all economic sectors”. But just last week, the Tinubu administration commenced the distribution of N75 billion single digit loans to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises through the Bank of Industry (BOI). Micro, Small and Medium enterprises can access at least N1 million at nine percent interest rate repayable within three years while enjoying a moratorium of three months.

    Speaking during a briefing on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the BOI and the Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), the National President of NASSI, Dr Solomon Vongfa, said “The N75 billion MSME Intervention Fund is more than just a financial injection; it is a beacon of hope for countless MSMEs that have been struggling to access affordable credit. This initiative will undoubtedly catalyze economic growth, create jobs and foster innovation”. The MSMEs Intervention Fund is part of the N200 billion Presidential Intervention Fund to boost businesses which comprises N50 billion Nano grant, N75 billion loan scheme for big businesses and N75 billion loan scheme for MSMEs.

    Of course, no one can downplay the extent of hardship being borne by Nigerians as the Tinubu administration strives to restructure the economy towards greater productivity and prosperity and there is no indication the current government is doing so as Atiku so misleadingly insinuates. But is there any hope of light at the end of the tunnel even as Nigerians bear temporary pains of structural economic surgery? No less a person than Reno Omokri, an ardent Atiku supporter in the last election offers an informed, fact-premised response. His words, “Nigeria under Tinubu has experienced two quarters of unprecedented trade surpluses. At the end of August 2024, it had a record-breaking N14.6 trillion trade surplus and a GDP growth of more than 3%, as Nigeria now exports more than it imports. Inflation is being tamed, and the minimum wage has been increased…Our foreign reserves hit a record $40.2 billion because we no longer indulge in the politically popular but economically unreasonable act of defending the Naira with $1.5 billion each month”.

    Seasoned economist, former Central Bank governor and current governor of Anambra State, Professor Chukuma Soludo, speaking on Thursday at the convocation of the Abuja-based Veritas University, does not appear to disagree. According to him, “Nigeria is undergoing a fundamental and disruptive reset. Hopefully, we have ended the debilitating scam called fuel subsidy as well as the Forex and electricity subsidies. We have entered a ‘muddling-through’ phase which we must navigate carefully. Soon we must migrate from the destructive subsidies that benefitted largely the urban elite to a productive social contract that creates opportunity for all”. But then, Nigeria’s envisaged economic resurgence lies not just in the realm of economic technicalities but also in that of mass political mobilization and ideological enlightenment. We have addressed this issue before in this space and will do so again.

  • Between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

    Between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

    There is no doubt that the fervent deniers, particularly in Nigeria’s February 25, 2023 presidential poll, borrowed substantially from the playbook of former President Donald Trump and his rabid supporters in their response to the latter’s failure to win re-election for a second term in 2020. Trump, who had hinted darkly in his 2016 contest with Hillary Clinton that he would only accept the outcome of an election in which he was victorious, had adamantly maintained that the 2020 election was massively rigged against him even without the slightest iota of evidence and scores of election petition cases filed against the outcome were dismissed by the courts. In the run-up to next Tuesday’s presidential election in which Trump is running against Vice President Kamala Harris, there is no indication that the former President will graciously accept defeat if he loses particularly as the opinion polls suggest a tight race in which the two contenders are running neck to neck and victory could go either way.

    To those who have long respected the United States as one of the best models of liberal democracy and one worth emulating by less advanced democracies, it is astonishing that the former President who unabashedly instigated the January 6, 2021, riotous attack on the Capitol Hill with large scale destruction of property and loss of lives, is free to participate in another election and has bright chances of being re-elected to the White House. This is in addition to his conviction by a law court for a felony and his long-standing entanglement with the law over tax evasion and manipulation charges as well as allegations of sundry sexual indiscretions by numerous women. That in spite of these seeming albatrosses, Trump retains the fanatical support of at least half of the electorate illustrates just how divided American society is and how divorced politics has become from morality in ‘God’s own country’.

    From its once-upon-a-time dizzying heights of fidelity to the values and principles of liberal democracy which made her the proverbial ‘shining city on a bill’, millions of Americans now share with an emergent democracy like Nigeria, a deep and destructive distrust of democratic values, principles, and institutions. More than any other political actor in contemporary America, Trump has substantially shredded the fabric of mutual trust and fidelity that is critical to democratic sustainability. In his current campaign to return to the White House, he and his Republican fellow travelers, a party he has virtually completely taken over, have not desisted from questioning the integrity of electoral and state institutions as well as the credibility of public officials.

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    Even more alarmingly, he has stated a readiness to utilize state power to intimidate his political adversaries while expressing admiration for the almost unlimited powers wielded by some of the world’s totalitarian leaders. Thus, some of those who served in his administration in the first term have described him as a fascist while others fear the gross retardation of the country’s constitutional democracy should Trump be re-elected.

    Of course, the delinking of American politics from its ethical moorings did not begin with Donald Trump. Its seeds were sown over time among others by Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson’s war in Vietnam in the 1950s to early 1970s, President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal that resulted in his impeachment, President Ronald Reagan’s Irangate scandal, President Bill Clinton’s salacious’Monica Lewinsky’ affair and President George Bush’s war against Iraq under the false pretext that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction.

    Large numbers of Americans had over time begun increasingly to distrust members of the political class across party divides. Matters were not helped by the periodic worsening of the capitalist economic crisis despite its demonstrated capacity to bounce back from periods of recession and record momentary expansionary booms. Donald Trump did not just accidentally happen on the American political terrain to undertake a hostile takeover of the Republican Party as well as seize the country’s politics by storm. The grounds for the emergence of such a figure to fill a vacuum in American politics had been laid for quite some time.

    In his book, ‘Capitalism’s World Disorder’, published in 1999 by Jack Barnes, long-serving national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States, he traced the roots of political demagoguery in the country long before the political ascendancy of Donald Trump. Focusing particularly on the 1992 presidential election between Bill Clinton and George Bush, Barnes points out how Ross Perot, an independent candidate, and Patrick Buchanan, an outflier Republican candidate, both men from outside the political mainstream, had garnered relatively significant votes in that election.

    Commenting on the appeal of Perot’s candidacy, Jack Barnes writes, “Perot taps into a conviction growing among millions of people that the established bourgeois politicians are incapable of addressing the social crisis. More and more people are open to the suggestion that these figures are at worst plotting conspiracies; at best they are immoral, not fit to be in office. Millions are convinced that the government is rotten; Washington and all it represents is morally degenerate; the parliamentary and democratic institutions under capitalism are cesspools where thieves and bureaucrats and maneuverers hide. And more and more believe that something radical must be done to break through this spreading corruption”.

    Continuing, Barnes writes, “But Ross Perot got nearly 20 percent of the vote – 4 to 5 percent more than predicted on the basis of those who said beforehand they would vote for him. The Perot vote registers the growing view that no established Democratic or Republican Party candidate will ever be any different”. As for Patrick Buchanan who contested on the platform of the Republican Party, he stressed the imperative of using the U.S Army and National Guard units to win the war “for the soul of America”. He told the Republican Party convention in 1992 that “And as those boys took back the streets of Los Angeles block by block, my friends, we must take back our cities and take back our culture and take back our country”. Was this not a foretaste of Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ and anti-immigration rhetoric that has formed the fulcrum of his campaign?

    But then, this is the trend in major democracies and advanced economies across the world where anti-immigration sentiments are having a major influence on the direction of politics. It does not matter to those who harbour such sentiments that, as Teresa Hayter put it, “People need to migrate for two main reasons: first to improve their economic situation, and second to escape from wars and persecution. Imperialism bears much responsibility for both needs. It has created extreme polarization of wealth internationally. When European expansion began in the 16th century, the levels of prosperity and technical development they encountered in what is now the Third World were often more advanced than what then existed in Europe. The Europeans plundered the Third World, destroyed industries, and reduced much of it to levels of poverty and malnutrition which had not previously existed”.

    Unfortunately for Kamala Harris, she was the immigration Czar under the Joe Biden administration during which large numbers of immigrants are believed to have entered the country and a fact that Trump is harping on. Although some experts contend that the American economy is holding on well within the context of global inflation and war-induced disruptions in international trade, not a few voters will agree with Trump that massive immigration is partly responsible for their economic woes.

    It would also appear that in championing abortion (reproductive rights) and sexually deviant behavior such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender rights including taking prayer out of public schools, the democrats have moved far from the Jeudo-Christian foundations of American politics and values thus alienating a not insignificant section of the populace. As a leading Christian conservative thinker, Charles Colson, notes on abortion, for instance, “Abortion has always been about more than abortion. It is the wedge used to split open the historic Western commitment to the dignity of human life. In 1973, when pro-life proponents warned that Roe was taking us down a slippery slope to all manner of horrors, they were mocked as alarmists. Later events proved them prescient”. Given his first term record, it seems that Trump will be less militarily adventurous in his second coming than a democratic administration and it would appear to me that American institutions are too firmly rooted for fascism or tyranny to thrive in that country no matter who emerges as the next President.

  • Dr Tunde Olusunle’s new twin literary offerings

    Dr Tunde Olusunle’s new twin literary offerings

    Poet, reporter, columnist, editor, communications scholar, literary critic and engaging polemicist among others, Dr Tunde Olusunle has been an enduring and value adding presence on Nigeria’s intellectual and imaginative landscape over the last three decades. The energetic and unflagging public intellectual has engaged in vigorous public discourse and sought to contribute his quota to shaping the direction of the national course through prolific commentary in diverse newspapers, magazines, online publications, social media idea contestations and less popularly visible contributions to peer-reviewed scholarly journals.

    He has recently added to new muscular essay collections to his previous publications which include three acclaimed volumes of poetry and two collections of essays on the international peregrinations and diplomatic forays of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in office as well as on the life and times of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who has been a relentless but so far unsuccessful contender for the presidency of Nigeria, respectively.

    The first offering titled ‘Toasts, Tributes and Wreaths’ comprises his tributes and commentaries on no less than 50 distinguished Nigerians across disciplinary boundaries – academia, politics, governance, diplomacy, the military, business, media, the civil service etc – on diverse occasions including milestone birthdays, notable professional attainments, honours conferment and, of course, transitions from our earthly realm of existence. Running into 308 pages, the volume is subdivided into three sections: ‘Birthdays and Champagne poppings’, ‘Recognitions, Honours and Landmarks’ and ‘Requiems and Epitaphs’.

    I conceptualize these essays as snapshot mini-biographies of the various personalities focused on which portray and illustrate why their lives and accomplishments are indispensable to any credible rendering of the sociopolitical and intellectual history of contemporary Nigeria. The collection reminds me of a memorable lecture to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the defunct Daily Times delivered years ago by the late Dr Stanley Macebuh and titled ‘A few good men and women’. The celebrated scholar and consummate columnist vividly sketched the trajectories of distinguished journalists and administrators who had traversed the terrain of the then veritable octopus of Nigeria’s media industry and left indelible imprints not just on the newspaper but also the nation’s social consciousness and collective memory.

    In a similar vein, Olusunle’s’Toasts, Tributes and Wreaths’ reminds us that, despite the many ills plaguing our country which we lament on a daily basis, there are still a good number of men and women who by their character and demonstrable virtues constitute the salt of the Nigerian earth and whose examples can help facilitate the redemptive quest for a new Nigeria.

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    As Olusunle writes in his preface , “This potpourri of subjects by way of champagne-popping on birthdays, merited honours and recognitions, as well as inevitable requiems and epitaphs, have informed this body of essays. I imagine I met about 70 percent of the subjects featured here on a one-on-one basis, at various times, across time and space. There were instances where I never previously interfaced with the people I wrote about but whose stories and histories nonetheless struck a chord in me. I therefore decided on available research capital about them to ensure empirical validity as much as possible”.

    And as Omotayo Oloruntoba-Ojo, Professor of Literature, notes in the foreword “Toasts, Tributes and Wreaths is not just a book, it is a celebration of life, an acknowledgment of achievement, a poignant reminder of the transient nature of our existence and the need to leave memorable imprints during its sometimes very short course. I am confident that, like myself, you will find inspiration and multiple reasons for introspection within these pages”.

    From the work scrutinized above, Dr Olusunle moves to more contentious, partisan terrain in his second offering titled ‘Orisirisi: Vistas on Contemporary Politics in Nigeria’. Spanning 466 pages, the book is compartmentalized into ten sections focusing among others on state politics, governance and the governed, rulers and impunity as well as issues of crime and punishment in Nigeria with regard to sacred cows and selective justice. Other sections feature essays on the travails of tertiary education in Nigeria, the challenges of insecurity in ‘The unsecured state’, the depraved politics and deterioration of infrastructure in his native Okunland in Kogi State and matters concerning literature and the literary.

    Of course, having served as a political appointee at various levels first in Kogi State and later as Senior Special Assistant to President Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 to 2007, Olusunle offers more than a detached, armchair analysis of politics. He is also a keen participant observer with useful insights into the actions and motivations of political actors and the intricacies of public administration. Yet, it is indisputable that the author writes from an essentially partisan standpoint as a member and sympathizer of the PDP and an unrepentant loyalist of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Consequently, he hardly sees anything wrong with the politics of the former Vice President while he is unsparingly scathing in his criticism of the Waziri Adamawa’s adversaries within and outside the PDP.

    But whether you agree with him or not, it is difficult to dispute Professor Omotayo Oloruntoba-Oju’s submission that Olusunle’s writings encapsulate ‘narrative eloquence’ and combine a ‘unique blend of research, journalism and prosaic communication skills’ which are ‘a testament to versatility and depth’. The positive values which the author celebrates copiously in his ‘Toasts, Tributes and Wreaths’ are largely absent in the actors that feature in his political rumination which is why he laments the corruption, impunity, lack of vision, ineptness and mediocrity characteristic of our politics across party lines even if his biting barbs are directed mostly at opponents of the PDP.

  • The PBAT administration and the national question

    The PBAT administration and the national question

    This is one of the most critical periods in the history of Nigeria particularly since the commencement of this dispensation in 1999. The old Nigeria, sustained largely on fuel subsidies that had become hardly sustainable and parallel exchange rate markets that bred criminal and humongous accumulation by a privileged elite, is dying. A new Nigeria is struggling to be born under the midwifery of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration which has introduced far-reaching reforms to correct fuel subsidy and exchange rate distortions, with painful birth pang consequences for the populace.

    Sections of the citizenry have severely criticized international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, which have endorsed the economic policies of the administration as being essentially on the right course and admonished that current hardships manifesting in inflationary spirals in food, healthcare, fuel, transportation, and electricity costs among others, be borne as a necessary condition for the economy transitioning to a more productive and prosperous phase. Beyond reflexive ideological opposition to the reforms, perceived in some quarters as IMF and World Bank inspired, there have been little of alternative pragmatic and realistic policy offerings to transform the nation’s economic course and unleash her latent potentials, by vehement anti-reform voices.

    Meanwhile, the administration continues to intensify its efforts to make palliatives available to cushion the sufferings of the most vulnerable sections of the populace while an increasing number of state governments are channeling their significantly enhanced revenues as a result of the fuel subsidy removal to ameliorate the plight of substantial numbers of their people. It is important that the federal government periodically briefs the public on the impact the various amounts it has channeled to micro, small, and medium enterprises are making towards boosting their operational and job-generating capacities.

    It is only natural and understandable that at a time of harsh economic hardships such as the country is currently experiencing, challenges around the national question will become more accentuated with some anguished voices questioning the rationality, desirability, and utility of our continued national coexistence. This is particularly so against the background of the intensively competitive and contentious nature of the last presidential elections, the outcome of which some are yet to come to terms.

    The national question refers essentially to the conditions for and dilemmas arising from the exigencies of diverse ethnocultural groups cohabiting in a complex, plural polity like Nigeria. Only recently, the Yoruba ultranationalist gadfly, Sunday Igboho, led a seemingly theatrical procession to No 10 Downing Street in London in a quixotic quest to seek support for what was described as the desire of the Yoruba to exit Nigeria. The group has not responded to queries on what confers legitimacy on it to speak for the Yoruba and at which forum such a mandate was given.

    On its part, the most clamorous and insistent voice for the secession of a part from Nigeria, the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), has apparently modified its strategies, for now, to secure the release of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, from detention from where he is currently facing trial for treason. There is no guarantee that should it succeed in this endeavor, IPOB will not return to its erstwhile uncompromising and sometimes violent campaign for the secession of eastern Nigeria even though the degree of its support base among the Igbo people is difficult to ascertain.

    Given his antecedents not only as a pro-democracy activist but even more a fierce advocate for true federalism and the affirmation of state rights as governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007, there are those who expected a radical disposition to the resolution of the national question by President Bola Tinubu. The President has however been quite cautious and tentative on the issue since his assumption of office and the reasons are understandable. For one, he is the custodian of a national electoral mandate comprising disparate political constituencies with divergent attitudes, understandings, and orientations to the national question. His must consequently be a balancing act, particularly in a democratic context in which his party needs broad pan-Nigerian support to retain power at the centre.

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    If there was any doubt about the unwavering commitment of the President and his administration to Nigeria’s continued cohesion, the Minister of Defense, who was a former governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, dispelled any such notion at a recent peace meeting among feuding communities in Plateau State. Reaffirming the indivisibility of the country and the unwillingness of the federal government to permit any form of balkanization, the Minister said, “The federal government will not entertain such demand capable of causing division and disaffection among Nigerians. Therefore, living together is not an option but an obligation. This is evident in Mr. President’s resolve to fight any secessionist agenda in any part of the country. My presence here is to fulfill my mandate as the Minister charged with the responsibility for the protection of our national territory both from external and internal aggression. Therefore, I will not relent until the Federal Government and the Ministry of Defence deploy all assets to ensure our people sleep with their eyes closed”.

    There is nothing new or strange about Badaru’s submission. An elected government does not have the mandate to endorse the balkanization of the country. Referring to his oath of office to defend the territorial integrity of the United States, President Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural speech on March 4,1861, bluntly told those seeking to secede that “In your hands my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not mine, is the momentous issue of civil war…You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect and defend it’”. Continuing, he argued that “Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism”.

    However, the PBAT administration must not create the impression that the component parts of the country are being kept together by compulsion and the force of arms. It is a far more costly and ultimately unsustainable approach to nation building. Rather, the idea of Nigeria must be made such an attractive and mutually beneficial proposition that its components will not only willingly and proudly identify with it but will also be at the forefront of voluntarily defending its continuity.

    Current disaffections with Nigeria by diverse groups stem essentially from the steadily worsening economic crisis of the last two and a half decades and the deepening impoverishment of the vast majority of the people. This is why PBAT struck the right note when he recently told a delegation of the eminent group, The Patriots, which visited him that his priority was seeing his economic reforms through before dealing with their demand for a new constitution.

    Of course, the administration must pay attention to the need to amend or reform those aspects of the extant constitution that hamper optimal economic productivity and efficiency, particularly of the sub-national units just as it has done with seeking greater financial autonomy for local government councils. But its central focus must be strengthening and fine-tuning its economic policies until the economy turns the tide and begins to deliver prosperity and dignified living standards for the vast majority of Nigerians.

    At the root of dilemmas posed by the national question are the economic problems of pervasive poverty, debilitating inequality, widespread ignorance and illiteracy, mass youth unemployment, desperate hunger, corrosive disease, chronic infrastructure deficit, inadequate and inaccessible power supply among others. As Chief Obafemi Awolowo asserted with characteristic perspicacity over five decades ago, “My case then is that, in order to keep Nigeria harmoniously united, and, at the same time, fulfill the natural, ultimate, supreme, and inalienable purpose of that unity, the present and future rulers of this country must place the most crucial emphasis on, and attach the utmost importance to, the advancement of the economic prosperity and social well-being of the individual Nigerian citizens”.

    Apart from staying the course in the implementation of its core economic reforms, the PBAT administration must also urgently address ancillary issues that have implications for the economy. For instance, if the cultural, psychological, bureaucratic and structural impediments to the speedy implementation of state police are proving difficult to surmount, the administration should fast-track its promised establishment of well-equipped, trained, and motivated forest rangers to protect farmlands and farmers across the country and help boost agricultural productivity to stem current food costs spirals.

    Again, the anti-graft agencies should be further motivated and spurred not only to proactively prevent corruption but also to trace and retrieve humongous amounts of stolen funds in private hands. The President has shown a commendable sensitivity to public opinion in his recent cost-cutting reforms to the machinery of government and reshuffling of his administration’s personnel. It is a path that should be maintained and intensified.