By Paul Ade-Adeleye

Following the speedy (by Nigerian standards) recovery of over 340 students kidnapped from their schools in Kankara, Katsina State and ferried off into the wild, presidential forces have fired taunts at Nigerians mobilising to launch a ‘Bring Back our Boys’ (BBOB) campaign, reducing them via commentary to merchants of fortune and asking them to return all contributions gathered and go home. Oddly, it has become the habit of the presidency to reduce any form of agitation to the activities of ill-wishers and traducers concerned with nothing more than hastening the total destruction of the federal government’s image.

Usually, all three of the presidency’s publicity musketeers go to town in a formation. Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adeshina, constitutes the cavalry. Anyone who takes exception to the President’s method is, to the excitable spokesman, a mere wailer of the wailing regiment or a mischief maker. This is usually followed up by Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, who either seeks policies to curb peevish Nigerians from raving so much over what he believes to be so little, or he tells them point blank that they are overthinking things and that a spade is not a spade but a garden equipment. Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, generally brings up the rear, delivering the coup de grace and will upend logic if need be just to drive home his point. For the BBOB campaigners, he took steady aim, and fired his Parthian shot at them, rank and file, taking special care to rub in the matter of what would be done about the t-shirts that had been made.

Operating under the belief that the campaigners had amassed funds for pressuring the presidency to rescue the boys, and satisfied that the presidency had indeed secured the boys’ release, SSA Shehu was quick to pen an article published last Sunday wherein he made the following observations: “While patriotic Nigerians prayed for the boys’ quick return, these merchants of fortune were renting crowds, creating certain suspicious hashtags, opening bank accounts for the sole aim of soliciting funds for a cause they thought would linger. What will they do now with the one million T-shirts they have produced? This is hugely shameful. These scavengers should now be honourable enough to refund the money they have so far collected for the now futile campaign to discredit their fatherland.”

In those statements, SSA Shehu betrayed his entire albeit incorrect belief of why anyone would want to protest against the presidency instead of being a good patriot sitting at home in prayers. Their aim, he believes, is to quickly facilitate the destruction of national credibility, by which term he probably means the federal government, his employer. Even President Muhammadu Buhari did not betray that reckless sentiment. The SSA may want to reflect on why people fretted about the designs the government had after the kidnap. The government has often been criticised for being hesitant in addressing security issues in the country. Admittedly, the malaise started long before the Buhari administration took over. In fact, President Buhari was, prior to his election, vocal about the incapacity of his predecessor, noting that if former President Goodluck Jonathan could not curb insecurity he should resign.

The aim of protests or campaigns is not to bring the presidency or the government to ruin, but to prevent laxity about an offending state of affair. The kidnap, a by-product of insecurity, should never have happened in the first place. Nigerians even believe the kidnapped ones are the lucky ones. Others are summarily executed by bandits or Boko Haram. Where the presidential spokesmen should display depth in understanding the reasons behind public outcries on national issues, they often misinterpret these issues, seeking instead to accuse people of abusing their freedom of speech. The National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), say Nigerians, has now become an agency of terror to the media, and Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who is thought to be pulling the strings, was told off by Nigerians when he sought to limit freedom of speech on the social media in the aftermath of the EndSars protests. Perhaps, he should have demonstrated more tact in handling the issue. SSA Shehu’s mockery of the BBOB campaigners was needless. Sympathy, not scoffing, was what the people needed. Not everyone fighting for their rights or airing their grievance is a ‘merchant of fortune’. Importantly too, what the campaigners do with the money gathered or t-shirts produced should be the least of his worries. If he must know, for the second time, a northern governor has been linked to banditry and insecurity in the country. How about pontificating a little on that?

Ngige makes a vow

After successfully persuading the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to sheathe their swords and agree to the terms offered by the federal government, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, can eventually heave a sigh of relief and perhaps visit the pub for a pint of the good stuff. He has earned it, he will reckon, especially after the poignant vow he recently made to prevent ASUU from striking again. The union had threatened that they would resume their strike as early as next February, and without warning too, if the federal government should so much as breathe one defaulting air against their current agreement.

Mr Ngige’s response had been to disclose that he was also affected by the strike as he had three children currently admitted in public universities and had also sat out the arduous nine months at home. As such, he vowed, he would ensure that ASUU did not resume its strike. He would keep an eye on things and organise the affair so effectively that there would be no need for another strike. Despite the controversy that has surrounded the strike, including federal agents’ barbarous usage of the academic union, the minister may have reason to be sure of himself.

A thoughtful sip of vintage brew will bring home to him that apart from the personal stakes he alluded to in the ASUU mess, the federal government is keen to end the faceoff for a number of reasons. First, the strike had become an absolute embarrassment and a source of deep mortification. It should never have dragged on for so long; but having done just that, they were keen to end it. ASUU was suffering badly and there was mild disunity in their ranks, but they seemed ready to perish or even face any other fate than lose the battle. He that is down needs fear no fall, they reasoned, and the federal government was sensitive to that reasoning.

Second, the federal government wanted to occupy the youths, a good percentage of whom are currently unoccupied either due to the ASUU strike or unemployment or even both. This relative idleness and freedom contributed immensely to the success of the EndSARS protests — an unforgettable nightmare to the government. They may be in a sweat about the effects the continued idleness and liberty of the youths could have, and will consolidate their forces to ensure that the whisper in the wind concerning further youthful ‘insurrections’ do not see the light of day. Nothing in the federal government’s ranks or the honourable minister for labour and employment’s vow uncovers any sympathy for the afflictions of the lecturers, who they think will be more gainfully employed in the farms. Tough love? Maybe. For now, students, lecturers and indeed the federal government will hope that the truce holds and relative normality returns.

By Paul Ade-Adeleye

President Muhammadu Buhari celebrated his birthday last week, and it must be weighed against keeping with global birthday traditions of enjoying certain liberties. Many would argue that the president did not need his birthday to take presidential liberties, for if anyone in Nigeria could lay claim to being master of their own self, captain of their own ship, and all other such self-determinist epigrams, it would be President Buhari. Fresh from laughing in the constitution’s face and standing up the National Assembly through the agency of his much maligned but trusty Attorney General, Abubakar Malami, he made his way to Daura, Katsina State, where he joined the state’s hapless indigenes to spectate as bandits put on a performance for the ages, even by their own infernal standards, in Kankara, Katsina. Thankfully, the boys are back home.

Nigerians would have thought the daring but easy kidnap in 2014 of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok under the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan, another president accused of taking more than one too many liberties, would be the last and worst of that sort of thing to happen. The former president was hanged, drawn and quartered by all for refusing to visit and condole the families of the missing girls  over a hundred of which are missing till date  while his wife, Dame Patience, was taken to the pillory for what many decried as dramatic lachrymosity. They argued that she would have done a world of good if she had quit sniffing for a minute to prevail on the president to fix national security.

Whether President Buhari took a cue from his predecessor or he was simply tardier cannot be established, but he toed the line of the former president and did not trouble himself much with the small matter of the missing students, save for his expression of shock by proxy at the unprecedented kidnap of over 300 schoolboys right under his nose. Why did he not visit Kankara when he was so near? Presidential liberties. Perhaps, to celebrate his birthday, he declared four land borders open after keeping all borders shut for reasons that have failed to win Nigerians over to that stifling policy. Although many will hiss and utter unprintable imprecations, no one will really complain. People have wanted those borders open from the moment they were shut. Presidential liberties have, however, done the trick and opened them up once more. Hey presto!

It would not be out of place to wonder if any legal machinery exists to curb the desire of presidents to engage in such liberties and keep them in check. There are several, and they are vested in the legislative arm of government, which is constitutionally charged with oversight functions on the executive arm of government. A president who has openly described democracy as a hindrance to his government and reminisced on his days as a ruthless military ruler leaves no question about what type of leader he is. Nigerians cannot shake off the feeling that the president is running roughshod over the citizens, the judiciary and the legislature. Some would have sympathised with those saddled with the arduous tasks of defending the public image of these presidents, especially as one escaped Aso Villa panting and pointing as one who had seen a ghost  forsooth he claimed spirits were at work there  but, going by Femi Adeshina, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the president’s recent epistle, all is well. In his epistle, he dispelled any notions that his job meant he had to play the devil’s advocate, adding he would do it gratis, for to him the president was a top man and a legend who knew that it was only on special days he, the special adviser, donned agbada.

Read Also; Buhari at 78: If only we knew this president, by Femi Adesina

The North, like most of Nigeria, has also reconciled itself with the president’s liberties. Many of them have tried to help the Commander of the Armed Forces by advising him on security, but they feel he has not been listening — a discretion which is purely his constitutional liberty to take — so the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) last week washed its hands off giving any further advice to the president. President Buhari appears to genuinely believe that the entire country is against him and only keen to see his downfall. He is, in that regard, farther from the truth than he is from overseeing the development of a Nigerian COVID-19 vaccine. Hardly was any presidential election celebrated with so much hope as his 2015 electoral victory. Maybe if he did away with taking all those liberties and gave democracy a fairer chance, he would feel the love of Nigerians once again. Happy belated birthday, Mr President.

Ganduje not done with Sanusi

Not satisfied with the dethronement of former Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi, Kano State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, fell upon the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor at a book launch last week, gloating over his treatment of the outspoken Mr Sanusi. Talking about his vanquished foe, he purred with great satisfaction that the former emir was given the “Jonathan treatment”.

He said, “Sanusi was appointed Emir of Kano not because he was the best man for the throne but to retaliate what Jonathan did to him…. When I became governor, (that’s why you will laugh), I said yes, the Jonathan medicine is an important medicine. That medicine, even though I am not a medical doctor, but that medicine would serve the same purpose, for the same disease and for the same patient. So I took my Jonathan medicine and decided to save the system, to save the institution, and I applied it effectively. So, Jonathan and I are on the same page. Actually, I have no regrets.”

No one can begrudge Governor Ganduje for having an altercation with any person of his fancy; disputes are natural. His public outburst on the issue, however, did more damage than he realises. Where his score with Mr Sanusi may be valid, he had the option to match the pristineness of his foe and perhaps trump it with more discretion, which would have been the better part of valour. He had the upper legal hand and what may or may not be valid reason to dethrone the former emir, so why did he not measure his words and convince the public? Why was he abrasive, aiming a coordinated series of jabs below the royal belt of his dethroned foe.

It is said that a bad sportsman gloats over victory to their opponent’s face. Although politics and the business of power-broking is not a sport, the same principles apply. Governor Ganduje may wish to ponder that at the end of his tenure, he will return to being a civilian, like the former CBN governor, albeit one with a brawnier curriculum vitae and perhaps a little more influence. But the same civil rights will apply, and, CV aside, he must hope to possess a great level of integrity in the eyes of the public. This should be the governor’s focus, for power is fickle but legacies last forever. His narratives and indiscretions only portray the former emir as a martyr slain by controversial officials who could not stomach a few home truths, regardless of whether they were uttered by a saint or otherwise. Dr Jonathan has moved on from the affair; perhaps Governor Ganduje should do so too and concern himself with ridding his public image of the many accusations that have been levelled against him and his exuberant Hisbah corps.

Barometer

By Paul Ade-Adeleye

Afortnight ago, the eminent city of Ibadan celebrated 200 years of its founding with cakes and ale. Up till the 70s and 80s the city continued to inspire romanticists, evoking poems from two of Nigeria’s pioneer literary quartet who neither hailed from the place nor were commissioned to do it. Alas, with many other historically powerful towns and city-states in Nigeria, Ibadan shares a common tragic destiny. Following the decline of the Oyo Empire, Ibadan rose to prominence in Yorubaland, displaying masterful political and military organisation, and actively trying to fill the vacuum of leadership created by Oyo’s retirement. Ekiti, having none of that, together with the Ijesha, took up arms against Ibadan under the aegis of ‘Ekiti Parapo’.

Where Ekiti’s amalgamated forces risked Fulani incursion from Ilorin, Ibadan’s Balogun Ajayi Ogboriefon gave the invaders the hairy eye, and at the battle of Ikirun, fondly called the Jalumi war, they repelled a combined Fulani attack from Ilorin alongside Ekiti and Ijesha. It is difficult to divine how the war would have ended had the British not stepped in, but step in they did, and a stalemate was declared. Ibadan was absorbed into the Southern Protectorate and that sad reality continues to haunt it, as it continues to haunt many erstwhile kingdoms in Nigeria.

The ripple effect of that annexation was a complete cessation of the individual growths of many prominent cities and kingdoms in what became Nigeria, including the Bini Kingdom to the South, and Kano to the North. Cities that should and could have grown autonomously, and perhaps into greatness, had their destinies truncated and tied to other cities under a disoriented and misshapen Nigeria, and the process of growth was subsumed and weakened under a nation not as ambitious as they were.

By contrast, the United States of America recently celebrated 244 years of independence, only 44 years older than Ibadan, and the difference, alas, is telling and troubling. The USA, although once a colony of Britain, was not forced into the culturally diverse co-existence that Nigeria’s multiple ethnic groups were forced into. Consequently, it grew rapidly upon independence in 1776 where Ibadan’s potential lay dormant, bickering needlessly with other tribes over resources.

So far, the various governments of Nigeria have remained hostile to calls for restructuring. Even though restructuring would not mitigate the harm done to Ibadan under the British and Nigeria, it would have at least freed the city to breathe better and aspire more realistically and ambitiously under a favourable political arrangement. Despite the avalanche of reasons, Nigerian governments are unwilling to give in. Maybe if cities like Ibadan had remained independent and grown at their own chosen speed and trajectory, as the United States did over 244 years, the collapse of Oyo Empire would have birthed a greater and more powerful empire in Ibadan.

Barometer

By Paul Ade-Adeleye

Following the mass murder of over 70 farmers in Borno State by Boko Haram militants, the House of Representatives summoned President Muhammadu Buhari to account for the insecurity in the nation prior to the killings, evoking the ecstasy of Nigerians who felt that it was about time someone got the reticent president to come forward and say something not pre-recorded and not by proxy. Initially, President Buhari had agreed to take potluck with the summons by the House of Reps. In a recent statement by the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, the president however appears set to decline the invitation. The attorney general, after blowing a trumpet audible to only himself and perhaps a few amenable members of the presidential circle, stated in summary that the National Assembly was overreaching itself inviting the president.

His words: “The right of the President to engage the National Assembly and appear before it is inherently discretionary in the President and not at the behest of the National Assembly. The management and control of the security sector is exclusively vested in the President by Section 218 (1) of the Constitution as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces including the power to determine the operational use of the Armed Forces. An invitation that seeks to put the operational use of the Armed Forces to a public interrogation is indeed taking the constitutional rights of lawmaking beyond bounds.”

Whether Mr Malami genuinely believes in the correctness of his argument or whether he was pressured into extricating the president out of the cul de sac no doubt occasioned by the House of Reps’ invitation is another matter. Section 88 (1) (a) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria holds that “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, each House of the National Assembly shall have power by resolution published in its journal or in the Official Gazette of the Government of the Federation to direct or cause to be directed investigation into any matter or thing with respect to which it has power to make laws.” Meanwhile, Section 88 (2)(b) clarifies that “The powers conferred on the National Assembly under the provisions of this section are exercisable only for the purpose of enabling it to expose corruption, inefficiency or waste in the execution or administration of laws within its legislative competence and in the disbursement or administration of funds appropriated by it.”

It is, therefore, clear that there is a legal premise for the House of Reps to conduct an investigation to expose inefficiency with respect to any matter which it has power to make laws. The items on which the National Assembly is exclusively empowered to make laws are contained in Part 1 of the Second Schedule to the 1999 constitution, Item 17 of which is Defence. Item 38 of that same legal instrument is Military (Army, Navy and Air Force) including any other branch of the armed forces of the federation. The recent summons issued to the president affected both items, yet Mr Malami somehow believes that some technicality can render the summons unconstitutional.

Section 89 (1)(c) of the Constitution additionally cudgels his strange argument by providing thus, “For the purposes of any investigation under section 88 of this Constitution and subject to the provisions thereof, the Senate or the House of Representatives or a committee appointed in accordance with section 62 of this Constitution shall have power to summon any person in Nigeria to give evidence at any place or produce any document or other thing in his possession or under his control, and examine him as a witness and require him to produce any document or other thing in his possession or under his control, subject to all just exceptions.” If President Buhari, a person in Nigeria, has been summoned to brief the house on the true state of security in the nation prior to the killings of the farmers, it is difficult to understand Mr Malami’s position that the president is being summoned under any ‘just exception’ as provided above.

Having had its say on the issue, it is suspected that the presidency has no wish to obey the constitution. The House of Reps may not be able to count on the Nigeria Police or the House of Assembly’s help when it will need to activate the provisions of Section 89 (1)(d) for forcing the presidency to bow to democracy. Until then, perhaps only magical conjuration or some pressing financial matter will move the president to dialogue in person on the floors of the National Assembly.

Ibadan’s loss, USA’s gain

Afortnight ago, the eminent city of Ibadan celebrated 200 years of its founding with cakes and ale. Up till the 70s and 80s the city continued to inspire romanticists, evoking poems from two of Nigeria’s pioneer literary quartet who neither hailed from the place nor were commissioned to do it. Alas, with many other historically powerful towns and city-states in Nigeria, Ibadan shares a common tragic destiny. Following the decline of the Oyo Empire, Ibadan rose to prominence in Yorubaland, displaying masterful political and military organisation, and actively trying to fill the vacuum of leadership created by Oyo’s retirement. Ekiti, having none of that, together with the Ijesha, took up arms against Ibadan under the aegis of ‘Ekiti Parapo’.

Where Ekiti’s amalgamated forces risked Fulani incursion from Ilorin, Ibadan’s Balogun Ajayi Ogboriefon gave the invaders the hairy eye, and at the battle of Ikirun, fondly called the Jalumi war, they repelled a combined Fulani attack from Ilorin alongside Ekiti and Ijesha. It is difficult to divine how the war would have ended had the British not stepped in, but step in they did, and a stalemate was declared. Ibadan was absorbed into the Southern Protectorate and that sad reality continues to haunt it, as it continues to haunt many erstwhile kingdoms in Nigeria.

The ripple effect of that annexation was a complete cessation of the individual growths of many prominent cities and kingdoms in what became Nigeria, including the Bini Kingdom to the South, and Kano to the North. Cities that should and could have grown autonomously, and perhaps into greatness, had their destinies truncated and tied to other cities under a disoriented and misshapen Nigeria, and the process of growth was subsumed and weakened under a nation not as ambitious as they were.

By contrast, the United States of America recently celebrated 244 years of independence, only 44 years older than Ibadan, and the difference, alas, is telling and troubling. The USA, although once a colony of Britain, was not forced into the culturally diverse co-existence that Nigeria’s multiple ethnic groups were forced into. Consequently, it grew rapidly upon independence in 1776 where Ibadan’s potential lay dormant, bickering needlessly with other tribes over resources.

So far, the various governments of Nigeria have remained hostile to calls for restructuring. Even though restructuring would not mitigate the harm done to Ibadan under the British and Nigeria, it would have at least freed the city to breathe better and aspire more realistically and ambitiously under a favourable political arrangement. Despite the avalanche of reasons, Nigerian governments are unwilling to give in. Maybe if cities like Ibadan had remained independent and grown at their own chosen speed and trajectory, as the United States did over 244 years, the collapse of Oyo Empire would have birthed a greater and more powerful empire in Ibadan.

Paul Ade-Adeleye

After the gruesome murder of over 60 rice farmers near Zabarmari in Jere local government area of Borno State, many people expected the Nigerian Army to go on a roaring rampage against Boko Haram, all the while apologising to Nigerians for its inability to protect the victims and promising to secure the life of every man, woman and animal in the nearest future. The army has, however, preferred to pass the buck to any other party except itself. In fact, when Major-General John Enenche, Coordinator of Defence Media Operations at the Defence Headquarters (DHQ), appeared on a televised programme last Monday, he seemed to colour his reaction with a danse macabre palette, blaming the villagers and claiming that the army was also a victim in the affair because villagers refused to give them information.

He said, “It’s a concern to us. You need a guide, you need information. Will they tell us? That is a question that we have to ask. Yes, sometimes. And most times, no. Those are the things that have been one of the banes of the final success in the whole of this operation… Our patrols will pass through a route, in a village. By the time you are going, some people are looking at you. When you are coming back, the next thing is that you meet an IED planted on the road. And people saw them, they won’t tell you. So, that’s the area I think we are all working together as stakeholders. And it is not possible to force information out of people. It’s not possible, just like they say you force a horse to the river, but not to drink water. So, all we are trying to do is to build up their confidence in the system and encourage them that look, this is not good for you. Now they do not expect that this will happen, even those ones that they deceived, that they are preaching to them.”

It did not appear to bother the Nigerian Army that just the day before, Borno State governor, Babagana Zulum, perhaps fed up with the military’s perceived laxity to insecurity in the state, had called on the President to hire foreign mercenaries to tackle Boko Haram. It is that inability that the military underlined with its comments, which implied that the villagers do not trust them. There is, perhaps, more to the tension, for distrust does not appear out of thin air, and the military should not be eager to admit the existence of this distrust.

Seemingly reconciling itself with the absurdity of blaming the villagers, the Nigerian Army decided to additionally blame the effectiveness of Boko Haram on foreign sponsors, alleging that “there is an international conspiracy to cut Nigeria to size, and compromised national renegades making attempts to destabilise and dismember Nigeria if possible in subservience to the international paymasters, who are the owners of Boko Haram.”

The strength of that comment as a defence for the army’s failures sums up the weakness of the army as a whole in dealing with the insurgency. If the army is destitute of ideas, as the DHQ seems to admit, then there will continually be all hell to pay as witnessed in the Borno carnage. Neither international paymasters nor local uncooperativeness can excuse the killing of innocent rice farmers. How many excuses does the army have in its repertoire? Excuses, excuses and more excuses. The officers are lucky not to be in Abraham Lincoln’s Union Army or General Robert Lee’s and Stonewall Jackson’s Confederate Army. For how long will it continue to blame its failures on others? Would to God the presidency knew how to replace its commanders.

Shocking opacity in police recruitments

Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, will be excused if he is currently declining all offers to tea. He may not be the happiest of men, especially in light of recent accusations that on his watch, some 925 names were smuggled into an already controversial police recruitment process. The trouble started with the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) assuming control of the recruitment of some 10,000 constables, which got the Police Service Commission (PSC) rather hot under the collar. The PSC felt that the task of appointing persons to offices other than the office of Inspector General of Police (IGP) was granted to them by Paragraph 30 of the Third Schedule to the 1999 Constitution. Section 14 of the Police Act (2020) consolidates the PSC’s power to appoint the constables. So far, the High Court and the Court of Appeal have tried to determine the legality or otherwise of the recruitment exercise by the IGP by interpreting relevant bodies of law.

At the High Court, Justice Inyang Ekwo, relying on the Nigeria Police Regulations of 1968, ruled that the Police Council under the leadership of the Inspector General of Police is statutorily empowered to enlist constables into the force. The Court of Appeal however differed, holding that Paragraph 30 of Part 1 of the Third Schedule to the 1999 Constitution has given the power to the PSC to appoint persons into offices in the Nigeria Police and did not exclude constables and cadets to Nigeria Police Academy from offices in the Nigeria Police into which the Appellant (PSC) can appoint persons. No act of the National Assembly or law can take away or curtail such power. Even more, Justice Peter Ige (JCA) also gave an order of perpetual injunction restraining the police from interfering with the commission’s discharge of its functions regarding appointment, promotion, dismissal, or exercise of disciplinary control over any police officer other than the Inspector General of Police.

So far, the PSC has the upper hand and it is posturing to play the older sibling by allowing the bile settle without further ado. A statement by the PSC’s spokesman, Ikechukwu Ani, disclosed that the commission would “bend backwards to accommodate the list of these candidates” even after the Court of Appeal had nullified the hijack of the recruitment process. Their reasoning is solid, especially as tons of public funds have been expended in recruiting and training the constables. Unfortunately the discovery of the underhand inclusion of those 925 names is a criminal offence that the PSC should not allow to go unchallenged, especially because the smuggling in of names appears to violate Section 112 of the Criminal Code Act. Some parties somewhere might have furthered certain personal interests, perhaps financial or nepotistic, in the inclusion of those unqualified names. The offenders should be uncovered, collared, and brought to book, for the long arm of the law must never be averse to reaching inwardly to serve justice where necessary.

COVID-19: FG set to be spoonfed

If the recent comments by the chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, are anything to go by, then the federal government is once again prepared to give in to its dependency on the acquisition of a COVID-19 vaccine developed in the United Kingdom. While addressing the press on plans to acquire the vaccine, the PTF was manifestly silent on whether Nigeria was developing its own vaccine, giving the impression that they were not working on a vaccine but were instead more interested in paying to be spoonfed.

While there is no harm in purchasing the vaccine, especially seeing as it has recorded a 95% success rate, the worrisome thing about the affair is that Nigeria, despite its abundance of herbal and medicinal resources, cannot provide evidence that it concerned itself with the development of the vaccine. If the country did, select agents of the presidency would have blown their trumpets very loudly. Where the rest of the advanced world was in a race to develop the vaccine, Nigeria seems set to enter the race to acquire the vaccine. This is premium consumer behaviour. The same sort of behaviour was evident in the presidency’s scandalous announcement that the country would begin to procure its refined oil from neighbouring Niger Republic. That the presidency did not see anything wrong in claiming that the country was broke and in an economic recession, but was still open to importing what could be locally refined, underlines the irredeemable improvidence of the federal government.

Barometer 

If the recent comments by the chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, are anything to go by, then the federal government is once again prepared to give in to its dependency on the acquisition of a COVID-19 vaccine developed in the United Kingdom. While addressing the press on plans to acquire the vaccine, the PTF was manifestly silent on whether Nigeria was developing its own vaccine, giving the impression that they were not working on a vaccine but were instead more interested in paying to be spoonfed.

While there is no harm in purchasing the vaccine, especially seeing as it has recorded a 95% success rate, the worrisome thing about the affair is that Nigeria, despite its abundance of herbal and medicinal resources, cannot provide evidence that it concerned itself with the development of the vaccine. If the country did, select agents of the presidency would have blown their trumpets very loudly. Where the rest of the advanced world was in a race to develop the vaccine, Nigeria seems set to enter the race to acquire the vaccine. This is premium consumer behaviour. The same sort of behaviour was evident in the presidency’s scandalous announcement that the country would begin to procure its refined oil from neighbouring Niger Republic. That the presidency did not see anything wrong in claiming that the country was broke and in an economic recession, but was still open to importing what could be locally refined, underlines the irredeemable improvidence of the federal government.