The Nation Newspaper

Category: Femi Orebe

  • Some blow back (rejoinders) to my recent articles

    Hoping your President fails is the same thing as hoping your country fails. And it’s not patriotism. Patriotism is supporting your Commander- in-Chief even if you do not agree with him on everything” – Barack Obama, 44th U.S. President.

    “Amid all these came from the North last week a regional threat to the president by traditional and religious leaders. They said their people were hungry and restive and that they could no longer control them. Every sentence they uttered sounded like a threat of Armageddon. Their concern would have carried weight if the shouters had done so when their Muhammadu Buhari was in power and was messing up everyone, everything, everywhere. But they maintained complicit quietude and passivity when their evil reigned. Because of their past of unholy silence, their present angst could not resonate with the street in the South. I saw and heard people mocking these Northern leaders and their groans.

    They lost it” – Dr Lasisi Olagunju in ‘Our President’s Love Affair With The IMF’.

    I have severally written on these pages that  we owe ourselves an obligation to  always tell ourselves the truth if Nigeria is to ever exit its benumbing conundrum.

    As a result of that I wrote as follows  in ‘The Unabating Kidnapping in The North: Price We Are Paying For Long Years Of Feudalism’:”Knowing how much insecurity can imperil its economic programmes, especially its drive for foreign investors, the Federal government must now

    put in place, appropriate measures, to nip this terrible situation in the bud. The starting point will, however, be to seek the support of both the Northern elite and that of its traditional authority both of which have demonstrated unbelievable equanimity in the face of massive insecurity in that part of the country. It is  time Northern leaders are roused from their lethargy”.

    I followed that up this past week with the following:”Time and again, the North has shown that its interests are not exactly coterminous with that of Nigeria. On many occasions  it has treated with disdain, matters that would have  redounded to our mutual interest whilst  holding, tenaciously, to things aimed at achieving short term regional advantage.

    A good example is the fate which the Obasanjo political conference suffered as a result of  the North’s fastidious opposition to the demands of  Niger-Deltans, which requests are now being feverishly delivered  via the Amnesty programme, after it became obvious that oil money was no longer as guaranteed as previously assumed”.

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    I concluded with this reference to the threat by a Northern Emir who, ordinarily, should have been counted among those seeking a solution to Nigeria’s problems:”It doesn’t get more annoying than when a Northern leader, who didn’t breathe a word throughout the  Buhari years,  now tells us “that Northerners will soon revolt; we can’t pacify them again”.

    What blackmail!

    I got many reactions to the articles but suffice it to include only two here.

    On the statement by the Sultan to the effect that “the economic hardships have left citizens feeling agitated, angry, and desperate for change” and the other monarch who asserted, authoritatively, that Northern youths will soon revolt, a commentator  wrote:

    “The statements by members of the Northern royalty concerning northern youths and their seething anger is revealing. It shows the level of disconnect and delusions of grandeur under which their Eminences and members of their class operate. It shows also how far a section of this country would go to bully and intimidate others in order to sustain their privileged and entitlement mentality. But let’s keep those issues for another day.

    For now, kindly permit me to reply to His Eminence, the Sultan, as follows:

    1. The greatest problem facing the north is indiscriminate child bearing. This is 2024, not 1824. No part of the world engages in endless breeding of humans anymore because uncontrolled population growth breeds poverty and destitution. Desertification and ignorance up North are issues that need serious and committed attention. Not threats.

    2. The North receives more allocations than the South. The North   has more states and local governments just so it can collect the lion share of everything. The question is –  what have they done with those resources to make life bearable for Northerners – both youths and adults?

    The youth anger should focus on the Northern governors (past and present), NASS members (past and present) and their royal collaborators. They should be asked to give account of their stewardship.

    3. The good Sultan did not remember the suffering of Northern youths when Buhari handed Nigeria over to a gang of avaricious  predators. The rape and desecration which Nigeria endured under Buhari’s watch is unparalleled in Nigerian history. For the eight years it lasted, no one  heard the Sultan issuing  apocalyptic warnings and threats.

    4. The Sultan was disingenuously silent when kidnappers and bandits were being  cuddled and pampered,  being made to feel that they can get away with any atrocity.

    People were denied access to their farms or killed outrightly in the process. So it is a no brainer that there will be hunger as a result.

    5. Or what about the ethnic cleansing, and land grabs, that took place in Niger, Kaduna, Benue, Plateau and in many other states?

    Isn’t it true  that millions of Nigerians are presently living in IDP camps because their ancestral lands were arbitrarily expropriated by a ‘master’ race?

     6. The Sultan should be talking about issues like these which have combined to bring Nigeria to its knees. He should not be threatening anyone with the anger of  Northern youths as anger and violence do not have a particular ethnic or religious monopoly.

    7. After all, when that anger finally explodes, I cannot see the Sultan and members of his feudal oligarchy, both political and ethno-religious, escaping the fallouts. The Sultan and company have benefitted from a system designed to downgrade the majority and place them in perpetual servitude. He should not pretend that he is a defender of the talakawas. Something tells me that the angry youths in the north know their real enemies.

    8. Also the Sultan will agree that the Nigeria Buhari inherited in 2015 is a far cry from the Nigeria he handed over in 2023.  He left behind a broken and bleeding nation. 

    They damaged Nigeria and no one should play holier than thou. All of them are guilty and must be held supremely responsible for whatever follows”.

    And this: “Daddy, I wish you a blessed Sunday sir.

    I don’t want to join issues on this for now. Our major problem is the congregation of saboteurs, old foes who predicted Nigerian collapse much earlier than now and the electoral losers and their sponsors who command large reserves of resources to sponsor a disintegration in a continent where such has since become a hobby for some.

    The major strategy that you elders and associates should convey to Tinubu is that Benevolent Dictatorship Is The Key To All Successful Democracies.

    If he is not assertive on the identified saboteurs in his administration and on the political landscape, if he does not allow the security agencies to shake these people who are not even disguising, then the Nation may implode.

    Nigeria is not under any threat of incompatible geo – political structure.

    Singapore and other Asian Tigers did not become economic  powers by adopting ceremonial approaches towards economic and political criminals.

    The President must be firm.

    It is only an orderly Nigeria that can be restructured. Enough resources are being pumped to the states already and if only he would read the riot act to governors, local economies will bring forth comfort,  and reduce tension at the grassroots. If  he  does not assert himself, and force regulatory agencies to enforce price control, there will be a melt down.

    There are no components of dollars in tomatoes, vegetables,  gas etc beyond the penchant of Nigerians to exploit every situation to make life unbearable for  others.

    As you can see, the academic arguments of geo – political restructuring can come up later.

    Please keep the comments coming.

  • National Assembly constitution review jamboree: Here we go again

    National Assembly constitution review jamboree: Here we go again

    In an investigation lasting months, this newspaper found that between 2011 and 2015 the 53-member House of Representatives

    Ad-hoc Constitution Review Committee, and its 49-member counterpart in the Senate in the 7th National Assembly, withdrew N3,250,000,000.00 and N4,500,000,000.00 respectively to purportedly execute the fourth alteration of the Constitution.

    It is not immediately clear how the lawmakers spent the outrageous funds but insiders say a huge chunk of it was pocketed by members of the committees in what one source described as ‘unprecedented naira bazaar’ by a committee of the National Assembly” -Premium Times.

    In “My Memo To The National Assembly On Review of The 1999 Constitution’ dated 10 December, 2020, I reminded the Honourable members, who are about now again setting out on another fruitless journey, of what Nigerians think of any amendment of the 1999 constitution in particular.

    I wrote:”The constitution you are setting out to review has been variously described, but because of space constraint, let us restrict ourselves to how Chief Bisi Akande, former Osun state governor described it.   According to him, “the 1999 Constitution is Nigeria’s greatest misadventure since Lugard’s  amalgamation of 1914. It breeds and protects corrupt practices and criminal impunity in governance. It can never be beneficially reviewed, and the ongoing piecemeal adjustments, or amendments, can only completely blot out the essence of national values and accelerate the de-amalgamation of Nigeria. All the angels in heaven cannot make that constitution work for the progress of Nigeria. It should  be scrapped as a bad relic of military mentality”.

    The new one reminds Nigerians of the profligacy which accompanied the exercise  under the leadership of Ike Ekeremadu and Emeka Ikedioha when funds appropriated for the exercise were still being withdrawn from the national treasury long after the exercise had been done and dusted.

    This is one profligacy, among many others, which yours truly had believed that the administration of President Bola Tinubu would not permit, past ones being nothing but fraud.

    However, once they have become our worshipful ‘majesty’ since the Bukola Saraki days, and  President Tinubu probably believes that he is estopped by the principle of separation of powers from intervening nothing, not commonsense, not the country’s present economic miasma, largely a consequence of

     the same National Assembly looking away when President Muhammadu Buhari and then CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele conscientiously ruined Nigeria, would.

    While conceding the peoples’ helplessness about it, let me bring to the National assembly’s attention – so that the entire exercise won’t be a total loss – what a former Senator (when senators were properly so called in the 2nd Republic), believes should now constitute the ideal constitutional framework for a multi – ethnic country like Nigeria.

    What this means in essence is that I am taking off again today, exactly from where I left last week, when I urged President Bola Tinubu to set in motion the process of restructuring Nigeria.  Incidentally, I am not alone in this, as leaders of the Southern and Middle Belt Forum and others, have recently called on him to implement the 2014  confab report as well as revisit the recommendations of the APC Committee on Power Devolution. For the attention of the National Assembly, therefore, I  once again,  as is fast becoming my wont, go back to one of my myriad of past articles on the subject of restructuring Nigeria, namely, that of  24 January, 2010  titled: ‘At a Time Like This’.

    It reads thus:

    “I haven’t a scintilla of shame expropriating the above title which Professor Tunji Dare gave his article of Tuesday, December 29, 2009 in this newspaper, for mine  which will, in this piece, be edited for space.

    Time and again, the North has shown that its interests are not exactly coterminous with that of Nigeria. On many occasions  it has treated with disdain, things that would have  redounded to our mutual interest, whilst  holding, tenaciously, to things aimed at achieving short term regional advantage. A good example is the fate which the Obasanjo political conference         suffered as a result of  the North’s fastidious opposition to the demands of  Niger-Deltans, which requests are now being feverishly delivered  via the Amnesty programme, after it became obvious that oil money, to spend ‘yanfu yanfu’, was no longer as guaranteed as previously assumed.

    My honest suggestion is that Nigeria should begin a phased-out decentralisation in a manner that is  structured, and properly interrogated, to ensure peaceful coexistence.

    We have such a long shared history that, difficult as the process may be, we should be able to avoid going back to our atavistic ways, the type that led to the 30-month civil war.

    As a result of observed differences in the level of development between the South and the North prior to independence, the North wisely postponed assuming a self-governing status whilst both the East and the West proceeded apace.

    In  our current circumstances, I am proposing  a process which we need not dub Sovereign, since that word gives some people the jitters, but a process which will   painstakingly discuss a return to  Confederacy; one in which  every federating unit will have fiscal independence while  contributing to the Centre for common services, and with a clause as to how a part can exit the Confederation.

    The United Nations General Assembly has in September 2007 adopted the fundamental right of all peoples to freely determine their political status, as well as freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

    This novel approach should guarantee that, unless a part deliberately sets out to forment trouble, none will arise.

    Rather it will enable each part to develop at its own pace, as well as, create institutions that are most suitable for its peoples e.g. Sharia in the North or additional Local governments in the South.

    This arrangement should reduce insecurity and limit it to certain areas as each federating unit would be able to, unlike now,  institute policing arrangements it considers most suitable to its security requirements. It will equally reduce the humongous amount of money that goes into fighting insecurity especially in the Northern states where it goes back to a decade and a half. Each state/ region will then be able to devote substantial portions of such funds to improving education, health, road infrastructure etc.

    It doesn’t get more annoying than when a Northern leader, who couldn’t breathe a word throughout the  Buhari years,  now tells us “that Northerners will soon revolt; we can’t pacify them again”.

    What blackmail!

    The ’cause  célèbre’ for these musings was the  thought provoking letter I received, this past week, from   distinguished Senator (Professor) Banji Akintoye, now resident in the U.S.

    This, therefore, is my reaction to the letter in the strong belief that  Nigeria, not just  Yoruba land, can achieve the envisaged results in a planned, gradual and peaceful manner.Afterall, Yugoslavia has proved conclusively, post Bros Tito, that separation needs not be bloody or violent.

    The senate of the likes of Professors David Oke, Banji Akintoye and Pa Jonathan Odebiyi (1979- 83)  will go down as the golden era of  the Nigerian senate because that was when, with an indefatigable party leader like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, every  UPN parliamentarian  knew that his/her mandate was service, and more service, to the nation and to the people.

    Senator Akintoye’s letter to me read as follows:

    ‘Dear Femi,

    Though I have not communicated with you for a long time, I have not lost contact with your writings. The president of Ekitikete USA and Canada lives in the same state as I do, and he is diligent in ensuring that I read much of what transpires in the debates on the Ekitipanupo web-board. After reading what you wrote recently on the meeting that gathered at Ikenne on Jan. 14, (that was actually Palladium’s) and what some others wrote on Obasanjo and the loss of coherence among Yoruba leadership, I cannot resist intervening.

    First, I can’t resist expressing my appreciation of your powerful writings. And that is not only because, as works of literature, they make very admirable reading, but also, and in particular, because they portray you as someone committed to very high ideals of society, governance, leadership, and development. In you, the Ekiti character, further uplifted by the best that education can provide, has produced an inestimable gem. I am simply proud of you.

    In our culture, when our elders call a younger person aside to commune with him, they want to urge him to do something. So, what do I want to urge of you? The foremost is that you must never let yourself be drawn away from the honorable positions that you now hold. And, no matter how tough or even painful the situation may become, you must never quit. I urge you to consider this. Our people say that the greatest harm that an enemy can do to a man is to force the man to turn away from, and abandon, his real concerns and keep chasing the enemy.

    For those of us who sincerely lament the disaster (the disorientation, even the dissoluteness) that has befallen the Yoruba nation in the hands of OBJ, isn’t it time we begin to spend more of our time on seeking real answers to the future and destiny of the Yoruba nation, and less on bashing the enemy? In fact, shouldn’t we side-step the enemy and strike for new solid substance? Are we right in assuming that the future and destiny of the Yoruba nation resides inevitably with Nigeria? How many countries in today’s world contain within its border such large ethnic nations as are in Nigeria, all of them subject to, and sharing,  one sovereignty? Even Britain, the creator of Nigeria, is now in the process of being broken up by the ethnic nations in it. The Irish (with the exception of the small province of Northern Ireland) broke away not long ago and established the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland has been a pain in Britain’s neck ever since. The Scots and the Welsh have also been struggling for separate countries of their own, and following the elections of 2007, Scotland is now quite close to establishing a separate country for itself. The Welsh have set up a Commission to develop the Welsh language as their national language and chosen one of their towns as the capital city of their own country. The movement of independence for ethnic nations is spreading all over the world. You are a historian, and you surely know about the breaking up of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, of India at independence, and the countless ethnic national struggles going on in our world. I have waited and waited for somebody to make a hint of these things on the Ekitipanupo board, and it has not happened. Meanwhile, a few days ago, someone sent me an email to which two interesting letters were attached – and I wondered how much of Ekiti’s superior contribution is in what these letters are saying. Femi, I have watched the tone of agony in your writings – agony about the wholesale disintegration of order, ethics, and accountability in Nigerian affairs, and the sucking of the Yoruba nation into that horrendous mess. You represent the best of our products. Please shake yourself. I attach the two letters that made me decide to send this email.

    Accept my very best wishes.

    The man who proudly calls himself your teacher.

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    Banji Akintoye.

    Unfortunately, those letters are not for this space.

    However, what I want the National Assembly to take from Prof Akintoye’s letter is the inevitability of  power devolution in Nigeria, or in any multi – ethnic country. Enough then of this unitary arrangement by which over two hundred million people are held down against their wish. Enough of this suffocating federal knee on the neck of the federating units. There’s absolutely no need for this seeming dictatorship in which a state police commissioner must first get clearance from Abuja before he could take orders from a state governor.

    The disrespect shown to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, by a police officer, during the governor’s visit to the Magodo estate over a lingering land crisis in the area, still rankles and would not go away in a hurry.

    It is an unpardonable misnomer that there are as many as 68 items on the exclusive legislative list, on which only the federal government has authority to act, in a country that describes itself as federal.

    But much more importantly, if an elderstatesman of Professor Akintoye’s standing wrote all these in 2010, a whole 14 years ago, and Nigeria, rather than improve since had, indeed, degenerated very badly, particularly in the 8 years spanning 2015 – 2023 when insecurity defined our country more than anything else, then the views expressed here regarding power devolution must be, for the members, the urgency of now, and should constitute the raison detre of whatever amendments you hope to see go through.

    The National Assembly must wake up and serve Nigeria for once.  

  • Tinubu must restructure Nigeria now to avoid national meltdown

    Tinubu must restructure Nigeria now to avoid national meltdown

    The core of Nigeria’s problem is the lumping together of diverse peoples with different cultures, different world views, different ambitions and directions in life. Nothing besides geography links Nigerians, and even that – geography – clearly delineates us – as the river Niger eloquently epitomises. Nigeria is a mere geographical expression as Chief Obafemi Awolowo put it nearly a century ago. Indeed, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa put it more brutally. According to him:”Since 1914 the British Government has been trying to make Nigeria into one country, but the Nigerian people themselves are historically different in their backgrounds, in their religious beliefs and customs and do not show themselves any signs of willingness to unite. Nigerian unity is a British invention”.

    Not a word of that statement has changed since it was made in 1948.

    So it has remained an unmistakeable truism, no matter under what manner of rulership; military or civilian. The earlier we appreciate this, and put an end to this endless attempt at making one country out of a multi- ethnic, multi- cultural, multi – religious and multi – lingual amalgam of nations, the better”.

    The above was essentially my contribution this past week during an interrogation of the Nigerian conundrum, a conundrum which ensures that every successive attempt to make things better for the country, or her citizenry, turns out worse.

    Nigeria is at the crossroads, with multidimensional poverty and multi – sectoral insecurity making life much more hellish than at any time in recent memory.

    It is so bad that a week ago in Minna and Kano, in  Northern Nigeria, of all places, where there wasn’t as much as a whimper during the humongous #EndSAS# riots, thousands were on the streets protesting the unbearable hardship Nigerians are going through.

    In the same manner, the Southwest, generally regarded as the safest part of the country, has lost its innocence, with two Royal Monarchs needlessly killed two weeks ago in Ekiti.

    At the personal level  today, there’s hardly any love lost amongst the various ethnic groups, just as there’s no longer any  mutual understanding or cohesion.

    Things are that bad.

    Professor Bayo Williams, a  well regarded intellectual, who has devoted considerable time to these matters has, severally in his articles, fingered elite dissonance – what he calls lack of elite consensus, as the cause.

    But I beg to differ.

    I believe instead that, as Sir Tafawa Balewa put it,  Nigeria  is simply not configured to be one united, peaceful and prosperous country. Not a single hagiographer has ever alluded to that as the reason for the British unification of Nigeria. Rather, trade was  the sole purpose and, even religion, was an afterthought.

    President Bola Tinubu had hit the ground running, courageously taking on those tough national issues which his predecessor,  President Muhammadu Buhari, had left severely alone.  Not a few Nigerians had, in turn, began to  think  that we had hit it off for once, that a lion heart, the man who courageously faced off the all- knowing former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who he severally bested as Lagos state governor, has arrived to rescue Nigeria. But 8 months down the line, it is obvious that those very demons that have always imperilled Nigeria’s development, are all still alive and kicking, and will most probably do everything to frustrate him, which will be a great pity, because it would not be for lack of trying.

    You only have to listen to, not just the loud murmurings, but the heavy guffaws of millions all over the country, to know that there’s far less appreciation than you would ordinarily expect,n for President Tinubu’s  yeoman’s  efforts.

    Obviously, not many now, any longer, remember the ‘Emefielian Plague’ that sunk the country into a N22.7Trillion Ways and Means debt peonage, most of which Emefiele gifted members of the then Villa cabal and others very close to President Buhari in sweetheart, low priced, foreign exchange deals that ended up being round tripped, massively devaluing the Naira.

    The CBN governor, Olayemi Cardoso, in a recent Arise Television interview, gave Nigerians the following details of Emefiele’s ‘achievement’ in office:

    ” $7 Billion in unpaid FX obligations about which a forensic audit by Deloitte revealed the following:

    $2.4 Billion had no valid import documents;

    Non- existent entities got allocations; Entities which asked for FX got more than they asked for, while those that did not even apply for FX got allocations”.

    That is where President Buhari and Emefiele left Nigeria on May 29, 2023.

    These are only a few of the challenges President Tinubu must now, willy nilly, find answers to.

    To do that, however, he should advisedlt, share with other Nigerian federating units, the responsibility for turning things around in the country.

    Here the President must bear in mind Ngozi Okonjo – Iweala’s admonition that:”no matter how strong the credentials, one person alone cannot implement reforms, adding that comprehensive economic reforms are by their nature multifaceted and difficult”.

    But I am, indeed, calling on President Tinubu to do far more than economic reforms.

    This is why, despite the many  problems I have identified as requiring urgent solution – general insecurity, the looming food insecurity, extreme poverty etc,  I wish to humbly recommend the suggestions in my referenced article below for the President’s serious consideration even though it would mean that  he will have to seriously multi – task, finding  solutions to Nigeria’s existential, as well as structural, problems, all at the same time.

    Titled:’That June 12  Recognition May Not Be a Hollow Ritual’, and first published 17 June, 2018 but now substantially edited for space, it reads as follows:

    “Beyond our wildest imagination President Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general and member of the narcissistic military that guillotined June 12, on 6 June, 2018, proclaimed an executive order, recognising the  election, and  the winner, Chief  MKO Abiola, on whom he conferred the GCFR, the highest honour in the land, all in a bold attempt to put a closure to a very pernicious phase of  Nigerian history.

    Before we get lost in the euphoria of the moment, it is necessary to let the President know that rather than being the closure to June 12, that event is only the very beginning of honestly answering the National question.

    The fact today is that  Nigeria is no where near a federation, properly so called.

    What then is a federation?

    To answer this million naira question, I will,  respectfully, press into service, my two- time teacher, Professor (Senator) Banji Akintoye.

    Writing, mutatis mutandis,  on the topic: “What is restructuring?” on 6 January, 2018 the elder statesman opined as follows:

    “The basic idea of a federation is that the various distinct parts of a multi – ethnic country should be  a federating state.

    Each state should have the constitutional power to manage its unique problems and  develop its own resources for its people. It should manage its own security and make its own contributions to the well-being of the entire country.

    The centre should manage common issues like  defence,  international relations, currency, and general principles like the defence of human rights.

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    That, he said, was the federal arrangement   Nigeria’s founding fathers agreed upon in the 1950s”.

    “But, since independence, our  politicians, and  military leaders have gradually destroyed this structure and replaced it with one  in which the federal government is the controller of virtually  everything,  meaning that states have no control over their own resources, and have to depend on federal allocations for their sustenance.

    The federal government is (therefore) over-burdened, controls too much money, has become egregiously inefficient and corrupt and is, essentially,  destroying Nigeria because the states have become impotent. They cannot develop their resources, cannot fight poverty or insecurity in their domains, and cannot  contribute to the progress and prosperity of Nigeria. The cumulative effect , he concluded,  is that Nigeria, as well as Nigerians, have become extremely poor. Most public facilities – roads, electricity, water installations, public administration, etc – have degraded, and are not working, with the result  that most of our  youths have become unemployed and hopeless. Inter – ethnic relations has degenerated into enmity and hostility. Crimes have made life very unsafe all over Nigeria. So bad have things become that some sections  are asking to secede”.

    In view of all these, President Tinubu should not be seen continuing with a status quo which brought about all these negativities that have continuously derailed Nigeria’s  progress.

    Fortunately, he is here not being called upon to re – invent the wheel since his party, the APC, set up the El Rufai Committee on Power Devolution which did an excellent, but unappreciated work.

    As captured by The Guardian of 26 January, 2018, “the committee recommended that states should have considerable control on the solid and oil resources in their domains. It recommended the creation of state police, alongside a federal force with specified areas of jurisdiction. It also proposed more revenue for states and a reduction of the Federal share of national revenue.  It further recommends that: “All minerals,  including oil, and gas that are onshore, should be vested in the states of the federation. “Minerals, oil, anything in the land, should belong to those that own the land, said the committee, adding the clincher:”We believe that the time has come to take this bold step and move away from over centralisation”.

    “The Petroleum Act would need to be amended, so that states can issue oil-mining licences. The Nigeria Minerals and Mining Act would also be amended to give states the power to do this. The Land Use Act will equally be amended to recognise the provisions in the Minerals and Mining Act. The Petroleum Industry Act will need to be amended too”.

    These are irreducible parameters for the creation of a new Nigeria where peace will reign and measurable progress will be made unlike the unequalled crisis presently ravaging the country.

    President Tinubu should urgently consider unearthing the report of the El Rufai Committee from wherever those experts in reading President Buhari’s body language buried it so that Nigeria can earn a new lease of life.

  • When the sons of Satan brought us pain, tears and death in Ekiti

    When I wrote here last week that Nigeria will not see an end to her insecurity until influential Fulani leaders rein in their herdsmen, listed in the Global Terrorism Index as the fourth most dangerous terrorist group in the world, and  their equally murderous foreign counterparts, both of them in search of grazing fields, something  they cannot do,  because Fulanis in the words of the Fulani Nationality Movement, (FUNAM) believe that “all over the world, Nigeria is the only country given to them by Allah”, I least expected that a few days later, some of these elements would bring home to us in Ekiti  pain, tears and death, as they gunned down two of our reverred monarchs – the Onimojo of Imojo – Ekiti, Oba Olatunde Samuel Olusola and the Elesun of Esun – Ekiti, Oba David Babatunde Ogunsakin while a third, HRH, the Alara of Ara-Ikole Ekiti, Oba Adebayo Fatoba barely escaped.

    In another attack, they seized some of our little school children over who they have already  started to haggle, as if they were cartels.

    No, it is not the first time they are trying to make a ‘Zamfara, Kaduna or Plateau’ of our dear state, but it had never been anything close to this gruesome blood-letting.

    Severally, we have seen fully armed Fulanis turn the Oke – Ako neck of wood to their hunting ground.

    Their identity is not in doubt, either,  as 5  Fulanis have already been arrested in the forest nearby.

    But how did we get here?

    Put another way, when did the rain start to beat us?

    This rain of iniquity, embedded in the double standard policy of treating a part of the country as untouchables while Fulani boys, even as little as between ages 16 and 17, are left, freely roaming the bush or the  highways, armed to the teeth with AK47 rifles at a time  officially licenced guns are being retrieved from their  owners on “orders from above”.

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    I saw this danger coming as far back as 2020 when, in two consecutive articles on these pages, namely:

    “Waves and Waves of Northerners Rushing South – What is A Presidential Order Now Worth” (17th May, 2020) and “Still on The Massive Exodus Southwards of Northerners – Where Are The Nigerian Security Agencies” dated 24th May, 2020, I drew  attention  to the devilish ethnic agenda handed over to the mob by the Fulani Nationality Movement (FUNAM) which read as follows:

    “We urge the Northern youths to resist, by all means necessary, any attempt to send them back by Southern Governors. We see the actions of these Governors and their agents as provocative and a devious assault on free movement of persons contained in the Nigerian Constitution and the ECOWAS Protocol on movement of goods and persons”, as if free movement meant going to kill and devastate the land.

    “We declare any State that refuses to allow Northern youths to Southern States as an enemy that we promise will be fought vigorously. We urge you, faithful men, not to cringe, not to fear, not to look back.

    The battle is better fought on their homeland. We inform you that we your leaders hold meetings across the key Northern States of Sokoto, Bornu, Katsina,  Kano, Yobe, Kebi, Bauchi and Kaduna. Our resolve is that Northern youths should move enmasse to Southern States.(to kill?). Relaunch the mass movement in ways they have never seen. Go in long convoys. If you are stopped,  use all means, the bush path, the railways and all. If the towns and cities are hostile, hang out on the street corners, in uncompleted buildings, occupy the forests, pitch tents, make any where available as your abode, your rest places, your home. We urge you to be armed. The infidels may want to attack you. It will be disastrous to ever assume there will be no battle at all, before we regain the lost caliphate”.

    Reading through that impeccable order, you would notice that like their old Kaduna Mafia forebears, these seeming ragtags always have their intelligentsia having their back.

    You would also have ordinarily thought that the above was  enough to have moved the then Buhari government to action to, at least, pull  their leaders in for questioning.

    But for where?

    That was at a time when the entire Nigerian security architecture was deliberately put under a Northern choke hold by President Buhari himself.

    Even today, they remain ever so arrogant that some two weeks ago, they announced the establishment of  a “Nomad Vigilante Group” which they claim will assist security agencies in combatting criminal activities”.

    Can anything be more daring, ludicrous and outrightly contemptuous of the Federal Government?

    This leads me to what I believe is  afoot,  which is, that Nigeria is deliberately being made ungovernable by those who consider it infradig to be treated as the equal of Nigerians from other parts of the country.

    This looks to me about the only rational way to explain the massive insecurity deluge, this insecurity pandemic that, has very suddenly descended on the country, starting from the North, and  has now, comprehensively turned Abuja, the federal capital, to a no – go area for anybody who values his life or freedom.

    That done , they have now turned their gaze to the Southwest, President Bola Tinubu’s geo – political zone, with Lagos and Ogun states – the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway way in particular, before zero-ing in  on Ekiti.

    They have, in the past two weeks, attacked Ekiti thrice, climaxing in the horrendous killing of the  aforementioned Royal Fathers. 

    But these jokers lie, if they think Ekiti will ever lie low for killers. They, or their minders,  should go and  educate themselves on the history of the Ekiti people, with particular reference to the Yoruba wars of the 19th century. They will find the book: ‘Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century,’ by J. F. Ade Ajayi and Robert Smith, Cambridge University Press, quite useful.  

    With regards to the killing of our Obas, the time has come for Yoruba elders to begin to think back to what happened in the early 1800’s in Hausa land which culminated in Hausa people being where they are today.

    From there, the elders should also begin to interrogate the reasonableness, or no, of our continuing  to pay ransom which is used in buying more guns.

    A npe gbon nile Yoruba ni o.

    Truth be told, I believe that their target, for now, is President Bola Tinubu since they cannot stand a president who is his own man, and not a quisling, or a plaything of the North.

    One of their groups has already indicated that in a WhatsApp post in which they threatened fire and brimstone. 

    The paradigm shift, on the Plateau, which eventuated a week ago must have confirmed to them  that not only is a new sheriff in town, the era of ethnic cleansing by some gun men, anywhere in Nigeria, is  fast coming to an end.

    Newspaper reports this past week, have it that on the relaxation of the state of emergency in Plateau state, gunmen in the dozens had, as early as 7 am, Friday morning, launched an attack on communities along Gindiri Road, prompting an  immediate response from the security forces.

    In the entire 8 years of President Buhari, even as villagers were being killed in their hundreds – “as of  July 7, 2023, the death toll from gun men attacks stood at 204 but, a week later, it had surged to 346, with over 20,000 displaced persons seeking refuge in camps” – not  once, do I remember Nigerian security forces engaging the rampaging Fulani gunmen since there were no such orders from higher authorities.

    At the end of the confrontation last week, 30 of the attackers were reported neutralised with another 50 arrested, while 4 soldiers were injured.

    For once in many decades, indeed since 1994, the killers got a dose of their own medicine.   

    What Nigerians had become inured to all these years are cases of armed gun men, in their hundreds,   using the cover of night to attack and kill in numbers,

    forcefully, taking over other people’s lands to which owners can no longer return even after the cessation of hostilities, without a single one of them being arrested.

    The Federal Government must follow this up by appropriately equipping  the security forces with geo- mapping and eavesdropping equipments to enable them catch attackers at their planning stages.

    I conclude with the following  contribution to a WhatsApp  discussion on the subject of insecurity in Nigeria: 

    “The permanent solution to insecurity in Nigeria is restructuring which will take some time to be fully achieved.

    In the immediate, therefore, State Police should be created to combat insecurity”.

    “In the Southwest, Amotekun should immediately be converted to a Forest Guards’ agency, whose members should be armed with firearms like the Katsina Vigilante group, with its mandate being to comb all our forests and eliminate all those who have no legitimate business   being there in the first place”.

    This should be replicated nationwide, as nothing short of a massive deployment along these lines can end insecurity  in Nigeria”.

  • A mere red herring

    A mere red herring

    This past Sunday I wrote as follows on these pages in the article: ‘The Unabating Kidnapping in The North: Price We Are Paying For Long Years Of Feudalism’:”Knowing how much insecurity can imperil its economic programmes, especially its drive for foreign investors, the Federal government must now,

    put in place, appropriate measures to nip the terrible situation in the bud. The place to start, however, will be to seek the support of both the Northern elite and that of its traditional authority, both of which have demonstrated unbelievable equanimity in the face of massive insecurity in that part of the country”.

     “This  level of insecurity could not be happening in any other part of the country without the people becoming thoroughly agitated, and showing appropriate concern. It is time Northern leaders are roused from their lethargy even if it means that President Tinubu would have to specially appeal to them.

    Enough is enough”.

    As if the Northern eminence grise ever stooped to read  columns like this one, newspapers were awash  this past week, with phographs of Northern leaders, His Eminence the Sultan of Sokoto inclusive, meeting under the auspices of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), to discuss what they described as “Multidimensional Approach to Tackling Insecurity in Northern Nigeria”.

    God be praised: President Tinubu no longer needs plead with them to join hands with his government to rein in the insecurity conundrum which, for 8 years, a retired general  could not tame.

    This will only happen, though,  if respected Fulani leaders will tell their compatriots, whether as herdsmen, or foreign Fulanis who are keen only on forcefully taking over other peoples’ ancestral lands, that enough is now enough.

    Not even the highly regarded, but sanctimonious President  Buhari who Nigerians believed would do so, did. Which is why I hope that this current meeting  would not be an exercise in futility  as”their shared goal, according to General Abdulsalami Abubakar is “to foster a secure environment that enables the prosperity and well- being of the people of the region”, as against what my people, the Yoruba, would have done in similar circumstances: call a spade a spade, apportion blames as they deem fit, and ask the aggressor in the long running ‘war’, to stop their aggression. Simple.

    How exactly do you “secure an environment where one group is doing everything to dispossess another group of their ancestral lands, whose original names they promptly change, while security people never ever effect a change to the status quo ante? This is a group, it is alleged,  that comes in fully armed, at night, completely ransacks the place, leaving the land free for some people to do illegal mining.

    It’s a joke.

    Any attentive Nigerian would know that the uproar in the North concerning the anticipated transfer of a department of  the Central Bank of Nigeria and the headquarters of the Ministry of Aviation from Abuja to Lagos, is a mere distraction, a  precursor to what could be a far worse brouhaha; the only surprise being that it is coming this late in the Tinubu administration.

    This should, however, be understandable since all the efforts to see a Northerner succeed Buhari after 8 years, came a cropper. And some people sure still hate that to their stomach.

    When the North moved, therefore, it was not just the Arewa Consultative Forum(ACF). Her normally, self -serving senators who have never shown any concern for the parlous material condition of the region, except when they want to make mischief like now, had to roar too with Ali Ndume, as usual, arrogantly grandstanding, telling Nigerians – on television for good measure – to expect political consequences arising therefrom. What cheek! Worse though, was the claim by the senators that the National budget was lopsided against the North.

    How rich?

    Were they sleeping in their huge, but hardly effective numbers, while the budget exercise lasted?

    What a self – indictment.

    This is a group of individuals who have refused to express any tangible concern regarding the horrendous Christmas Eve slaughter of over 100, some reports put it at 195 persons, in the Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi Local Government Areas of Plateau state. Also, hearing nothing from these pretending Northern zealots, the killing armada again went back to work, last Wednesday, mauling another 30, even though a state of emergency was declared by the Plateau state governor. The Mangu CAN Chairman has just now made a public announcement to the effect that the state of emergency was effective only in the Christian area where security men looked askance as their houses wee being reduced to rubble. He even suggested that soldiers should better be withdrawn from their area so thar they too could face their attackers. Suffice to say that the military has since described the announcement as malicious.

    All these remind me of my article of 10 December, 2021.

    Titled: ‘Nigeria at 61:The North Must Restrategise’, it reads as follows:”I have severally made the point here that for Nigeria to make any meaningful progress, we all must tell truth to both power and to ourselves, no matter the risk. One of the weaknesses  of the current  administration  (Buhari’s), derives from the fact that those closest to the president, and should always tell him the truth, are somewhat precluded from doing so, either because of the Rankadede culture, or for fear of  his larger than life persona.

    This has led him into making some avoidable mistakes which have, in turn, negatively impacted not only  him, personally, but also on the North as a whole – cronyism being a good example.

    For changes to happen in the North, deliberate effort must be made by its leaders, especially the state governors, to reduce poverty by aggressively investing in education rather than just trying to grab power for the mere sake of power. As you read this, 65 per cent of Nigeria’s 86 million poor live in  Northern Nigeria, complete with millions of out – of – school children.

    Education is the fundamental tool of reducing the intolerable insecurity currently threatening the very survival of the region. Appropriate attention must be devoted to it.

    Let us now hear from Minna-based, Dauda Hussaini Paiko, a Northern activist, public affairs analyst, social commentator and motivational speaker who, in a trending WhatsApp post wrote as follows:“Northern governors are the most unhelpful set of people in the world. They don’t meet to discuss how to improve life, or add value, to their citizenry. The only time they meet is when they gather to discuss Social Media Bill or zoning of the Presidency. We have 19 Northern States out of which only two, Kano and may be, Kaduna, are viable. The others merely survive on federal allocation. They don’t meet to end banditry, or terrorism, let alone talk of economic development, and growth, or how to foster good governance across the region. Rather they will come and threaten everyone on how power must remain in the North, claiming they have the numbers. Yes, you have the highest number of out of school children. With time, Boko Haram and banditry will be a child’s play because those you fail to educate, and empower, will have no option than to take up arms. Yes, you have the highest number of Girl child marriages. In some states, girls aged between 10 – 12 years are married off, the reason VVF has become prevalent in North West States.

    You have the lowest GDP in the country because you produce nothing of commercial value. Your land that could have been used to produce large farm products to be used for industrial  production are now  homes to terrorists. The only thing you know is Power. Power without value. Power without making a difference. Power without control.

    I am a Northerner. And I speak for majority of the sane ones. Power sharing is not our problem. Our problem is lack of Peace, Progress and Prosperity. We want industry, trade, tourism and employment. Anyone parading himself as my leader should share that common interest with us. I want food, employment, education, roads and access to credit to establish myself. I am tired of running about”.

    Paiko has said it all, and everything he said concerning  state governors are true of most Northern leaders who deliberately feign ignorance of all the atrocities that have continued to make life there short and  brutish.

    Read Also: Naira redesign, ‘Emilokan’ speech, excerpts from Femi Adesina’s ‘Working with Buhari’

    This current noise is intended to maintain the unearned, and totally unmerited advantages which President Buhari  gifted the North and it is  quite unfortunate. Whatever people like senator Ndume see  affecting the North, no matter how tangentially during the present administration is wrongly taken as politically targeted at it which is why he was talking about political cartels as if every President must be sucked in by a cabal.

    Meanwhile, Kaduna state alone, is home to more federal agencies than 10 southern states put together.

    All put together it is refreshing to conclude this piece with the elevated views of one who should know.

    I had intended to end it with an advisory from

    Mohammed A. YAKASAI, a former CBN director. That is now being replaced by the  very authoritative views of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, a former CBN Governor and one time Emir of Kano.

    He wrote:”There are a number of errors in the previous write ups on the CBN’s initial strategy on departmental locations.

    I did not demolish the old building. The credit for the design and the contract for the new Lagos building goes to Charles Soludo. But it is true that I did the formal foundation laying ceremony when JB brought the building to ground level, and I opened the building and used it before I left the CBN.

    There was no “blue print”.  Yakasai may have been informed by someone of conversations among the governors ( and he was not present in those conversation) in which we proposed that DG FSS and his departments move to Lagos and he could come to Abuja anytime for meetings.

    Kingsley Moghalu was happy with the arrangement but we did not have time to come round to it. Having said that – moving certain functions to the Lagos office ( which is bigger than the Abuja head office) is an eminently sensible move. In my mind what I would have done was to move FSS and most of Operations to Lagos such that the two Deputy Governors would be largely operating out of Lagos or, even if they were more in Abuja , the bulk of their operational staff would be in Lagos. Economic policy, Corporate services and all the departments reporting to the Governor directly such as Strategy, Audit, Risk management, Governors’ office etc would remain in Abuja.

    It makes eminent strategic sense. And I would have done this if I had stayed.

    All this noise is absolutely unnecessary.  The CBN has staff manning its branches and cash offices across the Federation. Moving staff to the Lagos office to streamline operations and make them more effective and reduce cost is a normal prerogative of management. The problem we have now is that many employees are children of politically exposed persons ( no thanks to Emefiele – Columnist) and their Abuja life and businesses are more important than the CBN work. 

    The CBN is just an address for them and if they have to choose between their spoilt Abuja life and the job, they would gladly leave the CBN.

    All the more reason for the Governor to put his foot down and get rid of those elements they are dangerous for the bank’s future. Having said that I think the CBN needs to get a few things right.  First, the question of locating functions is a STRATEGIC and not tactical one. A proper analysis should be done to identify which roles are best suited to Lagos and which to abuja.  Once the logic is clear the people then follow. Non communication of strtategic intent opens the door to mischievous misrepresentation and arbitrariness.

    I dont like the idea of arguing that the office structure can not handle the staff numbers. I am sure Julius Berger would refute that if they wanted to engage. Second, individual situations should be considered. As much as possible we should be empathetic. For example young mothers with kids in school who do not need to move can be prioritised to stay in Abuja or those with medical conditions etc. Third the CBN needs to focus on the exchange rate and inflation. Once it has control of these it earns credibility. Once CBN has credibility the Governor is untouchable.

    So long as people think CBN has lost control of its key mandate everyone can make it a target and simple things like this- staff movement- become  an issue it has to defend itself on. When the CBN delivers on its mandate it can push through any changes no matter how tough and ignore the noise.

    *My advice to the Governor is to go ahead with his policy.* Once the CBN starts bending to political pressure on one thing it will continue doing so.

    Northern policians will shout that this is moving from Abuja to Lagos. Abuja is a federal capital not a northern issue. So long as this is a principled decision the noise should be ignored.

    When i was about to license Jaiz bank there was a lot of religious noise from CAN etc. Even enlightened people like Okey Emelamah were going to sue me to court on religious grounds. I ignored it and licenced the bank. Nothing happened.

    A christian Governor after me licenced at least two more non- interest banks. No one is even noticing again. Ethnic and religious bigots will always shout. The CBN should rise above it and just do what needs to be done. It is a very unpopular and difficult job and the Governor needs to be tough”.

    May his tribe increase.  

  • Unabating kidnapping in the north – price we are paying for long years of feudalism

    Unabating kidnapping in the north – price we are paying for long years of feudalism

    Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo is the most qualitatively outstanding and memorable legend of Nigerian politics and governance since the 1940s. He is the one whose role in politics and governance can still be a reliable guide for  Nigeria even though Nigeria lost the opportunity of having him as its President”.

    “He knew how to be relevant both in government and in opposition. When he ceased to be the Premier of the old Western Region, he became a credible and dependable opposition leader. If his policy of free, qualitative, and functional education, for instance, had been implemented and sustained throughout Nigeria, the 40 -year gap in educational development between the North and the South, which inevitably makes the North stand more in the way of peace and national unity would have been avoided” – Alhaji Balarabe Musa,  former Kaduna state governor, at the 2012 Awo Foundation lecture.

    One of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s most cryptic sayings, call it prediction, was that the North will, in future, be the nemesis of Nigeria.

    With all that is happening in the North today, with the daily gnashing of teeth, and given the billions of Naira government  has been spending, these many years, to pacify an absolutely restive North, the time predicted by Awo has, indeed, come and the Avarar could not have been more prescient.

    To put the event at which Alhaji Balarabe Musa made that speech  in proper perspective, it had in

     attendance, about the most eminent royal fathers in Nigeria, among them:the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar, Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, Emir of Zauazau, Alhaji Shehu Idris, Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe, Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Suru Gambari, King Edmund Daukoru, Amayanabo of Nembe, King Dandeson Douglas, Jaja Amayanabo of Opobo, and King Mujakpero, Orodje of Okpe.

    Put in other words,  the iconoclastic Balarabe Musa knew the gravity of what he was saying – especially his reference to “the 40 – year gap in educational development between  Northern and Southern  Nigeria”, as well as its consequences.

    If you ask me, I would wager that he deliberately wanted to lay bare to the eminent Northern royalties present, what roles they played in bringing that gap about, because it was  feudalism – denial of education, for so long to the citizenry, especially the children of the poor by the rich and privileged Northern elite. It was through  that unkind denial, that Nigeria is today harvesting, among other things: illiteracy, 15 million plus out – of – school children in the North, kidnapping, Boko Haram and such other blood-  sucking vermins Nigeria has had to contend with since around 2009. Nigeria, especially Northern Nigeria, has consequently been turned to worse than Armaggedon, given the incidence of daily kidnappings, killings etc. These are, of course, now spreading southwards.

    Akinwumi Adesina, the ADB President, once appropriately described the millions  out – of – school – children in the North as the super market of terrorism. And as recently as during the defence of his ministry’s budget, Dele Alake, Minister of Solid Minerals Development, told the House of Representatives Committee on Solid Minerals that a lot of the banditry, terrorism, and insecurity   associated with the sector are  sponsored by some powerful people who are  involved in illegal mining. These  are the men who daily patronise that “super market”, and because of who they are, the last administration, for  ethnic and religious reasons, just couldn’t touch them.

    Read Also: Babarians have taken over social media  – Soyinka

    Had these illiterates in that ” super market”, the benefit of education, it is doubtful if any of them would choose death, over living, just because he was promised a dubious  seven virgins in heaven.

    It was obviously in  appreciation of the place, and role, of education, as well as the consequences of  lack thereof, that President Tinubu,

    in his address to a visiting delegation of Jam’iyyatu Ansaridden this past week said as follows:”There is no weapon against poverty that is as potent as learning. I can assure you that we are here to change the lives of our people. We are here to promote peace, stability, and economic prosperity. We are dedicated to building a lasting peace with a focus on the comprehensive education of our children”.

    That is the very ingredient Northern leadership  denied the people, especially the children of the poor, just so they could continue to use them as serfs.

    Today, those serfs of yester years have become objects of terror in every part of Nigeria.  These bandits and terrorists  are no longer ready to hide in bushes, or wait for their prey on highways. They now head straight into homes to sieze the entire members of a family some of who they  gruesomely murder, while awaiting payment of ransom.

    That precisely  was the ill- luck that befell Nigeria this past week but, in particular, the families of Alhaji Mansoor Al- Kadriya and that of Lawyer Oladosu Ariyo. The  details are so gory, empathy and decency will not permit me discuss the events any further.

     Suffice to say that    security in Nigeria has sunk so abysmally, kidnappings and murder have birthed right in our homes and streets. It is no longer enough to start chorusing ‘not my portion’ as the situation calls for only much tougher actions on the part of government can answer appropriately to this epidemic .

    It is particularly galling that this is happening after about a decade, and a half, since our gallant security forces have been battling the satanic forces with not a few of our service men and women paying the ultimate price.

    May God Almighty rest them and comfort the families they left behind.

    Unfortunately, their gallantry and sacrifice were not appreciated by Nigeria’s political leadership, especially during the last administration which treated the killers with kid gloves because of religion and ethnicity . For instance, despite the thousands of school children kidnapped in the North, you would  count less than 20 kidnappers who were tried and jailed for their heinous crimes. Even when a foreign country handed over names of terrorism sponsors to the Buhari government, it still could not muster the political will to try them, all for the twin reasons of religion and ethnicity.

    It is this same powerful people who have stood, ramrod, against the creation of state police. On several occasions, Northern state governors claimed,  publicly, to have endorsed state police. But once they depart the public shows – for that’s what they are – they chicken out and end up doing nothing. Below is a newspaper report, dated 14 September, 2022 announcing their usual meaningless endorsements:”The 19 governors under the aegis of the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) unanimously expressed support for the establishment of state police in a bid to tackle the activities of insurgents, kidnappers and other criminal activities across the country. The Northern Governors’ stance was contained in a communique issued at the end of the meeting with the Northern Traditional Rulers Council held on Monday in Abuja, organised to “review the state of security in the North and other matters relating to its progress and the development of the region.” “While reading the communique, NGF chairman and Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, said the meeting reviewed the security situation in the North and other matters relating to its development and resolved to support further amendments of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) in the bid to accommodate the establishment of state police”.

    End of story.

    Not a word of it was heard again because some in the North actually believe that  these evil perpetrators are out to promote their religion through  Sharia which they proclaim in conquered spaces.

    Even though it is common knowlege that the Nigerian Police lacks the wherewithal to successfully fight  these terror groups, yet the North, with all its executive power and  overwhelming majority in the National Assembly, still failed to see creation of state police passed in  the National Assembly. It was, in fact, alleged to have been deliberately killed out of respect to Northern oligarchy which is believed  to be not well disposed to it. It is for this same reason restructuring Nigeria has become a no go area.

    It is now far past the time for buck

    passing. The Federal government must now, knowing how much insecurity can imperil its economic programmes, especially its drive for foreign investors, put in place appropriate measures to nip this terrible situation in the bud.

    The place to start, however, will be to seek the support of both the Northern elite and its traditional authority, both of which have demonstrated unbelievable equanimity in the face of massive insecurity in that part of the country.

     This could not have been happening in  other parts of the country without the people getting thoroughly agitated and showing appropriate concern. It is time they are roused from their lethargy, even if it will mean the President having to specially  appeal to them.

    Enough is truly enough.

    Also, it is true that the President has met severally with the Service Chiefs especially in the past few days, demanding concrete action from them to put an end to  an insecurity that has gone beyond description. But nobody can forget  that President Buhari also had similar meetings but with little or no positive result since the real enemies are very powerful people who would do anything to protect their hugely profitable business.

    This means that President Tinubu is doing the same thing as his predecessor, which should not be since it yielded no positive result. I will suggest that he  seeks additional help from wherever; persons, organisations or even foreign countries, who are knowledgeable, or had practical  experience in these matters so as to be able to fashion out new ways of  confronting, and defeating, the menace.

    Below are Five (5) things government should consider doing:

     (1) Introduce and properly fund an aggressive education policy in the North as the millions of out -of – school – children are a waiting time bomb;

    (2) Create state police;

    (3) Begin a massive  recruitment in to all arms of the security services;

    (4) Introduce a massive infusion of appropriate technology into each arm of the security services,

    and

    (5)President Tinubu must decide to get to the very bottom of those fueling insecurity in the country.

    Fortunately for him, and unlike President Buhari, he has no   cultural or religious reasons to impede his doing so.

    Until this is done, Nigeria will only be fighting insecurity on the surface and going round in circles.

    It is time those behind insecurity in Nigeria are outed.

  • Indeed there are presidents and there are presidents

    Ironically, all these happened under the president that came with so much fanfare and avowed commitment to tackle insecurity, economy and other problems headlong.

    From the time Buhari assumed office, he showed lack of ability and competence to manage the diverse challenges in Nigeria. He was withdrawn from the realities in Nigeria as he made constant travels his mainstay as against tackling threatening economic and security challenges that reduced lives to nothing under his watch” – INDEPENDENT, 5 January, 2024.

    If anything gratified me, looking back now at President Muhammadu Buhari’s time as president, it is the fact that I was able to “eat my words” – yes indeed – reverse those words I had written on these pages  concerning his suitability for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, while he was still in office.

    Before that ‘Pauline conversion’, I doubt if anybody believed in Buhari’s appropriateness for that office more than I did. Given my implicit confidence in him I had, as far back as September 21, 2014 in a 3- part article titled ‘Periscoping The Ideal APC Presidential Candidate(1) when campaign for the APC presidential primaries was still ongoing – confidently written as follows on these pages:”Nigeria needed Muhammadu Buhari more than he needs Nigeria”. I have gone further to write:”Here is an absolutely honest man against who, to date, no Nigerian anywhere has come up with any allegation of  shady financial deals in any of the high positions of responsibility, including that of military Head of state, he has held in the country”. “His  mistakes, for which he paid dearly, were his weak campaigns which did not adequately  emphasise his personal qualities of incandescent honesty, and an unalloyed commitment to the public good, both of which he continued to demonstrate by calling attention to how people in government have turned themselves to ‘authority stealing’, as he called them.”. His greatest sin, however, was his equating Northern Nigeria to the entire country, believing that he was home and dry, once he won there – a chimera.

    Alhough there are no allegations of impropriety against him, even now, safe his literally gifting the former CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, a carte branche, to run the bank aground and, ipso facto, ruin the Nigerian economy.

    It was, therefore, extremely saddening for me  to see him, in office as president, make ethnicity and religion the two principles around which his government revolved.

    When President Buhari was not  ethnicising the Nigerian security architecture, he was busy, coyly trying, through such devices as RUGA, Cattle Grazing Routes, as well as a controversial Water Resource Bill once smuggled into the National Assembly, to turn over ownership of ancestral lands, all over the country, to Fulanis from wherever, as was then being canvassed by Bala Mohammed, the Bauchi state governor who theorised that Fulanis have no nationality and, could therefore, claim any country as theirs.

    That was not all.

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    Until the pragmatic Northern APC governors successfully took it off  his hands, President Buhari did everything – this time around through the good offices of Senator Abdullahi Adamu – the man he singularly inflicted on APC  as Chairman – to ensure that Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu never sniffed the presidency. Left to him, a Northerner just must succeed him.

    The lietmotif for this article, therefore, is President Tinubu’s prompt action on the allegations of corrupt practices involving some government officials, ministers inclusive.

    This past week saw him suspend from office, a minister and a programme National coordinator both of who, together with the former minister of Humanitarian Affairs, are now being grilled by the EFCC in connection with fraud allegations running into billions of Naira.

    This is in sharp contrast to President Buhari who, in office, demonstrated such egregious lethargy that President Tinubu’s procedural, indeed, routine actions, described above, now seem like a revolution of sorts in Nigeria.

    President Buhari would not only do nothing, he  would not even act like he heard the loud murmurs of the people on any issue. And when he, surpringly, showed he heard, as in CBN governor Emefiele throwing Nigerians into penury by confiscating their money in banks, with no new ones available, President Buhari would, for some shadowy and totally untenable reasons, side with the wrong party.

    Instances of this abound, like his insistence on having pre – colonial Grazing Routes re- established afresh in Nigeria, even when land developments, everywhere all over the country, have rendered it absolutely inconceivable.

    Another is his laizerfaire, ethnic motivated attitude towards the fight against insecurity which very seriously, and negatively, impacted the efforts of the hardworking men and women of our security forces.

    In the wake of the unfortunate killings on the Plateau two weeks ago, President Tinubu had promptly ordered the arrest of the killers. Although I wrote here a week later that such an order was medicine after death since the killers, though always in their hundreds, would have, as usual, evaporated into thin air , I have since been proved wrong as some arrests are reported to have been made.

    The practice under President Buhari was always to shield the killers who, were they not Fulanis, would have been arrested in action. In fact, a research by the Achebe Foundation has long ago discovered that top security officials of a particular ethnic group around wherever there was going to be a Fulani herdsmen attack always have prior information and consequently give others to rank and file security people to stand down. Although that report was published many years ago, it is yet to be creditably disputed. Add to that General T. Y Danjuma’s claim that the killers are usually assisted by some security men which tends to explain the lopsidedness in the numbers of locals killed in the recent Plateau massacre compared with that of the attackers.

    Let us also examine the case of Benue state where, rather than support the state’s Anti- Grazing Law, President Buhari’s spokespersons always railed, and railed against the state governor, Samuel Ortom, thus indicating their principal’s displeasure with the state law.

    For instance, responding to editorial comments by two national dailies, the Daily Trust and ThisDay both of which blamed the security situation in Benue State on the inactiveness of the Buhari government, Garba Shehu showed neither remorse, nor decorum, when he replied:”Perhaps if the disgraced governor had been more concerned with doing his job than politicising the tragedies so frequently taking place under his watch, the situation in Benue might be very different, like in any of its neighbours – Taraba, Nasarawa, the FCT”

    But worse was to come when all President Buhari could tell a delegation of visiting, mourning Benue elders, was that ‘in the name of God, Benue people should go and love their neighbours”- the same neighbours that have just killed over 100 people?

    Granted that no two persons or administrations are the same but who will forget, in a hurry, that  the Accountant – General of the Federation during the Buhari administration,  Ahmed Idris, who was  unconstitutionally re- appointed by President Buhari after he turned 60, and should have automatically retired from public service, was arrested by the EFCC on allegations of laundering  N109B.

    But even with President Buhari in office, Idris was, for weeks avoiding EFCC invitation to him  for interrogation. Just compare that with what happened within a week in the current administration even when Idris was charged with a much more grievous crime. And that, by the way, was the same man who claimed to have cleared two officials of the Federal Ministry of Justice, accused of embezzling N104 million Duty Tour Allowance (DTA).

    The least said about the trial of Boko Haram sponsors, a matter over which his  Attorney – General Abubakar Malami gushed, and gushed every day, deceiving Nigerians that they were going to be tried. In the investigation ordered by President Buhari, over 400 alleged sponsors of terrorism were reported to have been arrested. Sahara Reporters alleged that Malami released about 300 of them, leaving behind only their foot soldiers who also, apparently for ethnic, and religious considerations, President Buhari and Malami still  refused to have tried till the end of the administration. This was after the United Arab Emirates  had given them  names of those sponsors who were indicted in that country.

    Only 35 of the foot soldiers were deliberately taken before a vacation judge who they know was retiring in 3 months, and have since retired without indicting any of them.

    That exactly is how well President Buhari served Nigeria. But we still must thank God for small mercies as this looks like a new day in Nigeria.

  • How are young Kaduna army recruits in Lagos different from non – indigenes contesting legislative elections in states

    How are young Kaduna army recruits in Lagos different from non – indigenes contesting legislative elections in states

    The Nigerian Army this past week came up with the following Press Release in respect of some young Kaduna state  indigenes who were recruited into the Army  as if they are Lagos state indigenes at the ongoing recruitment exercise:

    “The attention of the Nigerian Army has been drawn to a circulating video on social media depicting the arrest of some fraudulent candidates at the ongoing 86 Regular Recruits Intake, who were caught attempting to short-change indigenous candidates of Lagos State through dubious means.

    The NA wishes to state that the arrest of the fraudulent candidates was a result of the commitment of the NA in upholding a transparent and credible recruitment process in line with its core values of integrity and fairness. The video  is a pointer to one of the processes to which the candidates were subjected in order to ensure that only genuine indigenes of a particular State  are recruited, using the slots of that state and not non indigenes.

    The video itself  clearly shows that the process is transparent, as the State Representative, who is a prominent member of the recruitment team, has been part and parcel of the process and was given unhindered access to do her job by scrutinizing the candidates’ state of origin, to ascertain the genuineness of their indigeneship claims”.

    Please note the words SHORT – CHANGE.

    The Nigerian Army deserves nothing but commendation for this very patriotic action, not just for demonstrating transparency and ensuring equity,  but for pointing Nigeria forward to the way, and manner, it should handle matters in which fairness  should,  mandatorily, apply to ensure equity in matters involving Nigerians of diverse ethnic and cultural background, that is, citizens of a multi – ethnic Nigeria.

    What readily comes to mind, therefore, are elections into the National Assembly as well as state House of Assembly and local government council Areas.

    The extant position of the National Assembly is as follows:”The National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a bicameral legislature established under section 4 of the Nigerian Constitution. It consists of a Senate with 109 members and a 360-member House of Representatives.

    The body, modeled after the federal Congress of the United States, is supposed to GUARANTEE EQUAL REPRESENTATION(of states and peoples) with 3 senators to each 36 state, irrespective of size in the Senate, and 1 senator representing the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja”.

    For equity the above should, automatically, render illegal, instances of non – indigenes of a state, contesting  election into any of the Local Government council Areas, the State House of Assembly and  the National Assembly, with a view to representing a district where he/she is, at best, only a sojourner, as a Senator, member  House of Representatives, the state House or even LGA.

    This aberration,  became prevalent within the rancorous Lagos state Peoples Democratic Party since 1999  because its leaders have not only always been quarrelling among themselves, fighting over funds sent from its Abuja headquarters rather than working in harmony to ensure victory at elections. Since what is paramount to them is to corner such funds, the party in the state, has failed, woefully since the return to civilian rule in 1999, a whole 25 years, to win any state wide election, perennially playing second fiddle in the state. 

    This was always the source of their quarrels, especially ahead of  elections. In an effort to make up for their lack of both political strategy and electoral support in the state, they have always, cheaply, resorted to gifting non indigenes the chance to contest elections, especially in constituencies where the ethnic group of such persons are hugely concentrated hoping to have easy victories even without putting in the necessary hard work.

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    What is particularly nauseating is the fact that you find a preponderance of this lazy approach to electoral victory within the Lagos state PDP, except that their cousins, the Labour party, in the same state, also employed the same “working to the answer” tactics in the 2023 general elections, the reason they both met their Waterloo. 

    Unlike this laizerfaire Omo Eko political strategy, politicians in other parts of the country, always prefer to work  their hearts out at achieving victory in elections, with considerable success.

    The result has been that though these Lagos state PDP big wigs  have controlled the party in the state since inception, they have had nothing to show as success, the reason many of the party’s erstwhile consequential leaders are now back in the progressive political camp, e g APC, where they originally cut their political teeth.

    Galling and indeed, puke inducing, is the fact that the usual beneficiaries of this lazy man’s tactics, are those who cannot let go of even a mere councillorship seat back home, being ever so protective of whatever is theirs.

    Broadly concerning Indigeneship, gamji.com posits that:”First, there are fundamental differences between  indigeneship and citizenship, both theoretically and practically”. “Whereas indigeneship is a natural link between a person and a geographical location – his ancestral home – where he traces his roots through a blood lineage and genealogy that puts him in contact with his kin and kindred, citizenship is a man-made arrangement that seeks to confer on a person certain rights that are enjoyed by all persons in a certain geographical location”.

    “Secondly, citizenship has limitations that militate against complete assimilation and participation in the activities of the people whose citizenship is bestowed on an individual while indigeneship, in most instances, does not contain such restrictions”.  “Whereas non indigenes can participate in the political, social and religious activities of their areas of   residence, (up to a point) the fact that legislative seats are allocated to states on basis of equality in Nigeria, and EVERY NIGERIAN BELONGS TO A PARTICULAR STATE, non indigenes should, under no circumstances, be eligible to stand election into a legislative body in any state, other than his or her own.

    Rather, those keen on contesting elections into any legislative body should relocate back home to his /her state of origin to satisfy that yearning; the only difference being an election to the office of the President, or Vice – President, neither of which is constitutionally allocated to any state of the federation.

    This is not a lacuna that payment of taxes in any state can cure because you cannot, on the basis of paying your tax, rob another state, and its peoples, of what legitimately belongs to them. It is also not an instance where we can begin to compare apples with oranges, citing what  happens in the UK  or the US, because Nigeria is neither.

    The gamji.com article, in fact, makes this difference very explicit when it states as follows:”Let’s take a look at the US which represents, to many misinformed Nigerians, the ideal of assimilated citizenship. By nature, the US is an immigrant country which means that most residents not only perceive, but recognize and acknowledge, themselves as settler-lords. The Native Americans (which were initially known as American Indians) are recognized as the indigenes (in fact the term native is indicative of this status) and are accorded certain rights and privileges that are not universal in the country. Among the immigrant population (i. e non-native Americans), there are citizens by birth (those born in the US or whose parents are citizens of US ) and those that are bestowed (immigrants into the US who have been accorded citizenship status).

    These are recognized officially as those that could contest for elections into political offices. However, no matter how long you have stayed in the US, and no matter the level of contribution to the development of the country, you are not eligible to contest elections to the office of the President of the United States of America unless you are a citizen of the US by birth”.

    For whatever it is worth, the National Assembly should  make  laws to explicitly state this so that it would become a bounden duty of INEC to ensure that only indigenes of any Nigerian state qualify to contest any legislative election therein.

    Back then to the instant case of the young Army recruits. I would wish to plead that for offering to serve Nigeria, they should be pardoned their offence, promptly released and redeployed to the recruitment centre in their geo- political zone.

    However, should government insist on punishing them, then it should go a step further: arrest whoever it was who facilitated their crime by furnishing them with Lagos State indigeneship certificate, and punish him or her too.

    It’s only then we can say that justice has been served.

    Finally, Gamji.com left us, Nigerians, with the following posers to ponder. I plead we  seriously do so:

    Is an organizational structure based on indigeneship, as it is now, the best for Nigeria ? Do we need a change from this traditional arrangement that has, as its core, the culturally expedient and accepted concept of indigeneship?

    Or

     Are we ready to let go our individual and collective prejudices in favour of a new organizational structure for Nigeria?

  • Is it time for Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Nigeria or do we simply go our separate ways

    Happy New Year to my  esteemed readers. The only year I can remember as comparable to the outgoing one, 2023, is 1992, which her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth11 of England, branded as ‘Annus Horribilis,’ because it was a particularly terrible year for the British royal family.

    However, just when you think you have seen it all, with the irritable display of some political malcontents on Social media, there suddenly pops up some joy killers, slaughtering, like rams , more than100 innocent souls on the Plateau at a time the entire world is celebrating the good news of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, the reason I believe it is time enough Nigerians rethink their continued existence as members of a so – called united country because this senseless carnage just cannot continue.

    Please come with me as we interrogate the matter of those who, for so long, have heedlessly turned Nigeria to a killing field, literally making nonsense of the  new Federal government’s relentless effort to reconstruct the country’s economy almost completely destroyed in the last 8 years by encouraging Foreign Direct Investment, a chimera. The CNN, as usual, took that gory and senseless bloodletting to every corner of the world, and where is that investor who would be glad to invest in an unsafe country?

    Unfortunately, it is beyond the remit of these ignorant killers, and their sponsors, to ever think of the negative economic consequences of their senseless longing to forcefully take other peoples’ ancestral lands.

    That is besides

     making it totally impossible for simple, ordinary Nigerians who want no more than to live, and let live, in an atmosphere of peace and serenity, have their wish.

    “More than 115 persons have been confirmed dead following attacks by gunmen on communities in Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi LGAs of Plateau state”.

    “The Nigerian nation today is falling. A situation of apocalypse is everywhere. People are not safe even in their homes as waves of kidnappings and terrorism have become the lot of the people, from remote villages straight through to the megapolis – A state of progressive Armageddon” – the quote above is lifted from a WhatsApp message sent to me this past week by a highly regarded statesman who can truly be said to have paid his dues to fatherland. He too is tired of all the shenanigans going on in this country.

    But are we condemned to living this lie of a united Nigeria?

    Why wont we rather look, hard and straight at ourselves,  confess our sins – and there are more than enough to go round -and if possible, structurally reconfigure Nigeria so we can all live in peace, and if  not, mutually agree to go our separate ways, without resort to shedding blood?

    After all our founding fathers told us the unvacuumed truth about this country, viz:

     “Nigerian unity is only a British invention”- Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, 1948.

    “Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no ‘Nigerians’ in the same sense as there are ‘English,’ ‘Welsh,’ or ‘French”.

    “The word ‘Nigeria’ is a mere distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria and those who do not” – Chief Obafemi Awolowo, 1947; and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe in 1964:“It is better for us and many admirers abroad that we should disintegrate in peace and not in pieces. Should the politicians fail to heed the warning, then I will venture the prediction that the experience of the Democratic Republic of Congo will be a child’s play, if it ever comes to our turn to play such a tragic role”.

    Yes, it can be argued that we already had our own Biafran experience but we should, at the same time, not forget Gen T. Y Danjuma’s dire warning that  no country, least of all Nigeria, can survive two civil wars. Nigeria is, no doubt, on tenterhooks with its incomparable level of insecurity.

    All these musings flashed through my mind after listening to Major – General  Henry Ayoola, as guest of Arise tv on its morning programme this past week.

    A highly-decorated military officer and  fellow of the prestigious National War College, General Ayoola must have been invited as a former commander of Operation Safe Haven whose operations covered Plateau and  Bauchi States to come and educate Nigerians about the goings on the Plateau.

    What attracted me the most in the interview, however, was the general’s reticence,  indeed, non – answer, to many of the questions he was asked.  That – his inability to name and shame – is precisely what triggered the question posed by this article. 

    It is beyond a shadow of doubt that General Ayoola can readily answer the questions he flipped, even in his sleep.

    Why then the evasivenness to the  extent the programme anchors were literally, coyly, propitiating him to either answer, or do a follow up to a previous answer? Was it a fear of those powerful hands that have, like forever, held Nigeria hostage?

    This fear has been one of our major problems, especially in matters pertaining to insecurity as those who know, and should be able to speak truth to power, often choose not to, thus giving  these merchants of death a free rein to encourage and perpetuate  horrendous criminalities.

    The general said, among other things, that he has interacted with all sides to a conflict, concerning which, my friend Tony Sani, as Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and I, engaged in some very harsh back and forth during the Jonah Jang administration.

    Nothing should have stopped General Ayoola, given his vantage position, from telling Nigerians the truth, and nothing but the truth, about a conflict for which he once literally offered his own life for Nigeria. Failure to do so can only serve to further embolden the enemies of Nigeria.

     No, it is not being suggested that  he should have laid bare some military secrets, but if we ever want to put a closure to this conflict which Plateau state governor Caleb Mutfwang described as ” barbaric, brutal and unjustified”, then people who are knowledgeable about it, who know the killers, the sponsors and those protecting them, must endeavour to open up on those holding Nigeria hostage lest the enemies assume that they will always be untouchable. God be praised, things are changing. For instance, financiers of terrorism which the Buhari government refused to try, despite A-G Malami’s several assurances, are today having their day in Nigerian courts.

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    However, if the general wont talk, Governor Caleb Mutfwang did Nigeria a favour when he commented as follows on the chilling killings in his state:”Part of the problem we have is that so far, there has been no arrests, no prosecution. Under President Muhammadu Buhari, the people of  Plateau state, especially victims of these attacks, believed that the killers were being given official government backing as little, or nothing, was ever done to repel the attacks”. He  concluded, matter of factly, by attributing the continued attacks to “SETTLERS WHO WANT TO ACQUIRE LAND  BY FORCE IN THE STATE”(caps mine).

    That is the truism general Ayoola, unfortunately, ran away from saying.

    He, however, made some helpful admissions – one, that there can never be an end to a war in which one of the  parties is in the commanding height of affairs, and that the state governor simply does not have the wherewithal to solve the problem because it is beyond him.

    Unfortunately, neither will President Tinubu’s order to security agents to fish out the killers, as it amounts only to medicine after death.

    This is so because such an order cannot unearth the killers who, as usual, have melted into  thin air, ditto their powerful sponsors, nor those in  the Nigerian armed forces who General Danjuma has severally accused of aiding the ongoing killings all over Nigeria.

    It is in view of these facts that since restructuring has become a jinxed word in our clime, it is being suggested here that President Tinubu may wish to, like Nelson Mandela did in South Africa in 1995, consider the setting up of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission – a court-like body, to help heal the country and bring about  reconciliation in a way that truth can be made part of our country’s common history, with a view to facilitating the process of national cohesion and reconciliation, both of  which are presently in total abeyance.

    Nigerians need to know what, or who, either as groups or individuals, have held Nigeria in such total bondage that 64 years after independence, many are still holding British imperialism responsible for our national woes and calamities.

  • Scarcity in abundance: The pain of Nigerian pulp, paper mills

    Addressing members of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria at the state house on Monday, 18 December, 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu promised to carefully review all the existing regulations negatively impacting local access to newsprint. This, he said, while promising that his administration would remain steadfast in “reinvigorating, retooling and re-engineering the Nigerian economy.”

    Coincidentally, at about the time the President was restating that undertaking,  Abiodun Oluwadare,  a Professor of Pulp and Paper Science and Wood Quality, with minor interest in Climate Change Education at the University of  Ibadan was, in his 112 – page Inaugural Lecture, not only laying out the historical antecedents  of paper mills in Nigeria, thrashing out the problems bedevilling the industry, but was also vigorously pointing out ways to its belated  resuscitation if Nigeria would ever take due advantage of her vast potentials in the sector.

    I am yielding the column to Professor Oluwadare today to do what, at best, can only be a synopsis of his well-received Inaugural.

    Happy reading.

    The suitability of any raw material for paper-making requires the knowledge of its fibre composition in relation to the final product properties. Nigeria is blessed with diverse flora within its wide ecological zones. Trees, shrubs and other agricultural products are well distributed in Nigeria. Unfortunately, despite this abundance, Nigerian import bill on paper and paper products is more than N3Trillion per annum.

    This is prodigal, to say the least, and absolutely uncalled for.  Urgent attention is, therefore, needed to address the misnomer.

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    Research and development in sourcing for long fibre plants locally have led to the discovery of Sterculia setigera and Sterculia oblonga with fibre lengths higher than 2 mm.  Besides these, Nigeria has several non-wood, and grasses raw materials which can serve as  alternatives to the long fibres of softwood. These include cotton linters, kenaf, bamboo, miraculous berry, rice straws, bagasse, corn stalks and sorghum stalks which are already being used for paper making in some Asian countries, China inclusive.

    Paper in general performs a variety of core functions in the modern world be it in educational, socio-economic, political  even, cultural areas. The paper consumptive power of a nation, that is, per capita consumption, has been used as an index of her industrial growth and development. Nigeria has a rising population with a 3.2 per cent annual increase and is estimated to be about 400 million by 2050. 

    This will put Nigeria among the 10 most populous countries of the world. The current trend of pulp and paper consumption in Nigeria, as of 2020, has actually gone beyond these estimates; with a per capita consumption of 2.0 kg/year/person. Although our present net import of paper and paper products is over 380 million metric tonnes, Nigeria is still faced with a dire need of these products to meet the local paper requirements of  the country’s increasing population.

    After Nigeria’s independence in 1960, extensive examination of native species were carried out at the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi, Lagos, but their non-suitability led to the introduction of an exotic specie – the Gmelina arborea.

    This led to the initial plan to have five pulp and paper mills in the country, to be located in the following states: Anambra, Kwara, Akwa Ibom, Edo (then Bendel) and Ogun States. Of these five, however, only three were eventually established in Kwara (now Niger State), Akwa Ibom and Ogun State.

    The first, the Nigerian Paper Mill, Jebba, was established in 1969 to produce Kraft paper. After some modifications to its installed capacity, it went up to 65,000 metric tonnes but initial annual production, from imported pulp materials, was only 12,000 metric tonness per annum. By 1985 the production level was increased to 65,000 metric tonnes to utilise the mixed hardwood species (14) which was to be blended with imported long fibres, intended to reduce reliance on imported pulp.

    As mentioned earlier, the Jebba Paper Mill was to produce Kraft pulp liner boards. In 1986 another integrated pulp and paper mill was commissioned in Akwa Ibom to produce the much-needed newsprint with a production capacity of 100,000 metric tonnes per annum. The third mill was to produce bond papers with a  capacity of 100,000 metric tonnes per annum.

    It is worth mentioning that Nigeria was to be the sole producer of pulp and paper in West Africa, and was to produce about 6% of the sub-region’s total paper requirement. Nigeria thus had the comparative advantage of being a net exporter of pulp and paper in the entire region, even beyond.

    Current Situation in The Pulp and Paper Mills in Nigeria:

    The planned levels of production at the functional pulp and paper mills could not be achieved as a result of  inadequate supply of local raw materials,  most crucial of which was the long fibre pulp which plays a critical role in the strength properties of paper.

    This shortfall led to the gradual decline in the  production levels and the eventual collapse of the  paper mills. Although a new one is coming on board but its output cannot meet the required need of end users in the country. Thus Nigeria, with a growing, and viable newspaper industry, a thriving book printing and publishing industry, complete with a litany of allied paper products segment, rather than source its requirements  locally,  now wholly depends on imports, deploying huge foreign exchange in the process.

    Nigeria presently imports corrugated paper, newsprint, bond paper, cartons, Kraft paper, sack paper, liner board and chipboard, among others. These are all items which  we should, effortlessly, be  producing locally.

    This is a national travail. But where do we go from here?

    There has been far too many reports on the subject, examples being the following:

    Why government must revisit pulp and paper mills sale’- The Nation 09/10/2015;

    Nigeria Loses N180bn Due To The Collapse of 3 Paper Mills by Nairametrics 21/09/2015; Nigeria’s comatose mills – Business Day; Stakeholders lament comatose state of paper mills – The Vanguard 27/09/2015;

    Nigeria’s dying paper mills gasp for oxygen by The Guardian 09/08/2020;

    Paper Industry: A Sector in Death Throes – ThisDay 04/02/2022; and,

    Action needed to save paper industry from collapse – The Punch 04/06/2022. 

    Concerning this lurid situation, President Bola  Tinubu recently asked:“Where are the paper industries?”,

    in response to the address by members of the Newspaper Proprietors’Assocoation of Nigeria when they visited him. Happily, he promised to review all the policies negatively affecting the newspaper industry in the country.

    Below, I enumerate some of the  problems confronting the industty:

    (i)Inadequate raw materials and the unpreparedness of the companies in the sector to make use of  locally produced materials;

    (ii)Absence of facilities and equipment for paper testing, even in institutions of higher learning.

    (iii)Unhelpful government policies and a lack of interest in revitalising the paper mills.

    (iv)Lack of support from the sector for research in pulp and paper.

    (v)Low capacity building in terms of curriculum development.

    The paper industry holds much promise for job creation, throughout the value chain. It can contribute millions of jobs, and thus ameliorate the appalling youth employment in the country.

    Profitability of investment in the pulp and paper industry in Nigeria is guaranteed with global prices of various pulp types being even higher  than crude oil. For instance, a barrel of crude is equivalent to 139 kg in weight while a metric tonne of paper is 1000 kg. Thus, on the average, the price of crude oil from 2007 to 2020 was $79.24 while that of pulp was $836.71.

    By simple calculation, 1 kg of crude oil is $0.53 while 1 kg of paper is $0.85

    Given a combined Rated Mill Capacity of 265,000Mt (which is grossly below the required need of the nation), Nigeria  would, cumulatively,  have made $221,728,150 and over $5,543,203,750 in the last years before the mills were closed down or became ineffective.

    It can be deduced from these facts that if investors are given required enabling environment, the pulp and paper mills in Nigeria can effectively come back to life again and substantially contribute to the country’s economic growth by facilitating job creation as well as greening initiatives,  through the establishment of massive pulpwood plantations.  Several raw materials available in Nigeria, among them, kenaf, sterculia, pine, sisal, ficus, miraculous berry and bamboo, among others, have been identified as suitable for paper making.

    In order to achieve a quick recovery in the  sector, therefore, it is important to bear the following in mind:

    At the national level, there is the need to establish a paper commission to address the present situation in the entire sector and, in particular, provide the industry with a national road map.

    No country can develop without research and development. It is, therefore, long overdue for Nigeria to have a pulp and paper research institute.

    That is the answer to the President’s question about the whereabouts of both newsprint and the paper industry as this is what is done in countries which are serious about development. Indeed, the sheer paucity of foreign exchange in Nigeria should tell government that this is not one area it should needlessly be throwing it’s  scarce foreign exchange.

    Government should similarly provide an enabling environment to serious investors who are willing to put their hard – earned money in the sector.

    This could be through tax holidays, rebates on land acquisitions, zero duty on imported machines and equipment, and chemicals used in producing paper and related items – though duty waivers should now only sparingly be granted given the abuse to which they have  been prone.

    It is also high time that investors in the sector begin to show interest in funding Research and Development by committing substantial funds to same.

    Finally, the Federal government should find a lasting solution to the importation of books and paper products, as well as put an end to the printing of books and related materials from abroad.