The Nation Newspaper

Category: Femi Orebe

  • Sir, why is this country populated by bad people? (For attention of Governor Seyi Makinde)

    Sir, why is this country populated by bad people? (For attention of Governor Seyi Makinde)

    We are today dealing with a matter of urgent National Interest; a matter that should prick the conscience of Nigerians, and one that should, henceforth,  see us extend a hand of fellowship to others, especially  disadvantaged Nigerians who are in much greater need than ourselves.

    In August, 2023, the federal government announced a N5 billion palliative package for each state of the federation,  the federal capital territory (FCT) inclusive, to cushion the impact of petrol subsidy removal.

    According to informed sources, this was to  enable state governments  procure 100,000 bags of rice, 40,000 bags of maize and fertilizer, to cushion  the effect of food shortage in the country. To avert any inflationary pressures which may result from releasing such huge funds at once, government, in its wisdom, released to each state only N2B out  of the N5B, which is actually a combination of grants and borrowings from the federal government.

    Also as part of the government’s  plan to reduce poverty, President Tinubu in his Independence Day speech announced the commencement of a N75,000 cash transfer programme, over a period of 3 months, at N25,000 monthly, to 15 million households across the country.  However, because the Social Register faced some  integrity questions during the Buhari administration, a new one is to be compiled by states using formal and informal means to ensure that all beneficiaries at the sub-national level are captured, and easily  accessed. This is in accordance with the decision of the National Economic Council (NEC) at its July, 2023 meeting.

    These are all worthy efforts aimed at reducing the difficulties confronting the generality of Nigerians as a result of some much needed reforms from which past governments ran away  but which President Tinubu  has boldly, and frontally, addressed for the longer term good of the country.

    A critical question, however, remains regarding the handling of the palliatives namely: as presently being implemented, are palliatives actually getting to those who need them the most, or are those in charge of the distribution merely cornering them for only themselves, their friends and relations?

    This question becomes very germane because there are  already newspaper reports of arrests being made of public servants selling palliatives in open markets in some states of the federation. For example, bags of such  items meant for Limawa Ward of Chanchaga local government area of Niger state were reportedly diverted and sold at a market in the state capital, Minna.

    This practice is probably not limited to that local government area or even to Niger state, meaning that palliatives are certainly not getting to  those who really need them.

    One of those in dire need of palliatives, but is being denied them,  is  an Ogbomoso – based gentleman, Mr Sunday Fakunle, more popularly known in his neck of wood as Alheri. I am yet to meet him, but some years ago, he sent me a comment in reaction to one of the articles on this column in which he informed me of his physical and health condition. Since  Alheri  did that, I have tried  as much as I can, to reach out to him with what could best be described only as my widow’s mite. How he sees that little, however, should be  obvious from his message below.

    Read Also: Follow-up letter to Seyi Makinde

    The message, from which I got the title of this article, and dated 3 October, 2023 reads as follows:

    “Good morning Sir. Firstly, how is your health Sir? I pray, and continually pray for you because you are very special to me. Sir, I am saddened about the people that inhabit this country. As an HANDICAP LIVING WITH A BELOW THE KNEE AMPUTATION,  and struggling to survive like able – bodied people, I have not been privileged to meet  any one, either in government, or elsewhere, who has seen my physical condition and tried to help me to secure any    pallative or give me any incentive, whatever, to cushion the effect of the present difficult situation in the country on me, except you. Besides God, you have been my only helper.

    Sir we hear that it is those able – bodied men and women in government  who are diverting  the  palliatives to themselves and their relations.

    Sir why is this country populated by bad people all around ? Signed:Alheri.

    I recently returned to the country after a 3 – month visit  abroad during which I lost contact with Alheri. All efforts to reach him through my account officer, as well as my driver, both of whom I gave his telephone number failed, because, as he later told me, his phone was not working.

    I am seizing this opportunity to bring the case of citizen Sunday Fakunle, aka Alheri,  to the attention of the Omoluabi governor of Oyo state, the fair-minded, politically sagacious Oluseyi Abiodun Makinde, whose political choices in the events leading to the 2023 Presidential election, mark him out for greater future roles in our country’s affairs. And to him, I wish to say the following:

    Sir, Sunday Fakunle, your Ogbomosho – based ‘below the knee amputee citizen’ direly needs your kind attention. He needs all the assistance you can give him; not just in palliatives, but also a  job that would be able to sustain him and his family.

    It will be greatly appreciated, dear governor,  if on reading this, you would kindly immediately direct the Chairman of Ogbomoso South Local Government Area, where Alheri resides,  to fish out Mr Fakunle from his residence at: Ile Olajide, Beside Total Petrol station, Caretaker Area, Ogbomosho. His telephone number is +234 816 435 6886.

    In addition, please instruct all the Local Government Chairmen in Oyo state to make it a point of duty to locate persons with disability in the state who should, henceforth, be placed on a priority list of palliative beneficiaries.

    Yes, almost all Nigerians need palliatives at a time like this, but some are in far greater need of it than others. You will be greatly appreciated as you do this.

    I shall be seeking the approval of this newspaper’s editor to have the Oyo state correspondent of The Nation personally present this plea ( article) to   Governor Makinde, believing that he would  act, proactively, in his usual statesman – like manner.

  • It will be government’s fault if workers go on strike as planned

    It will be government’s fault if workers go on strike as planned

    Nothing would have convinced me, as President Bola Tinubu was being sworn into office on 29 May, 2023, that his government could emulate the gross lassitude with which his inept predecessor handled Labour matters under the lead of the egocentric minister of Labour, the all –  knowing Chris Ngige who had the distinct record of worsening every Labour crisis during the Buhari administration. Even where a strike could have been avoided, as in that of medical doctors, his professional colleagues, Ngige ensured it happened, absolutely out of his arrogance. He was as proud as he was obdurate, and each successive strike soon became more of a conflict between him, in his personal capacity, and the striking workers, rather than against government.

    In vain did Nigerians expect that he would change tack during the doctors’ strike but he behaved more like he would never be out of that office.

    There’s no way I could have thought that a sagacious leader like President Bola Tinubu would allow disagreement with labour to linger for as long as we have seen under his short administration, nor could one believe that such a serious issue could be treated with as much laxity as Nigerians have witnessed.

    In none of the meetings with Labour has the government demonstrated any strong commitment to let labour believe that it was not being played. Indeed, the Labour minister has done nothing to indicate that the government expects to see any concrete and lasting resolution come out of the meetings that have become so haphazard labour has even threatened not to attend any longer.

    Read Also: Tinubu addresses Nigerians on Sunday

    In essence, government has not shown that it appreciates the enormity of the hardship Nigerians, especially workers, are going through in consequence of the, albeit, wise and bold decision by the President to stop the wasteful, totally uneconomic, fuel subsidy regime on his very first day in office.

    The suffering has been terrible but we need not delay by listing them and although government, at all levels, have come up with a rash of paliatives, none appears structured to bring about a reasonable and lasting answer to the millenial problems confronting Nigerians.

    It is this lackaidaisical attitude of government that has seen it lose considerable support. Not many can understand the obvious levity with which government has treated its negotiations with labour especially when the same government could vote billions for members of the National Assembly Nigerians believe are not only over paid but pampered.

    Not a few Nigerians believe that what is happening is not  in tune with what they know of a President Tinubu who so positively impacted the lives of Lagos state public servants when he was the state governor that some states in the country came all the way to Lagos to understudy some aspects of the state administration.

    Granted that administering the country is a far greater responsibility, I am yet to see anybody seriously doubt the President’s ability to achieve the glowing success his administration in Lagos was except when political opposition are playing their cheap politics.

    For instance, we saw this cheap stuff in the opportunistic endorsement the Labour party has accorded labour’s planned strike when it said the following in a statement issued by its Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh:

    “Today, Nigerian workers are being punished for taking a stand during the February 25 Presidential Election”.

    “We are not in any way surprised at the government’s apparent indifference, insensitivity, intransigence, and recalcitrant posture towards the genuine demands of the Labour bodies because their usurpation of power was not sanctioned by both the workers and generality of Nigerians.

    “Nigerians went to the polls with clear conviction of the government they wanted but this was denied them through institutional conspiracy. Today, Nigerian workers are being punished for taking a stand during the February 25 Presidential Election. Labour Party is also aware of the sordid conditions which workers, the majority of them being our members, are subjected to, where many go to the office on a Monday and are forced by the prevailing economic challenges to sleep in their offices all through to Friday before returning home.

    “We are also using this medium to inform all our members and supporters to stock their homes with their necessary needs ahead of a long-drawn mass action until victory is ascertained. No retreat, no surrender.”

    You would think they conducted a Pan – Nigerian census to arrive at what Nigerian voters wanted.

    They made the above claim, GBAJUE style, despite their defeat even after 99 percent Igbo voters, inside and outside Igbo land, had cast their votes for the home boy, Peter Obi, of the Labour party. Obi’s failure ought to have taught appropriate lessons for ethnic and religious bigots but for where?

    Cheap as they are, not even the government’s most ardent supporter can suggest that June ’23 to end of September is not a long enough time for the Tinubu administration to have come up with a realistic agreement with Labour. Even if, as is being suggested in some quarters, President Tinubu reels out a list of its offers to labour in terms of improved wages etc on October 1, that would only result in a fresh wave of disagreement as such would not be the product of collective bargaining between the two parties.

    That this will result in more antagonism and confusion is obvious given the fact that at no time in the history of government – Labour relations in the country has Labour become so political, resulting in the worst ever ethnically motivated, totally dislocated Labour organisation, whose headquarters is swallowed up by giant size photographs of Peter Obi, the Labour party presidential candidate.

    Labour has thus become a tool in the hand of that party to perennially attempt to harass the Tinubu government; an opportunity it never fails to grab.unrestrainedly.

    You only have to familiarise yourself with the names of the leaders of most of the affiliate members of the NLC to know that the strike, even with government’s own foibles,  is at best a political ploy.

    Or which well meaning workers’ organisation would believe that what Nigeria needs today, in a country which the former Emir of Kano recently, statistically proved to have been set back 40 years by the President Mohammadu Buhari administration, is a destructive, all – encompassing strike which is targeted at further weakening the country, probably intent on getting non – democratic elements in society to help them achieve that which they failed to get electorally.

    All such intentions will, however, fail.

    That said, President Tinubu must now personally intervene to resolve matters. The last thing Nigeria needs now is a national strike. Therefore in the few days left before the now declared strike, and in order to ensure that the country does not suffer any paralysing, politically motivated strike, the President must from now on handle the negotiations directly as the country can, in no way survive a labour meltdown.

    A strike that is planned to ground aviation, paralyse electricity, banking as well as other key sectors of our already underwheming economy will not only terribly impact on the country, the Tinubu administration may find it difficult to climb  out of such a massive hole.

    It can so damage the government that it may come to define the very essence of an  administration  many already see as a paradigm shift from the economically illiterate   governments that have been our lot for decades

    Without a scintilla of doubt a stitch in time can still save nine. President Tinubu can still avert the strike. He should do everything to see that it does not hold

  • Exactly the way to go

    Not since Kwame Nkrumah and his vision for a pan-African agenda for development, has a speech ever been delivered by any African leader on behalf of the 54 nations of Africa. Africa will have itself to blame if it fails to build on the important policy speech by President Tinubu at the United Nations General Assembly” – Olisa Agbakoba, former President, Nigeria Bar Association.

    Really, et tu Olisa Agbakoba?

    Above is the soul lifting comment by Olisa Agbakoba, former NBA President, 2006 – 2008, on President Bola Tinubu’s address last Wednesday, 20 September, 2023 to world leaders at the 78th session of UNGA in which he stressed that unfair treatment, and foreign exploitation, have stunted Africa’s progress, emphasising that Africans are not beggars, but equal partners.

    He said further: “Many proclamations have been made, yet our troubles remain. Failures in good governance have hindered Africa. But broken promises, unfair treatment and outright exploitation from abroad have also exacted a heavy toll on our ability to progress. If this year’s theme is to have any impact at all, global institutions, other countries and their private sector actors must see African development as a priority, not just for Africa but in their own interest as well.

    The question is not whether Nigeria is open for business. It is how much of the world is truly open to doing business with Nigeria and Africa in an equal, mutually beneficial manner. “Direct investment in critical industries, opening their ports to a wider range and larger quantity of African exports and meaningful debt relief”, he said, “are important aspects of the cooperation we seek”.

    Concluding his robust advocacy for Africa, and its peoples at the ‘numero uno’ world organisation, President Tinubu declared: “As for Africa, we seek to be neither appendage nor patron. We do not wish to replace old shackles with new ones.

    Instead, we hope to walk the rich African soil and live under the magnificent African sky free of the wrongs of the past and clear of their associated encumbrances. We desire a prosperous, vibrant democratic living space for our people. To the rest of the world, I say walk with us as true friends and partners. Africa is not a problem to be avoided nor is it to be pitied. Africa is nothing less than the key to the world’s future”.

    This article is, stricto sensu, not about the President’s address to the August body. Rather, it is about Agbakoba’s bold and fascinating comment on it, regardless of how his brother Obidients might tear into him for appearing supportive of anything Tinubu.

    Truth be told, not since Murtala Mohammed’s historic 1976 “Africa Has Come of Age”  speech on Angola, has Africa seen anything comparable. For the sake of posterity, but particularly because Murtala’s immediate successor later cancelled the study of History in Nigerian schools, let me, very briefly, recall that event as refreshingly captured in Chila Andrew Aondofa’s article of February 12, 2022.

    He wrote:”…There is an overwhelming consensus that Murtala Mohamed was an incorruptible hero who would have, given the time, rid Nigeria of the scourge of corruption that has infected her. His focus wasn’t just Nigeria. The commitment he showed to the liberation struggle in Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and, to the pan African issue in general, was unparalleled.

    On the 3rd of January, 1976, the American Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Donald Easum, brought a letter addressed to the Nigerian Head of state by the United States President, Gerald Ford. The same letter was sent to many other African leaders. Murtala considered it a contemptuous gesture – an attempt by the U. S to dictate policy regarding the Angolan liberation struggle. He took the bold and unprecedented step of releasing the letter to the press and followed that up with a very strong response, calling the letter a “gross insult”;  basically telling the Americans to go to hell. This event triggered his decision to attend the OAU conference in Addis AbabAbaba to deliver his message to the world.

    On the 11th of January, at the extraordinary summit conference of the OAU held in Addis Ababa, he gave one of the most powerful speeches ever delivered by a Nigerian leader, pulling no punches as he railed against the forces of neo-colonialism and imperialism, aiming to keep Africans in poverty and strife.

    Read Also: Tribunal upholds Gov Alia’s election

    In the speech, he paid special attention to the “Pretoria-Lisbon-Salisbury” axis (the governments of South Africa, Portugal, and Rhodesia) and, to the United States of America, who he claimed were interested in maintaining “white supremacist minority regimes” in Africa.

    Just over a month later, Murtala Muhammed was killed at the age of 37; victim of a failed military coup.

    One of the leaders of the coup accused Murtala Muhammed of, among other things, “going Communist”.

    Back then to the article proper.

    Olisa Agbakoba is not new to this column at all. Beginning with his highly Nostradamic “Naira Will Soon Exchange For N1,000 To The Dollar” of  September 2016, his many ‘lives’ with President Obasanjo and others’ political guinea pigs, and lately, his  Obidientist interventions on behalf of either Peter Obi or the Igbo race, as both are some times indistinguishable?

     I have written here, ad nauseam, about how Agbakoba literally authored this whole nonsense about a candidate having to score 25 per cent of FCT votes to be declared winner of a Presidential election, never seeing the folly of a candidate winning that in 36 states but not in Abuja, with his competitors winning a quarter in no more than 16 states like Obi.

    Each time I write about this, I have always held the view he did so strictly for ethnic reasons since Igbos look like being in the majority in Abuja.

    I was further strengthened in this belief when Agbakoba came up with his unbelievable proposal of  having the Presidential Election Petition at the PETC decided  in 7 days. Apparently, the appeal would then take hours at the Supreme Court.

    How Solomonic?

    Eager to make Peter Obi, his fellow Igbo, president of Nigeria, below is his ‘seminal suggestion’.

    The Clever lawyer that Agbakoba is, he tied the suggestion to his people’s call for an interim government – which he knows is illegal – due to what he described as “expectations”(whose?) – that the tribunal may not deliver judgement before May 29. Please note that Obidients did not want the winner of the election  sworn in on 29 May, 2023 as constitutionally prescribed.

    Therefore,said Agbakoba,”under arbitration matters, orders/directions are issued peremptorily to resolve complex jurisdictional and procedural issues”. He then went on to specifically list the grounds for Obi’s petition – not Atiku’s –  and urged “the presidential election tribunal to adapt the procedures familiar with speedy conclusion of arbitration matters”, as if Election matters is one. He went further to claim that decisions on such a very important national matter don’t have to take too long, taking into consideration the impact that such a delay can have on the nation’s sanity, as if this is the first presidential election to be litigated.

    Nigeria has not yet evaporated even though the PETC took weeks.

    Our SAN actually petulantly suggested that: “the Tribunal and the Supreme Court, yes the Supreme Court, should give the order, address the jurisdictional issues raised, and release final summary judgment”. In what jurisdiction is that done in election matters?

    I wonder how he must be feeling now.

    Then to the critical questions, and the very rationale for this article:

    *What exactly drove Agbakoba away, this time around, from their narrow, ethnically predetermined, way of seeing whatever Tinubu does or does not do?

    *Knowing how Obidients, his soul- mates, threw all caution to the wind and pulverised, if not desecrate, both Dr Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala, the WTO Director – General, and the Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka for doing nothing more than saying what they considered anti- Obi, what led him into praising President Tinubu’s speech?

    *Is it that as a High Priest of Obidientism, he is exempt from any pillory, abuse, even physical assault from those totally excretable characters?

    Whichever of these is the answer, I congratulate Agbakoba, and say that this, indeed, is the way to go; not obsequosness, but hard- headed approach to issues  and Agbakoba, unless he does not know it, is generally very highly regarded for his past contributions to nation building. It should not be beyond him to know that cooperation, rather than antagonism, is the answer to Nigeria’s problems.

  • These irredeemable sore losers have lost it for all time

    These irredeemable sore losers have lost it for all time

    So, I am not Nostradamus, that French astrologer, physician, and reputed seer, “who is best known for his book ‘Les Prophéties’, a collection of 942 poetic quatrains predicting future events” many of which, the 9/11 catastrophe inclusive, have happened almost to the letter.

    I have literally laughed myself hoarse reading, or listening on television, to the post – PETC decision babble of  not just the  presidential wannabes themselves, but  their court jesters like Daniel Bwala, Sam Amadi and a host of others whose cheer leader, however, is none other than  Dele Momodu.

    How I once liked him?

    In ‘The Illogic of Dele Momodu …’, 30 October, ’22 I wrote concerning him:”For me, it is simply impossible not to like Dele Momodu – avuncular, sartorial and derring-do. Dele has carved a niche for himself, not only here in Nigeria but all over the West African sub region, if not all over the world. That he is an alumnus of the University of Ife, aka Great Ife, my Alma Mata, raises my admiration for him a notch higher”.

    That was the piece in which I shredded the puerile reasons on which he had erected his dream  of an Atiku victory in the then forthcoming  2023 Presidential election; a fairy tale I knew would never come true for a self – conceited politician like Atiku.

    Momodu, never known for moderation, took direct aim, and mercilessly pulverised the 5 Justices who found against Atiku at the PETC writing: “I watched in utter amazement and wonderment how our constitution was brazenly

    and deliberately turned upside down by those who lack a sense of history and care less about the verdict of history”. “What all men and women of good conscience should have for them is pity and not anger…”

    Just imagine a man who should be pitied, a man Nigerians know would have waxed lyrical in his praise of the same judges had they found in favour of his two pals even as their lawyers made a complete mess of their petitions.

    Fortunately, I need not break a single sweat in reacting to him this time around.

    I shall, instead, rely on His Lordship, Mr Justice Niki Tobi, JSC, of blessed memory who, as far back as 2008, had foreseen, and dealt severely for posterity, with the likes of Dele  Momodu, that is,  media blackmailers of the judiciary.

    To his Lordship’s immortal words in Buhari vs. INEC & Ors (2008), LPELR-814 SC), @  pages 175-178 on the subject of Media Blackmail and Intimidation of the Judiciary I shall, therefore, revert.

    “The Court of Appeal cannot collect evidence from the market overt; for example from Balogun market, Lagos; Dugbe market, Ibadan; main market, Jos; Central market, Kaduna; Central market (former Gwari market), Minna; Wuse market, Abuja. On the contrary, the Court of Appeal, has to wait for evidence, as the court did, in the court building duly constituted as a court qua adjudicatory body. Courts of law being legal and sacred institutions, do not go on a frolic or on a journey to collect inculpatory or exculpatory evidence. On the contrary, they deal only with evidence before them which is procedurally built on arid legalism.

    For the avoidance of doubt, I am not saying by this judgment that all was well with the conduct of the Presidential Election conducted in 2007. What I am saying is that there was no evidence before the Court of Appeal to dislodge section 146(1) of the Electoral Act.

    It is sad that so much has been said in the newspapers of this country on the case. The new technology of internet reporting (Social media venerated by Obidients and Atikulators – my words) has added to the comments, some of them doubting our integrity to do justice according to law. I regard them as blackmail and I will not succumb to blackmail,

    I swore on that eventful day as a High Court Judge to do justice to all manner of persons without fear or favour. I have never departed from that oath and I will not, God helping. It is too late in the day to do so. Nigeria is a country where suspicion of wrong doing is the past time of the citizens. Nigerians should realise that some public officers should be trusted to do the right thing. Why not the Judges!

    Nigeria is one vast and huge country made up of so many diversities in terms of tribes, cultures, sociology, anthropology and above all, quite a number of political parties (some large, some small). These diversities, coupled with the usual aggressiveness of Nigerians arising particularly from the do or die behaviour in politics; there must be irregularities. Courts of law must therefore take the irregularities for granted unless they are of such compelling proportion or magnitude as to “affect substantially the result of the election.” This may appear to the ordinary Nigerian mind as a stupid statement but that is the law as provided in section 146(1) of the Electoral Act and there is nothing anybody can do about it, as long as the Legislature keeps it in the Electoral Act. The subsection is like the rock of Gibraltar, solidly standing behind and for a respondent to an election petition. I am not saying that a Presidential Election can never succeed in the light of section 146(1). No. It can if the petitioner discharges the burden the subsection places on him.

    The way politics in this country is played frightens me every dawning day. It is a fight to finish affair.

    Nobody accepts defeat at the polls.

    The Judges must be the final bus stop. And when they come to the Judges and the Judges in their professional minds give judgment, they call them all sorts of names. To the party who wins the case, the Judiciary is the best place and real hope of the common man. To the party who loses, the Judiciary is bad. Even when a party loses a case because of serious blunder of Counsel, it is the Judge who is blamed. Why?

    While I know as a matter of fact that in every case, the Judge makes an additional enemy, if I use the word unguardedly, I must say that the Judge does not regard the person as his enemy. The Judge who has given judgment in the light of the law, should not be castigated in the way it is done in this country. That is a primitive conduct and I condemn it. It is a conduct that does not help the promotion of the administration of justice. It is rather a conduct that is likely to affect adversely the administration of justice in this country. I feel very strongly that Nigerian Judges should be allowed to perform their judicial functions to the best of their ability. I should also say that no amount of bad name-calling will deter Nigerian Judges from performing their constitutional functions of deciding cases between two or more competing parties. Somebody must be trusted in doing the correct thing. Why not the Nigerian Judge?”

    If these sore losers are still capable of any learning, they should see the pedagogical  position of the hugely respected Judge as a learning curve.

    They should correlate it to the wise words of Justice Monsurat Bolaji-Yusuf who, in dismissing the petitions said, inter alia, as follows:

    “The petitioners did not understand the explanation of the first respondent or were just fixated on their belief that they won the election without any cogent and credible evidence as they did not  bother to place any credible evidence before this court.”

    “Were they expecting the court to go and gather evidence from the street, or the market? Or to be persuaded or intimidated by threats on social media? That is not the way of the court”.I hope Obidients and their cousins, the Atikulators, heard that clearly. Since they will not be pleading anything new at the apex court, they should know that   discretion, as the saying goes, is  the better part of valor.

    A word should be enough for the wise.

  • Why won’t VP Atiku Abubakar just quietly sing his political nunc dimittis and go home?

    Why won’t VP Atiku Abubakar just quietly sing his political nunc dimittis and go home?

    “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace…” – Luke 2:29

    Everything considered, VP Atiku Abubakar is a titan of the Nigerian political landscape. A revered, indeed, highly regarded elderstateman, he has been a a political colossus like for ages – actually since the 90’s and has done everything  humanly possible to be President of Nigeria, except win it,  having been contesting for the numero uno position since 1992 – a clear 31 years.

    He served creditably as Vice- President under the rambunctious President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999 – 2007) who, rather than appreciate his services, chose, together with his Boys, the likes of Nasir El Rufai, and Femi Fani – Kayode to fling him right under the bus. In deed, to safeguard his political life, Atiku had to fight the boisterous Obasanjo all the way to the Supreme court.

    But not even the judicial elixir extended to him by the apex court would exculpate him from a fussilade of further attacks on his person by his one time boss who went ahead to expose, in his book, – MY WATCH, Atiku’s alleged corrupt acts for which a US Congressional hearing would later find him guilty of corruptly funneling millions of dollars to the accounts of his US- based wife.

    Not done, Atiku would later be linked with the embezzlement of funds earmarked for the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF).

    If the above are eons ago, not so Atikugate – the revelation, shortly before the 2023 Presidential elections by Michael Achimugu, his former media aide – giving details of how Atiku claimed to have used phony companies called ‘Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs)” to receive bribes, and divert public funds when he was Vice President.

    All these, together with his serial electoral losses should, ordinarily earn VP Atiku all the sympathy he so richly deserved. 

    Read Also: EFCC, ICPC to respond in Keyamo’s suit against Atiku Abubakar

    Unfortunately, he did not help himself. Below is how two former state governors described  VP Atiku:

    Katsina State governor, Aminu Bello Masari, sees the former Vice President as a rolling stone that would never gather moss, adding that “his penchant for running from one party to another smacks of desperation which would make it very hard for him to ever win a presidential election in Nigeria”. 

    On his part,  Donald Duke, former Cross River State governor, said:”Atiku has been contesting for Presidency since 1992. In fact, since 1992 there is no presidential election he did not participate in. In 2007, he contest, in 2011 he ran after he came back to PDP. In 2015 he ran, also in 2019 he ran and 2023 he wants to run. Haba, is it only you.”

    In contradistinction to Atiku, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who governor Rotimi Akeredolu once described as “a leader of leaders, and a living legend”, has demonstrated nothing but patience and equanimity,  helping others grow politically, rather than hankering after the presidency every election cycle.

    The Immediate past Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo gave credence to this fact in  2021 when he  said that “there is no Nigerian leader who has been as instrumental in raising other leaders as Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu”. “What is responsible for this phenomenon, he went on, is Asiwaju’s lead ership style, which is unusual”; stressing that Tinubu ”constantly refines his thoughts, and is never afraid of having his subordinates scrutinise his ideas”. He added: “Ashiwaju is completely comfortable engaging across different ethnic, religious and partisan divides”. 

    It was essentially this difference in their approach to life, and especially to politics, which made all the difference in the 2023 Presidential election.

    While Atiku, through his selfishness, split the PDP into four, the entire APC Northern Governors’ Forum, impressed by Tinubu’s politics,   stood ramrod behind him and ensured that he emerged the APC presidential candidate. They showed the same  steadfastness when the Villa Mafia showed their hands in Emefiele’s currency redesign plot which they successfully  fought to a standstill through the courts. 

    Thus, through Atiku’s overarching pride and selfishness, he destroyed his party’s chances in the election, thereby applying the final nail to his own political coffin.

    Unfortunately, rather than quietly sing his political NUNC DIMITTIS, he is all over the place gallivanting from pillar to post, chasing after Tinubu’s academic records; the same man who sheltered him in the ACN where he contested the presidential election when, in 2007 Obasanjo banished him to political Siberia.

    First to the PETC in Abuja he went, and as soon as proceedings wound down at the tribunal, to the US he headed, shamelessly shopping for courts to grant him that which only he, and his lawyer, can decipher.

    Represented by his lead counsel, Chris Uche, SAN, and able to call only 27 of his promised 100 witnesses, Atiku closed his case on Friday 23 June, 2023.

    Below are the grounds of his petition:

    That the presidential election court either declares him the winner of the 25 February election or nullify the election and order a rerun.

    That Tinubu was “not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast, and therefore the president-elect’s victory “is unlawful, wrongful, unconstitutional…null and void.”

    That Tinubu was, at the time of the election,  not qualified to contest the said election.

    “That it be determined that the return of the 2nd Respondent (Tinubu) by the 1st respondent (INEC) was wrongful, unlawful, undue, null and void having not satisfied the requirements of the Electoral Act and constitution…which mandatorily requires” Mr Tinubu “to score not less than one quarter (25%) of the lawful votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the states in the federal and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”

     That the court  declares him the presidential election winner, as he “scored the majority of lawful votes cast at the presidential election.

    That in the alternative, the court makes an “order directing” INEC “to conduct a second election (run-off) between” him and Tinubu.

    “That the election to the office of the President of Nigeria held on 25 February 2023 be nullified, and a fresh election be ordered,” 

    Because of its sensitive nature, this article will restrict itself to only the rebuttal by the INEC’s counsel, Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN.

    Replying to Atiku’s petition, he told the court “that Atiku “failed to discharge the burden placed on him by law” in proving his allegations against the conduct of the election”.

    He  argued “that Atiku’s case centred on alleged “non-compliance with the electoral act and INEC guidelines and regulations” which the petitioner did not substantiate”. He asserted that the deployment of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System machines and INEC Results Viewing (IReV) for the presidential election was “successful.”

    Continueing, he said:”The evidence (before the court) showed that these innovations around accreditation and authentication were successful and the information generated by BVAS were stored on the Amazon Web Services (AWS)”.”The evidence before court, he went on, showed that AWS is the secure and reliable Amazon services across the world,”  and concluded that Atiku’s claim that the IReV portal was compromised by INEC in favour of  Tinubu was an egregious fallacy”.

    Apparently seeing the futility of his petition at the PEPC, and perhaps, momentarily forgetting that he still has a recourse to the Supreme court, rushed to the US, long after proceedings have ended and judgment being awaited, thus going on an unnecessary fishing expedition, trying to close the stable door long after the horse has bolted.

    After being shut down by one US court, he rushed to another. He has now been shown that America is not a country where he can play games with the courts.

    I have some questions for candidate Atiku as he continues his search not minding whether he goes to the South or the North Pole

    In all his 77 years( born 25 November 1946) could Mr Atiku, at any point in time, have been appointed Treasurer of Mobil Oil Nigeria?

    What does he think qualified Tinubu for that executive position in a reputable international oil company?

    Working in Nigerian Customs?

    No, it is education, and not an emergency one, rushed during the 6th or 7th decade of his life but in his youth.

    Our dear one time Vice President, who I personally rever, should please, for posterity, quietly retire to eitherJada or Dubai..

    LAST WORD

    Some Obidients, just as they recently did, overwhelming with insults, the one and only Dr Ngozi Okonjo – Iweala, the highly regarded Director – General of the World Trade Organisation, their sister and about the very best to come from amongst them after she visited PresidentTinubu – these world renowned scammers – have been sending insulting texts/ tweets to the authorities of Chicago state University, cheekily asking to be sold fake certificates, as if they are not the real authorities in all manner of fakeries – fake drugs, fake spare parts, fake everything.

  • Tinubu: Revenue generation as basis for some ministerial posting and redeployment

    With considerable justification, Chris  Ekpenyong, former Deputy Governor of Akwa Ibom State, would seem  to have been reading from the same book as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu when he wrote as follows in December 2022:”Like a patient that has undergone numerous surgeries and rehabilitative procedures under the supervision of surgeons and medical consultants for years, yet with no recovery in sight, but rather deteriorating condition laced with permanent bodily scars as evidence, the economy of Nigeria has always been under the knife. It has been a history of serial diagnosis, proffered solutions and futile actions undertaken by successive administrations.Unfortunately, healing and recovery remain elusive”.

    He wrote further:”Economists, geologists and surveyors have long agreed that under the Nigerian soil are wealth and riches untold. But majority of Nigerians are wallowing in poverty.

    A NEITI report suggests that there are about 40 different kinds of solid minerals, and precious metals, buried under the Nigerian soil waiting to be exploited with a commercial value estimated to run into trillions of dollars but failure to harness their benefits has been the bane of the nation”.

    President Tinubu, however, knows a little more than that. He knows that what is true of solid minerals is no less true of many other resources, all of which also, unfortunately, remain untapped for Nigeria’s economic development and growth.

    Like most African countries, Nigeria faces humongous economic and security challenges. Among these are unemployment, huge revenue shortfalls which  has led her to increased external borrowings, insecurity arising from massive youth unemployment and rising inflation, among others.

    It is, for instance, currently spending about 96.3 percent of her total annual revenue on debt servicing, thus negatively impacting her foreign reserve just as the corrupt  management of her foreign exchange by the former CBN  governor literally crippled the economy, leaving it with N77Trillion debt.

    The new Tinubu government thus had to think out of the box if it is to ever remedy the ugly situation. Hence, an end was put to the subsidy regime on 29 May, 2023 as against the expected 30 June 2023, while the multiple foreign exchange regime was cancelled a little later.

    Although the subsequent floating of the Naira so negatively impacted the Naira that prices rose very steeply, it was necessary to allow market forces determine the value of the Naira rather than continue with the CBN’s lecherous practice of gifting Nigeria’s scarce foreign earnings, at preferential  rates, to its favoured customers who, in turn, make billions through round tripping.

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    It took President Tinubu no time to realise that one of his government’s major challenges is the country’s extremely low revenue, analogous to what Lagos state was experiencing when he assumed office as governor in 1999.

    Government Revenue has decreased substantially from N1837.52 at the end of the 3rd Quarter to N1502.52 at the end of the 4th Quater of 2022 due largely to a massive reduction in the volume of oil export as a result of corruption, accentuated by massive oil stealing.

    For instance, NEITI revealed that the volume of crude oil stolen amounted to over 140 thousand barrels per day and that between 2009 and 2018, the country lost 4.2 billion litres of petroleum products valued at $1.84 billion.

    This resulted in Nigeria having to rely, almost entirely, on expensive imports to meet its gasoline needs, despite being Africa’s largest oil and gas producer as

    all her four refineries became dilapidated due to corruption and mismanagement.

    It thus became a no brainer that revenue generation had to weigh heavily on President Tinubu’s mind.

    His first action to remedy the situation was the setting up of a Presidential Tax Reform Committee with the mandate to transform the tax system to a minimum tax to GDP ratio of 18% from 10.9 % by 2026.

    It is, obviously, the same reason of driving revenue generation that we see  underpinning his allocation of some ministerial portfolios to the named individuals to whom he assigned them.

    Topmost among them is the revered economist and investment banker, Olawale Edun, who is the finance minister and coordinating minister for the economy.

    A personal friend, and ally of the President going back decades, the President has in him, and a few others, who besides their implicit confidence and trust in him, have unimpeachable belief in his capability as well as an implicit faith in his Renewed Hope Manifesto.

    That goes for Dele Alake, Nigeria’s first ever commissioner for ‘Information and strategy’ during Tinubu’s two – term stint as governor of Lagos state, 1999 -2007.

    Since that time, Alake had been with the President, through thick and thin, going all over the world together.

    Dele will man the very important ministry of Solid Minerals as against that of Information which most Nigerians, yours truly inclusive, had thought he was inexorably heading to.

    Ditto the President’s cousin, Adegboyega Oyetola, erstwhile Osun state governor, an Insurance guru with many years experience in the industry as owner of an Insurance Brokerage firm. He is the minister of the brand new Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy.

    Barrister Hannatu Musa Musawa is no less well known to the President.

    As the Deputy spokesperson of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, she brought panache and a commitment to the presidential campaign. Nor can you forget her incredible documentary on the President in a hurry.

    With a degree in Law, and a Master’s in the Legal Aspects of Marine Affairs, it is obvious that her versatility would find a fertile ground in the extremely buoyant  creative Arts’ sector of the Nigerian economy as Minister of Art, Culture and the Creative Economy.

    To further bolster his overall economic development which will accentuate revenue generation, the President brought on board, two top I.T specialists in Lola Ade – John, who is Minister of Tourism, and Dr Bosun Tijani, as Minister of communications, Innovation and Digital Economy.

    Ade – John has/ extensive expertise in designing, integrating, deploying, and overseeing core systems for international banking institutions, and has played a leading role in utilizing technology to enhance strategic business outcomes and optimize operations in diverse working environments, ranging from small businesses to large ones.

    Armed with a Master’s degree in Information Systems and Management from Warwick Business School and a PhD in Innovation and Economic Development from the University of Leicester

    Tijani’s huge

    acceptability comes from his direct and indirect influence in building some of the tech startups that form the pillars of the Nigerian startup sector. This was made largely through CcHub, Nigeria’s first tech hub, founded by him in 2010. The hub is now the largest in Africa with a physical presence in some other African countries.

    The duo will bring technology to bear on their respective spheres, and elsewhere, in the government.

    As a result of space constraint, this article will not be able to go into details of the wealth inherring in the named ministries, but together with the Petroleum (Oil and gas) industry, are huge revenue sources which, with hard work, commitment and dedication of the assigned ministers, can more than quadruple Nigeria’s present total revenue within the shortest time possible. 

  • These insatiable rodents of democracy in Nigeria

    These insatiable rodents of democracy in Nigeria

    “In order to enable all of us (to) enjoy our holidays, a token has been sent to our various accounts by the Clerk of the National Assembly.” – Senate President Godswil Akpabio, 8 August, 2022.

    By His grace, I am not about to leave in peace, the ‘rodents of our democracy’, who are blessed with strong,  constantly growing incisors, but no canine teeth and who continue to gnaw, nibble and eat away our patrimony; daily rendering the people so poor that as at the last count, over half of the Nigerian population (133 million), are now multidimensionally poor. If that number was as at  November 2022, it must have since increased phenomenally, after the cancellation of fuel subsidy.

    But not even that dizzying figure would stop Senate President Godswil Akpabio from giddily announcing,

    unknown to him, over a live

    public address system, that “tokens have been sent to their bank accounts to enable them enjoy their holidays”.

    Read Also: Between Tinubu’s infrastructure dreams and Umahi’s Midas touch

    Nigeria must have the most unkind legislators ever on planet earth.

    But this did not begin today, only that they appear to be getting worse by the day.

    The Columnist, apparently  misled by the newly sworn- in President Mohammadu Buhari’s stern looks, and of course, his assumed incorruptibility, had waxed lyrical on these pages those early days, telling Nigerians that the retired Army General would put all lecherous politicians in their place. That was my belief when I wrote  that we, the people, would ‘storm the Bastille’, were the reverse to be the case.

    Unfortunately, our incandescent general caved in to the Villa Cabal, as well as the CBN, and ended up setting Nigeria back, economically, by many years.

    The National Assembly leadership, by being so insensitive, is again, starting off where those ones left off.

    Whereas one could have been emboldened by the incredible independence, and political will, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has already demonstrated in his removal of the hitherto untouchable  fuel subsidy and in fixing a Forex regime  former CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, had turned to a kalokalo, to be positive, experience, given the calibre of those heavyweights who humbled the Nigerian economy,  especially through the CBN- enabled arbitrage, advises nothing but caution.

    These enemies of state are practised hands and because a popular adage in my Ekiti hood teaches that  you can deceive, and mess up with a woman in a farm house, only but once, I have only prayers for  the President in what I know to be  his single – minded determination to right the  wrongs of many years, by many military regimes and quasi – civilian governments.

    I have written severally, on these pages, about Nigeria’s ‘Rodents of Democracy’ that I can pick on any of the articles and it will very well fit the bill.

    For instance in:”The Saraki-APC Fiasco and Its Implications For Buhari’s Anti-corruption war”, published 14 June, 2015, I wrote as follows, quoting President Buhari in an address to Nigerians living in South Africa:”Government is determined to secure the country, manage the economy, create employment and fight corruption. Some articulate writers have said that if we do not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria”. “This APC administration intends to kill corruption in Nigeria. We will do our best, I assure you. We are getting the facts and logistic requirements together”.

    I wrote further:A fiasco is defined as a humiliating failure; some effort that went quite wrong or a wine bottle in a straw jacket. For me, this is precisely what the shebang at the National Assembly represents for the APC.

    Truth be told, my initial reaction to Bukola Saraki emerging the Senate President was: Yes, if a Tambuwal, why not a Saraki? Nor was that a flight of fancy because I believe, and still do, that he was as qualified as any member to be the Senate President, considering his contribution to the emergence of the party. It should not be difficult to remember who heads the political camp to which Abubakar Kawu Baraje, who led the walk-out from the PDP Abuja mini-congress on Saturday, August 31, 2013 belongs, nor the fact that Senator Saraki brought a whole state with him into the party.

    However, all these thoughts were shredded when it became known that, out of desperation, he permitted his coronation to be, not only instigated, but funded, by a gang of PDP treasury looters and their cousins, the oil subsidy rogues, all of who are eager to hamstring the anti-corruption war President Buhari promised Nigerians so they can again escape justice through the machinations of the now totally rudderless EFCC.  They have since been on a celebration binge. It is galling, if not puke-inducing, that in his political alchemy, Saraki thought nothing of selling his party cheap by accommodating Ike Ekweremadu, a PDP senator, as Deputy Senate President.

    The Saraki shenanigan becomes more nauseating, the more we learn of the horrendous corruption of the Jonathan administration.

    For instance, President Buhari is expected to meet the leading global watchdog on corruption, the Oslo-based, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) very soon to see how billions of dollars in the Nigerian oil revenue leakage can be curbed.

    According to Zainab Ahmed, the Executive Secretary of its Nigerian arm, over $7.5 billion is yet to be recovered from oil and gas companies since 1999, while the agency’s audits show that $11.6 billion of dividends between 1999 and 2012 from the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company were not remitted by the NNPC whose oil swap deals have been discovered to be more of scams.

    And that is only in the oil sector.

    As you read this, millions of Nigerian workers, in at least 23 of Nigeria’s 36 states, have not been paid their salaries for over six months. It therefore becomes extremely agonising that Bukola Saraki, a leading light of a party elected almost solely on its promise to fight corruption could, out of overaching ambition, go into an unholy alliance with these mandarins of corruption. Nigerians must now brace up for all manner of opposition from the National Assembly to the Buhari government’s efforts to kill corruption, a demonstration of which we may soon see during the president’s attempt to re-energise EFCC.

    Saraki, of course, knows that something must give, but if he thinks he would succeed in thwarting the hopes of Nigerians, then I have news for him. It’s even nice that he showed his hands, and what manner of National Assembly he intends to lead, quite early.

    In the article: ‘It Is Time We Storm This Bastille’, (Sunday, 12th June, 2011), I wrote as follows on the immediate past Bankole-led House of Representatives:

    “When in the past week the EFCC finally caught up with the erstwhile Speaker of the House, Nigerians came to know that the Speaker, together with the House leadership, had been borrowing illegally for un-appropriated purposes.

    In their defence, we came to learn that the following new allowances were approved at an executive session on March 30, 2010: Speaker N100m, Deputy Speaker N80m, House Leader N60m, Deputy House Leader N57.5m, Chief Whip N55m, Deputy Chief Whip N54.5m, Minority Leader N54.5m, Minority Whip N50m, Deputy Minority Leader N50m, Deputy Minority Whip N50m’. For what job you’d ask? 

    They also agreed payment of outstanding allowances dating way back to 1999 – 2007; all from un-authorised funds.

    Not only are these allowances probably much higher today with Saraki as Senate President, President Buhari is guaranteed a monstrous fight to reduce this highest pay to political representatives, anywhere in the world.

    I then concluded by saying that we, the people, must storm the National Assembly and chase them back to their villages or to gaol.

    Already, even before the ink on the signatures of members of the 8th Assembly could dry, they are now expecting alerts from their banks, announcing their respective share of a humongous N8.4 Billion ward robe allowance, as if they have been going naked all their lives.

    How unconscionable can they get?

    No wonder a highly perceptive Dr David Kuranga, of Kuranga and Associates, has suggested that “if President Buhari is going to have any success in unravelling the complex and heavily entrenched corrupt interests in Nigeria, he is going to have to successfully tackle and overcome far more difficult opponents than the Saraki allies who just bested his party in the National Assembly.” This is very true because their ambition to eat Nigeria raw is collective, and party blind.  Therefore, for President Buhari to succeed, and for Nigerians to be free from these predators – the Deputy House Speaker, Lasun Yusuff, is already quoted as defending their utterly callous N150 billion budget in a dying economy – Kuranga concludes that President Buhari, and of course, the party, should treat the senate leadership as a political insurgency until they surrender and resign from their positions and that Nigerians just must say no to a political class riding roughshod on their well-being.

    Otherwise, it will be a promise of change deferred”.

    For now, all the charges against the Goodluck Jonathan government in the referenced article, may turn out a child play, compared with what is beginning to emerge as the utter rudderlessness of the Buhari era when the governor of the apex bank was more answerable to a Mafia than to the elected President.

    President Tinubu, no doubt, already has his job cut out for him.

    I wish him God speed.

  • The story of Georgia

    Nigeria is today faced with a myriad of challenges, among them insecurity, poor economy and, of course, an  atrocious corruption which is believed, in serious circles, to be the mother of all our problems. That was what led then President Muhammadu Buhari to observe that corruption would kill Nigeria if Nigeria did not kill it first.

    Corruption, which drove the CBN and underpinned all its actions throughout Buhari’s  eight years, underlies all our problems be it the now rested fuel subsidy, the war against insurgency or even the anti- corruption war itself as EFCC cannot, honestly, account for the proceeds of properties legally confiscated from corrupt officials. It is hoped that the former Attorney – General and minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, would soon be invited by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu government  to shed light on that.

    The above is what led me to my archives to fish out my article of the above title first published 11 years ago on 2 December, 2012.

    The recall is, however, primarily intended for the attention of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who needs no introduction to this column, for whatever of it he can adopt in his inescapable war against the corruption cankerworm.

    The article, slightly edited, is published below. Georgia ranks alongside Finland as having the least corrupt police force in the world. Although corruption has long become analogous to a directive principle of state policy in Nigeria, it is obvious that  President Goodluck Jonathan did not introduce it to the country. It is also untrue, whatever his contribution to it, that IBB socialised corruption in the country. That honour belongs to the late Major-General Shehu Musa Yar’ Adua who, from his Katsina

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    “That honour belongs to the late Major-General Shehu Musa Yar’ Adua who, from his  Katsina redoubt, but operating mainly from Lagos, corrupted the political process by sending huge sums of money …” redoubt, though operating mainly from Lagos, corrupted the political process by sending huge sums of money, as logistics, all over the country, towards his presidential ambition in the early ‘90’s whereas the practice before then was for party members, of all classes, to make monthly contributions towards party funding. 

    In the Awo days, nothing made an Action Group member more proud than showing his party monthly contribution card. At that point in Nigerian history, members truly owned their political parties.

    What is true, however, is that under the current presidency, corruption has multiplied a hundred fold largely because President Jonathan defied PDP’s zoning policy in 2011.

    The consequence was that he had to outspend the campaign of Atiku Abubakar, the perennial Northern candidate, which was not cheap at all.

    That humongous funding would then have to come mostly from sources known, and unknown, and the need to recoup same contributed, in no small measure, to what a recent PUNCH newspaper investigation showed as a total of N5 Trillion in stolen funds under this barely 18 month-old Jonathan government. That publication is yet to be controverted by the government.

    The above notwithstanding, I am positive that President Goodluck Jonathan can still translate to a statesman but for that to happen,  he must be ready to relinquish every intent to contest the 2015 election and then, GO AFTER THE ROGUES, big and small, that are perverting the Nigerian economy. 

    The President is not being asked to re-invent the wheel. Rather, he is being called upon to emulate one-time GEORGIAN president, Mikhail Saakashvili, in the way he dealt with corruption in his own country.

    This is a story which should strengthen our hope of defeating corruption in Nigeria. When Nika Gilauri, the Premier of Georgia, tells you that the prosperity of his country has been achieved because it has become one of the least corrupt countries in the world, you, the investor must take note. But it was not always like that.

    After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia  was one of the most corrupt countries in the world.  Bribe-to-drive was the norm; police stopped cars at least twice within an hour to extort money. The then Interior Minister infamously quipped: “Give me petrol only; my people will take care of their own salaries.” 

    Being a traffic cop was so lucrative that you had to pay a bribe of between $2,000 and $20,000 to get the job in the first place. Graft was endemic. Georgians passed more envelopes to corrupt officials than the post office does letters. Meanwhile the economy crumbled and the state became bankrupt, and powerless.

    The election of Mikhail Saakashili changed everything. A bold reformer, he was swept to power in the “Rose Revolution” at the end of 2003 by the overwhelming desire for radical change. 

    Here in Nigeria, I am not unaware of the PDP which destroyed itself, split into smithreens, emerging as the remnants of PDP, with a presidential candidate who has contested for the position like forever, Labour party with Peter Obi emerging its presidential candidate in a manner unknown to the extant Electoral Law, Musa Kwankwaso, turning out  candidate of the  NNPP, and then, the very nail on the pdp coffin – the G-5 Group of the party’s governors – who adamantly refused to work for the party’s candidate because his emergence contradicted the Southern governors’ decision that the party’s presidential candidare must come from the South. 

    It is apt to recall that even as one united party, PDP was defeated and swept off into political Siberia in 2015 by the APC, and failed, miserably, to defeat the same party in two subsequent national elections. Therefore, not minding the nauseating distraction currently being orchestrated by some ethnic and religious bigots – some  have even hoisted photos of the 5 judges at the PETC, with their pastors raining prayers to make their man win. Nigerians are only laughing,  well aware that their exertions at the Election Tribunal will come to nothing.

    Back then to Gergia.

    Saakashvili’s closely-knit team is unified by a common vision and supported by both the parliament and the judiciary. The new government was not just radical – it shocked and awed. Ministers, oligarchs and officials were sacked or arrested, as we have seen the Tinubu government do with both CBN and EFCC. Those who resisted were dealt with decisively. 

    The state confiscated $1bn worth of property. Custom officials bore collective responsibility: an entire shift would be punished if one officer was  caught accepting bribes. Corrupt university professors were kicked out with a lifetime ban from academia. But ‘the piece de la resistance’ was Saakashvili’s order to sack the entire 16,000-strong police force on a single day, to replace them with some of the best and brightest university graduates. 

    Today, Georgia ranks alongside Finland as having the least corrupt police force in the world.

    The campaign expanded irresistibly. Tax offices were equipped with CCTV; university examination papers were printed in the UK and held in bank vaults until needed; and officials were constantly tested insting operations. 

    The proactive assault on graft was accompanied by a PR campaign to undermine respect for criminal groups and introduce respect for the law. The campaign then turned to the sectors. 

    First was the power sector which had, hitherto, been widely used as a cash cow, as it is here in Nigeria, for well-connected oligarchs. In less than a year, Georgia went from net importer to exporter of electricity and the sector became the target of long-term foreign investment.

    Tax collection followed. Georgia’s tax base consisted of just 80,000 companies in 2003 and tax collection was a mere 12% of GDP.

    Saakashvili slashed red tape and introduced flat personal and corporate taxes. Eight years later over 250,000 companies are on the register, and pay the equivalent of 25% of GDP. Georgia now boasts one of the most liberal tax regimes in the world, at par with the Gulf States and Hong Kong.

    Lastly came deregulation, with many rules and agencies simply abolished, removing channels of corruption in the process. 

    Among other things, car registration became so easy that used cars became the largest export item in 2011. Georgia moved swiftly from the bottom of the World Bank’s Doing Business ranking (112) into the top 20 (16) by 2012. Foreign investment followed and fuelled a multi-year surge.

    But perhaps, the most lucrative Georgian export would be the fight against corruption itself – from which many states mired in graft, like Nigeria, could benefit. The Georgians patented a process whose steps are replicable, namely: establish early reform credibility by radical action, launch a frontal assault excluding no sacred cows, attract new blood, limit the role of the state via privatization and deregulation, use technology and communication to maximum effect, and above all, be bold and purposeful. 

    Georgia’s close and distant neighbours should take heed. Their prime ministers and presidents have got their job cut out for them.

    Without a doubt, the time has come for Nigeria to embrace the spirit and letter of such radical reform to avoid the sickening poverty, insecurity and under development that now characterise our country. 

    Corruption will, no doubt, fight back as it did in Singapore when Lee Kuan Yew and a group of Singaporean leaders bonded together, frontally confronted corruption in its most virulent form, and transformed a poor, multi-racial city state into an astonishingly

    successful and corruption-free nation. Interested readers should grab a copy of : FROM THIRD WORLD TO FIRST: The Singapore Story – 1965-2000 by Lee.Kuan Yew.

  • Current hardship in Nigeria: Blamepast weak, corrupt governments (2)

    Current hardship in Nigeria: Blame
    past weak, corrupt governments (2)

    The first part of this article – (which will be in series but occasionally) appeared on Sunday, 23 July, 2023. In it the beginning of our current agonies was put at between 1999, during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and May 29, 2023, and if there is one president you cannot blame for it, that will be president Bola Ahmed Tinubu even though it was his burden to undertake that excruciating operation analogous only to the doctor who operated a cancer patient in order to to bring his cancerous cells into remission.

    It is important to recall, meanwhile, that while the former President no longer writes letters with the same rapidity as  of yore, he has not spared book launchings, qua launching, as opportunity to loft his verbal volleys at political opposition, especially his successors.

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    Hopeful then of a Third Term which might have metamorphorsed into a Life Presidency, he had turned a blind eye when members of the National Assembly not only bypassed the Revenue Mobilisation And Fiscal Commission to award themselves  humongous salaries and allowances, millions of Naira were, in addition, gifted each member to facilitate his much desired alteration to the constitution which allowed only  a two- term tenure for Presidents.

    Although the gambit failed, not so the legislators’ stupendous emoluments which they have since serially increased through devious ways as we saw in the N70B allocated to them in the recently passed supplementary budget; not  forgetting  the other N40B earmarked for purchase of bullet proof cars for their leadership.

    Unfortunately, in vain did Nigerians wait for a reversal of those two mindless, and totally obtuse, expenditure items during President Tinubu’s recent address to the nation.

    Knowing full well that there’s very little President Tinubu can do to impress the current Nigerian Labour Congress under the joint leadership of Joe Ajaero and his brother, Emmanuel Ugboaja, the General Secretary, bearing in mind their consanguinity with Labour party’s Peter Obi, the address should have gone much deeper regarding what to include in his, no doubt, impressive list of on – coming palliative measures, if only to have majority of Nigerians queuing right behind him.

    It was, therefore for me, a missed opportunity. Or which honest, apolitical Nigerian, would not have been impressed to see the President take the opportunity to launch the much desired reduction in the cost of governance in the country?

    Far from regarding it as a populist move, most Nigerians would have been impressed to see him announce a 50 per cent cut in his own emolument, as well as that of all political appointees on permanent appointment.

    While not suggesting that he should rule as if he is running a military government, the truth is that Nigeria is in such a terrible situation today that Nigerians would be more than happy to see those people feeding fat on the National treasury cut to size because nothing

    galls Nigerians more than the fact that while they are, forever, being asked to tighten their belts, those they know have helped themselves at their expense, are perpetually being given more, or giving themselves more, as we just saw at the National Assembly.

    It can bear repetition that Nigeria is today in a far worse situation than it was when austerity measures were introduced in 1983/4 under military Head of state General Mohammadu Buhari.

    Although there is, as yet, no mass sack of civil servants or the expulsion of thousands of  foreigners nor have we seen Nigerians queuing up for essential commodities as was the case then, the country’s present situation is such that the masses would be only too glad to see the Tinubu government socialise the current hardship  as the burden is far more on the poor masses.

    In an earlier article on these pages, I  suggested that “the President should encourage, and persuade, National Assembly members to, willy nilly, take a substantial cut in their huge emoluments which run into multiples of millions of Naira per month and that he should let them know, if they don’t already, that Nigeria is on tenterhooks”.

    Writing further, I suggested that the same cut in allowances must be fully extended to the executive branch where the President must lead by example by not only announcing a massive cut in his own, but ‘decree’ an end to the outlandish wastages that have characterised the executive branch over the years”.

    If the president had taken the advantage offered by his national address to announce a reduction in his own emoluments, he would only have had to encourage members of the National Assembly, as members of a different arm of government, to follow suit, failing which he should have approved an Executive Order to that effect.

    Come to think of it, what would  members of the National Assembly have done, resign?

    That would have been the grand opportunity to discontinue the present unnecessarily expensive, if not ruinous, bicameral system Nigeria runs for a unilateral Legislature; and thereby put an end to the unwholesome repetition we see in law making in the country.

    I also suggested that what the president should do next was commence the immediate implementation of the recommendations of the Oronsaye Committee.

    Set up by President Goodluck Jonathan on August 18, 2011, the Oronsaye Committee had the following mandate:

    “to study and review all previous reports and records on the restructuring of Federal Parastatals, and advise on whether they were still relevant; examine the enabling Acts of all the federal agencies, parastatals and commissions and classify them into various sectors; examine critically, the mandate of the existing federal agencies, parastatals and commissions and determine areas of overlap or duplication of functions and make appropriate recommendations to either restructure, merge or scrap some to eliminate such overlaps, duplications or redundancies; and advise on any other matter incidental to the foregoing, which might be relevant to the desire of the government to prune down the cost of governance.”

    Had the President indicated his preparedness to immediately set in motion the implementation of the report, NLC leaders would have needed nobody to  dissuade them from asking workers out on protest as they did on Wednesday, 2nd August, 2023. This is because Nigerians need such affirmative actions to know that the Tinubu government is different, and a far cry, from what they have had for government since 1999; long on words but far short in people friendly actions.

    Indeed, Nigerians have  perpetually been fed more on lies by successive governments at the centre.

    For instance, Nigerians had long been told to await petroleum products from Dangote’s multi-billion dollar, 650,000 barrels per day refinery in July this year which has since passed. There is now talk in the grave vine that we may actually have more months to wait before that becomes a reality.

    The Tinubu Administration can certainly not afford to go that rout at all.

    And it mustn’t.

    Which is why it is heartwarming to hear that the President will be effecting some changes in the structure of the public service along the lines suggested in the Oronsaye committee recommendations, beginning with ministries, some of which it is rumoured, will be streamlined by being scrapped and new ones created.

    In spite of the billions now coming into the treasury – thanks to the punishing but necessary removal of subsidy – there is little or no doubt, at all, that Nigeria is still in a revenue bind. This must be the reason the President has set up the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms with a proven tax expert, Taiwo Oyedele , the Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader at Price Water house Coopers (PwC) – a position from which he has subsequently resigned – as Chairman.

    It is my considered opinion that the President should now consider approving an Executive order authorising a 50 percent cut in, at least, the allowances of all permanent political appointees beginning with himself.

    Also, the number of aides to National Assembly members, ministers as well as appropriate officials in states and local governments should be halved.

    Nothing, I repeat again, can be worse than public officials living in opulence, at public expense, while the masses are eke- ing out a living.

    In the near future, God willing, I shall be drawing the President’s attention to the subject of restructuring which is where the Tinubu government must be leading Nigeria, even though for now, there are more than enough  urgent challenges before the  government to keep that proposition in the back burner.

  • We told them so: Peter Obi is not presidential candidate known to law

    We told them so: Peter Obi is not presidential candidate known to law

    The superlative ambience of BRIGHTON PIERS, which I am presently visiting with my children, and grandchildren, including those who came all the way from Houston TX, on a week long visit from London to savour the world- famous Brighton Beach, made it particularly easy for me to recall my article: ‘The Peter Obi Revolution That Atrophied Midway’(slightly edited for space), published  Sunday, 26 March, 2023 on this column(and to which, by the way, there were 62 shares, and 1,200 comments on Face book, most of them by congenitally abusive Obedients).

    I am re- visiting the article today in light of the Delta state Electoral Tribunal judgment which voided the election of an LP candidate because his candidacy is unknown to Law and to moderate, if ever possible, the empty noise amongst  Obidients, and their Atikulated cousins, ahead the decision of the Presidential Election Tribunal on the effete petitions of their shellacked principals, each ground of which was expertly obliterated by respondent’s counsel, the unmatchable Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN.

    First to affirm my position in the article was a Federal High Court in Kano which sacked then Abia- state governor – elect Alex Otti, and all LP candidates in Kano state, for the same reason of illegal emergence as LP candidates at the respective elections.

    The Delta state Election Tribunal  this past week, on  selfsame grounds, effectively ejected a Labour party legislator from the  state’s House of Assembly, ordering that he be replaced by the PDP candidate.

    This column returns to the article today because it signposts what is sure to become the fate of Peter Obi’s petition at the Presidential Election Tribunal.

    Read Also: It’s rare privilege to clock 70 after escaping public execution 43 years ago – Bishop Kayode Williams

    Happy reading

     “According to  Section 77 (2&3) of the Electoral Act 2022, Peter Obi is not a member of the Labour party. As a result, he is not qualified to contest the February 25, 2023 presidential election on behalf of the party.  Section 77 (2) says every political party must have/maintain a register of its .members in soft and hard copy.

    77(3) says  each party Shall Make That Register Available To Inec Not Later Than 30 Days Before The Date Fixed For Its Primaries, Congresses Or Convention. 

    PDP screened its presidential candidates on April 29th, 2022. Peter Obi participated in the screening and was cleared to contest. He even displayed his provisional clearance on social media.  He  resigned from PDP on Thursday May 26th, 2022 and joined the Labour party the following day, that is, on May 27th, 2022.

    Labour party conducted its presidential primary on May 30th, 2022 and produced Obi after Professor Pat Utomi’s voluntary withdrawal.

    According to section 77(3), quoted above, Labour party must have submitted its comprehensive register of members to INEC 30 days before its presidential primary.

    By calculation, 30 days to May 30th,2022 was April 30, 2022. (But) As at April 30th, 2022 when labour party submitted its party register to INEC, Peter Obi was a member of PDP meaning that his name could not have, simultaneously, been in the Labour party’s comprehensive register submitted to INEC.

    The questions that then arise are:  Can a  person who is not a valid member of a  political  party contest as its presidential candidate?

    Can a political party nominate a non member as its candidate in the presidential election?” – Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN)   in his article, ‘Peter Obi is not the Presidential candidate of LP’.

    One interesting thing about the Labour Party, pre and post the Presidential election, is how its affairs have been turned to an Ohanaeze Ndigbo affair. While it was Pat Utomi who withdrew for Obi as Presidential candidate, it was Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, a former NBA President, who decided to carry on his head, despite all constitutional provisions and court pronouncements, the ludicrous issue of a candidate having to win a quarter of FCT votes. NLC president Ajaero, has since picked up the gauntlet; a case of a whole people sleeping and facing in one direction.

    Unknown to most Nigerians whilst the Labour Party was aggressively weaponising  ethnicity and religion as its dual path to the presidency, it was nothing but a house built on sand, and  certain to collapse, sooner or later.

    For that, and some other reasons, it should not be a surprise to Nigerians that ‘Obidientism’, as revolution, like the 1905 Russian Leaderless Revolution before it,  was bound to die unsung, albeit, after its loud, boisterous and riotous beginning especially in pentecostal churches where Peter Obi became a constant, and on social media, where its adherents, the Obidients, were spewing insults like insults were going out of  fashion..

    Nigerians have, since after the governorship and state legislative elections, began to ask the following questions: What became of Peter Obi who, after shining like a thousand stars at the presidential election, suddenly went limb?  What of the noisy clan of Obi-Media Inc? Where are the whining television anchors who did nothing besides excoriating APC, and its presidential candidate, as if that was the way to harvest votes for the 62- year old they were doing everything to package like he was 40 something? This was a man who finished his 2- term governorship tenure almost  a decade ago with his name emblazoned in the PANDORA PAPERS of ignominy.  

    So involved and trenchant were they, you knew they were at a commissioned job.  But we ask: what became of their  exertions, daily having for guests, only those they know shared their jaundiced perspectives? You only just have to share their views. It was that bad.

    There  were also those ones on  WhatsApp platforms who suddenly became emergency medical practitioners, forever diagnosing all manner of  morbidities.

    I personally shared two platforms with some of these individuals and, honest to God, they could make you puke. Fortunately, I have long promised that I was, under no circumstances, going to lose a friend on account of any politician, qua politician.

    But that did take an effort because you read them, sometimes, and you’d  believe that logical thinking has been banned.

    Indeed, on one of the platforms, we are now  asking if they had since gone on exile, ahead of the big PDP  chieftain who owns the patent to voluntary emigration,  in case Tinubu gets elected president.

    I digress.

    So what became of Peter Obi’s popularity after the presidential election in which he shone so brightly? That was, of course, before the final debacle of a third place, despite the deluge of opinion polls which had him as the incomparable winner.

    I am, of course, not unaware of the fact that failure is an orphan. But exactly what happened  after that incredible Tsunami: from Lagos to Makurdi, Nasarawa to Jos, Benin to Asaba etc, sending many a sitting governor scampering?

    Need we talk about Lagos, the epicentre of gun – ho Pentecostalism where group nativity also thrumped common sense, to eventuate in what Nigerians would soon know was no win at all – Thanks all the same to ‘ YES DADDY’ (recall  my article:’Yes Daddy and His Rasputins’, 9 April, 2023).

     You won’t believe this, but there is already a trending WhatsApp video   showing some happy – go  lucky   youths  hoisting the IPOB FLAG at, of all places, ALAUSA, Ikeja, the Lagos state capital.

    You can then imagine what would have befallen Lagos, if not the entire  Southwest, if our half brother had repeated the Obi ‘miracle’ in the state.

    Talking about miracles reminds me of an interesting WhatsApp post I saw during the giddy days of the supposed Labour party victory in Lagos.  It read as follows:

    “LindaIkejiblog Official INEC Result for Amuwo Odofin LGA in the Presidential election”.

    Whoever shared it commented as follows:

    “Amuwo Odofin!!!

    Please check the number of Regisrered Voters  -322,600 and the number of Accredited Voters  57, 530.

    Add Obi’s 55, 547 to Tinubu’s 13, 318!

    Don’t even bother with the rest! We are beginning to see how Obi “won” Lagos”.

    I actually bothered and added all party votes.  The following is what I got-

    Total number of registered voters  – 322.600.

    “Total number of accredited voters – 57,530.

    Votes:   APC  – 13, 318 

                    PDP   – 2, 383

                    LP      – 55, 547

                    Others – 1, 161

    Total votes cast – 72, 409

    Reg. voters          -57,530     

    Over voting          14879.

    What does the Election Tribunal do in cases of over voting? It automatically cancels election in the affected place.

    Therefore, take away LP’s vote here from the party’s overall tally  in Lagos state, and see whether, of a fact, LP won in Lagos state.

    Abracadabra; but it obviously could not have been a solitary incident by Labour party in Lagos and elsewhere. How hollow, and effete, Peter Obi and the Labour party really are, showed up most glaringly in  subsequent elections on 18 March when, apparently, not just the youths, but also the bishops, and assorted pastors, have abandoned the sinking “Titanic”.

    Even in the Southeast where Obi scored in 80’s and 90’s in the Presidential election, 4 out of the 5 states gave him a wide berth.  It’s sole governorship victory was in Abia state. But it was worst in Anambra state where Obi was governor for 8 years but but what they mostly remember him for were lifeless  bodies of some youths flowing on a river.

    No, far be it that am saying he murdered them, but a king in a prosperous era is never forgotten; ditto the obverse. Peter Obi is too much of a tribalist to lead a Pan – Nigerian political party.

    As governor of Anambra state,  he not only sent Hausa traders parking to Delta state, he discriminated between Catholics and Anglicans in the state, and sent away to their respective Igbo states, all non – Anambrarians in the state’s public service.

    What leader does that? Less than a week to the Presidential election of 18 February, the council of  state Chairmen of the Labour party came out in newspapers to  announce that the party couldn’t win any election, citing Obi’s clanishness.  Many may not yet know this, but Nigerians will, in future, celebrate Obi and his party’s rejection at the polls.

    As a friend of mine put it:  “Obi weaponised religion, especially the anger over same faith ticket, as well as the frustration of the Nigerian youths with the Buhari government”.

    “Worse, however, is that he also brought on board, as Vice Presidential candidate, a Datti Baba – Ahmed, who is likely to be far worse than him, judging by what he demonstrated on a TV station this past week”.

    “I was appalled at the sheer depravity of his encounter on TV- the tone, dimension, the elixirs etc, were like scenes from a horror film. He turned the interaction into a call for anarchy, military takeover and a liquidation of the Nigerian state. All because he lost an election”.

    “And regarding the anchor, who watched on sheepishly as Baba – Ahmed ranted, he watched with utter helplessness, bewilderment and even confusion, as his guest turned the station to a platform for anarchists, fascists and demagogues. His inability to call him to order reflects very badly on him as a trained journalist”.  Nigerians will, in future, have every cause to thank God for sending the duo back  where they came from.

    In the meantime, they’ve gone to the Election Tribunal merely to further humour their pastor – backers and their dear Obidients, as well as, most unfortunately, the elders who, by endorsing Obi, called their own judgment to question.