The Nation Newspaper

Category: Femi Orebe

  • Oladeji Fasuan: The living colossus is 93

    Oladeji Fasuan: The living colossus is 93

    The Numero Uno Ekiti Patriarch, alongside his bossom friend and compatriot, Aare Afe Babalola.

    A ku odun oni Sir.

    Papa, as you very well know, I can hardly be happier than I am today, having been under your unflappable wings since when my eyes were where my knees are, feeding endlessly from your extremely deep well of knowledge, fortrightness and an unwavering ability to always say it as it is, no matter whose ox is gored.

    These are all traits I have tried, in my own little way, not only to emulate, but to also demonstrate in my personal life.

    In Nigeria where you have served on several Federal Boards, in Western Region where you not only midwived many of the region’s unforgetably impactful corporations, as well as served as Chief Executive of some, but especially in Ekiti, a state whose very creation you championed alongside others which included, interestingly,  your then young Secretary, Biodun Oyebanji, now incidentally,  the state’s Executive Governor, your name will forever remain unforgetable, and absolutely imperishable.

    Your name will,  however, blossom the most in our Are – Afao neck of wood, where you have been, and will forever, remain the NON PAREIL.

    You have been our shining light and have impacted our corner of the state far beyond what I can begin to write about here. We are all celebrating you today, as always PAPA, thanking the Almighty God for your life and for the distinct BLESSING you have been to humanity.

    Happy Birthday Sir and  many Happy Returns” – the columnist’s comment on Lanre Fasuan’s Face book post announcing Papa’s 93rd birthday this past week.

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    Although this piece would have been more timely last Sunday, not celebrating Papa on his birthday, as has become the  columnist’s wont for close on twenty years on these pages, would have been absolutely unthinkable.

    However, lest I sound monotonous, what I shall be doing here today, is select from the numerous articles, the one I consider as most quintessentially representing Papa’s driving force, namely: God in his life – that one  important element which has shaped his entire life.

    Published at his 90th

    birthday on Sunday, 3 October, 2021 and titled:’Chief Oladeji Fasuan: About The Most Storied Ekiti Personality, Past & Present’, it reads as follows:

    “As he turns a glorious 90 years on on terra firma, October 1,  2021, I write to celebrate an individual who can be said to have seen it all, solely through the grace of God.

    On every of his birthday, almost since this column debuted, I have written a tribute to Chief Oladeji Fasuan, the inimitable public servant, indomitable essayist and board room guru who had a hand in the establishment of several of the Awo- era industries in the Ikeja/ Ilupeju/ Apapa Industrial Estates, and a consumate Nigerian patriot to boot.

    “Had the young Deji Fasuan been only half as rascally as he was in elementary school, he most probably would never have attended Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti and his entire life trajectory would certainly have been different”, wrote  Chief in his 415-page Autobiography: Scaling Accidents Of Life.

    “It was at a class in Are-Ekiti in 1945. I sat on the last row and, as usual, was certainly not listening to my class teacher when I impulsively answered ‘I Will Sir’.

    Asked what I was affirming, I looked clueless, whereupon he told me:’like it or not, I will send your name to Dallimore for the entrance examination to Christ’s School, next month”.

    I would not only subsequently write the exam but  passed and got  admitted”.

    According to Papa, his life ambition before attending Christ’s School was as uncomplicated as just wanting to pass Standard six, become a pupil teacher and, if  lucky, attend  St Andrew’s College, Oyo,  but God purposed by far differently for this octogenarian from  Okedoba Quarters, Afao-Ekiti.

    I am bringing to the public space in this piece today, glimpses of his life of ‘Divine’ Accidents, the seventh, and last of which, would see him get catapulted to the position of the Chief Executive Officer of a very important corporation in  Western Region.

    After a short stint in the civil service, Chief Fasuan in 1955 miraculously – since he never at any time applied for admission by himself, gained admission to Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, where he graduated with honours in Economics in 1959.

    A rash of jobs later, he got employed at the Western Nigeria Development Corporation (WNDC), where, as Liaison Officer, he represented the  Regional  Government on the board of many companies in the emerging Ikeja, Ilupeju and Apapa Industrial Estates. Among these were the Nigerian Textile mills, Wrought Iron Nigeria, Pepsi Cola, Ikeja Airport Hotels, WAPCO, Guinness, Nigerite, and Dunlop.

    In his book ‘Scaling Accidents of Life’, the author is seen copiously quoting, with  an amazing power of recall, events of the last 70-75 years, both here in Nigeria and elsewhere around the world.

    In his Foreword to the book, Aare Afe Babalola, Owner and Founder of the incomparable Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti,(ABUAD) wrote: This book  is a rare and robust compendium featuring a combination of the author’s humble beginning, his rich experience as an Investment Banker and Public Servant of note, and one  guaranteed to be a useful and helpful companion for those who desire to learn a lesson in contentment and honesty”.

    Divided into 36 chapters, seven of which are devoted to the seven ‘accidents, the book could justifiably have been titled: God In My Life.

    The second ‘miracle’ – he calls them divine accidents – teaches a lesson in openness, and the essence of  not being unnecessarily secretive in dealings with friends. 

    The author’s friend, one Mr Joseph Adeniyi, used his knowledge of the details of his friend’s school certificate result to respond, on his behalf, to an advert for admission into Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone. That was an advert Papa  would never have seen, at all, as he was visiting home in far away Ekiti when it appeared in  newspapers. As it turned out, his letter of admission arrived  weeks before that of the friend who applied for him and who had, indeed, began to think that he probably wasn’t admitted.

    The third accident was much more fortuitous. Cash strapped most of the time at the University, how he was going to spend his December holidays in 1955 was clearly beyond him as he could neither pay his passage back  to Nigeria nor afford to pay  the University for  his accommodation and feeding during the 4-week vacation.

    He was still ruminating over this when, on the Saturday preceding  commencement of the vacation, mother luck took him to the CMS Bookshop in town.

    While glued to the section on biographies, he got a gentle tap on the back. Turning, he was face to face with the Archbishop of West Africa, Anglican Communion, who was based in Lagos, but made a brief stopover in Freetown on his way to England. On enquiries, His Lordship not only got to know that he is a Nigerian, but that he was from Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti. “Ooh, you must be a good boy”, said the Archbishop, who promptly introduced him to the local Priest. The literally stranded young man would be the priest’s guest, not only on that occasion, but on many more. This was nothing but the hand of God.

    The fourth  also revolved around money, this time, his fees, failure to pay  which would have seen him ‘sent down the hill’ – that is, drop out.

    His fees before now were being paid from his personal savings as well as all  manner of  hardly sufficient fund raisers by relations. The inadequacy led him to  the Ekiti  Teachers’ Training College, Ikere Ekiti, with which he signed an agreement to teach for two years for every year of his sponsorship on  graduation.

    By the time the second tranche was due, the school headship had changed and the new Principal, to continue at all, had  added some disagreeable conditions  which he , in turn, promptly rejected though he knew not how he was going to pay his fees in order to continue his studies.

    This was when another miracle happened. The College Bursar, totally out of the blues, inadvertently sent the money to the University thus saving his brushes.

    The fifth happened in far away United States of America.

    On his way to attend  a World Bank Project Analysis course in the spring of ’72,  he  had a brief stopover in London where, at the African Continental Bank branch, he  changed  his pound sterling traveller’s cheques to dollars but  inexplainably forgot to collect them from the Manager, Mr C.B Akintola.  He did not discover this until his plane landed at the Foster Dulles Airport in Washington. Expectedly, he looked completely lost as  he went through airport formalities. That was the point at which a total stranger forcibly tucked a five dollar bill in his pocket and advised he took a train, rather than a cab, to his hotel. Entering his hotel room, he met an envelope, addressed to him,  containing 25 dollars, intended to cover his preliminary expenses. The A C B Manager later forwarded his traveller’s cheque to him.

    The sixth accident had to do with a plot in his  office which

    collapsed completely, and redounded to his advantage. He was unjustly transferred to the Industrial department which they considered a ‘Siberia’ with the intention of  hampering his progress, only for him to have much faster rise than the plotters.

    As it would happen, the  incumbent Acting Head of Department had to be transferred because he did not possess adequate qualifications and Papa was  promptly made to head the department.

    The seventh, and final accident, happened when his name was number one on the list of those to be compulsorily retired, shortly after he had just been promoted as Director of Investment supervision.

    That was during the general civil service  purge but upon further enquiries by then governor, General  David Jemibewon, the Secretary to the state  government wrote an opinion, describing Chief Fasuan in superlative terms. The situation drew the ire of the governor who promptly ordered the immediate removal of his boss and appointed him in his stead.

    Many more instances will qualify as  divine accidents in the life of the unabashed, straight talking Chief Oladeji Fasuan; a man in whom there is no guile and who has, with enormous justification, earned the reputation of one who always says it as it is”.

    No matter how much I do not wish to sound monotonous, no article on Chief Fasuan would be complete without a mention, no matter how little, about the leading role he played in the struggle for the creation of Ekiti state; a struggle which amongst other challenges, saw many of today’s Ekiti titans, atimes, sleeping on the Abuja – Ekiti road, whenever it was they started their return journey back home to Ekiti late on the then quite treacherous 397.8 kilometre road, which took no less than about 7 hours.

    To be fully, and properly educated on that intense struggle, I recommend a reading of Chief Fasuan’s magnum opus:’Creation of Ekiti State: The Epic Struggle of a People.

    Chief Fasuan was the Vanguard of a struggle that saw to the coming together of our respected Obas and Chiefs, illustrious captains of Industry, intellectuals and sundry professionals, all putting heads together in the Committee For The Creation of Ekiti State on which Papa served as  Chairman, with each member tapping into his/her contacts; all eventuating in the creation of an Ekiti state, at a time when big names in Nigerian politics, commerce and the professions, in many other parts of the country, did not sniff theirs.

    Happy birthday, Papa.

    Many Happy returns.

  • It is time for a marshall plan for Northern Nigeria

    It is time for a marshall plan for Northern Nigeria

    For those who may not already be conversant with the article in focus today, which appeared on these pages on 15 September, 2024 let me begin by reproducing its introductory portion. It reads as follows:

    “Northern Nigeria situation today – economic, security, climate, name it, is analogous to  the post World War 11 situation in Europe when the U.S, “fearing  that the poverty, unemployment, and dislocation occasioned by the war were aggressively reinforcing the appeal of communist parties to voters in western Europe”, that something just had to be done. That was what finally eventuated in the much celebrated Marshall Plan. 

    If the security situation in Northern Nigeria fails to point, unambiguously, to the urgent need for something urgent to be done to rectify the situation, the horrendous consequences of the Alua Dam disaster in Borno state, should.

    Enough is now enough. Northern Nigeria urgently needs a Marshall Plan to restore it back to its glorious Sadauna days of no serial bloodletting.

    And for the sake of our country’s long-term survival, and for us to live in peace, and  avoid  attracting the attention of the international community the way countries like

    Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria – the 3 most insecure countries in the world according to the Global Peace Index (GPI 2024) do, then our restive North must be restored back to its pre-Boko-Haram and banditry days.

    This is neither intended to stigmatise the North, nor to suggest that we can easily overlook what horror terrorism and economic deprivation have spurned in the South”.

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    The article has since attracted some attention, if not in government circles or amongst Northern leaders, two groups that should, ordinarily, have been very concerned, then certainly among intellectuals, some of who see the suggestion as something outside the remit of the Federal government which I hard sort of indicated should take the lead in what I  considered an urgent desideratum.

    Before I come to their argument, however, a new, very agonising issue emerged, no thanks to a WhatsApp post which trended during the past week.

    The post, which had a narrator who is of Northern extraction, showed in Kano, a huge collection of very little girls – call them children – clustered together,  begging bowls in hand, some joking and some fighting, with no parents or elderly ones in sight, with the commentator  repeatedly drawing attention to their young ages, their huge numbers and emphasising what a future ticking bomb they represent for a Nigeria already shackled down by insecurity.

    No serious government, qua government, state or local, or leaders with any conscience, at all, should be able to turn a blind eye to this macabre phenomenon.

    The North must now necessarily turn  attention to what is nothing short of a future consuming fire.

    To the main focus of this piece then, that is: reaction to the idea of a Marshall Plan for Northern Nigeria.

    I have for company, a distinguished, highly regarded retired Ambassador, and an equally distinguished University Professor, both of whom will remain nameless, but would be quoted verbatim at some length. Both are gentlemen I routinely, send my weekly articles.

    It was Prof who  reacted first. He commented as follows: “Uncle, good evening. It’s been a while since we chatted. I guess the situation in the country is making it increasingly difficult to keep one’s sanity.

    I just read your very interesting article. Now my questions regarding the situation in the North which  is, of course, creeping down south, are these:

    Who will bell the cat? Who will take the responsibility of turning things around in Northern Nigeria?

    All these pretty talk from Elders’ forums, Governor’s forums and many other fakes, are just mere talk.

    They never seem to care. So, how do we get out of this mess?

    After I waded in with a short reply, he riposted: “We should know that banditry and attendant insecurity has become an industry. Some people benefit from it and those beneficiaries are the ones propping it up.

    Look at the video you sent to me where someone was asking for a right of way for some fulani terrorists.

    The unanswered question is – Who are those Fulani? What is their mission? On whose orders?

    President Tinubu is being frustrated all round, even by his own men. So the problem remains fluid and intractable. The hardship is not letting up and Nigerians blame him”.

    The Ambassador was direct. He wrote: Who will finance such a Marshall Plan for the North? Foreign agencies or local?  Yes, there is a need for a massive investment in human development in the North. But the challenge is not limited to lack of financial resources  but the existing social and economic structure which makes its people so poor. A Marshall Plan will have to be  complemented by a re-engineering of its social structure to make it more conducive to a rapid transition to a liberal and progressive society . But will Northern leaders, with the huge privileges they currently enjoy, support this transformation?

    I doubt it.

    To his comments, I replied.

    Thank you Sir.

    There are ‘zillions’ of billionaires and millionaires in the North, mostly the result of thefts from the poor over many decades, if not a century. If Nigerians have to blackmail them, then they will.

    Indeed, if the President gets seriously involved, as I guess he would, a percentage of Nigeria’s annual revenue, over say a period of 10 years, or thereabout, can be factored into contributing to it, by an act of Parliament. This is because  North’s failure will occasion horrendous consequences for the country, if only because our Northern border is so huge, and porous, that insecurity in Nigeria could become absolutely unimaginable.

    To this the Ambassador replied: “Are you seriously suggesting that the North should be given a special treatment, or privilege, by giving it a financial subsidy from the national revenue?”

    Personally, I saw nothing wrong in that. So I responded: “Sir, this is the way these things work. We started with NDDC, today almost every region has got a development commission. If we have to start from the North because of the insecurity which I already expatiated on, we would only first be priotising the North for such an intervention.

    Varieties of that could then be started later in other parts of the country.

    The Ambassador, a  highly principled diplomat, who served  in many grade A embassies during his checkered service to the country countered:

    “Such a plan should be a national, not a regional intervention. For far too long the North has received all kinds of privileges and preferences without any significant progress due to its rigid social structure and leadership deficit”.

    Short and sharp.

    I then replied: “Very rational argument Sir. But do all parts of Nigeria constitute the same level of risk? With utmost respect, I say not at all. And I can’t see what we would lose. In deed, we will lose much more in these parts, if Nigeria happens to unravel.

    And to this he replied: “If you think this will save Nigeria from unraveling then you support it. But I am not sure it will”.

    And as is the norm in arguments with elders in Yoruba custom, I humbly replied:

    I concur Sir.

    Concluding, in deciding one way or the other on the reasonableness, or otherwise, of a Marshall Plan which will help in enhancing security in that part of Nigeria, I think it is important to factor in the recent confession of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant General Taoreed Lagbaja, at the 2024 Distinguished Personality Lecture, which can safely be interpreted as saying that Nigeria may never have enough resources to adequately protect our extensive Northern border with the highly volatile sahelian countries through only annual budgetary provisions which are, in fact, hardly ever fully released.

    According to the COAS, “in a country with over 200 million people, it is unrealistic for security agencies totalling around two million, including an Army of just over 100,000 active personnel, without a reserve force, to secure the entire population”.

    Expatiating further, he added that “the significant gap in resources is being exploited by criminal elements and to address the issue, it is crucial to invest in expanding and strengthening security forces, ensuring they have adequate personnel and resources”.

    This, in my view, ipso facto, means that a Marshall Plan for the North, to which several entities would generously contribute, cannot be anything else but rational and  reasonable.

  • From Benin to Minna: Obasanjo back to his usual meddlesomeness

    From Benin to Minna: Obasanjo back to his usual meddlesomeness

    Forever believing he is still in the office he kissed bye as far back as 2007 – some 17 years ago – and always seeing himself as the Father of the Nation, former President Olusegun Obasanjo this past week carried his bag of tricks all the way to Minna, the Niger state capital, to  felicitate, as his spokesperson said , with a man he never ceased to traduce in, and out, of office. President Obasanjo never ceases to amaze; poignantly reminding one of ‘Ajala Travel All Over The World’ -to reference the scintillating travels of the late  Olabisi Ajala (1934 -1999).

    As is now very obvious to Nigerians,  President Obasanjo apparently has never had enough peace of mind, post office, not to be tempted into wanting to remind us all that nobody loves Nigeria as much as he does.

    All that in spite of his many sins against Nigeria: his do or die election of 2007, his ‘Fehin gbe pon’ intrusion into the Ekiti governorship election of the same year,

    as well as in what horrible shape he left the country at his exit after the National Assembly put paid to his Life presidency gambit.

    Here is a man whose eldest daughter, the cerebral Dr Iyabo Obasanjo, wrote to as follows in her letter of December 16, 2013 which was later made public:”This is my last communication with you, for life. I pray Nigeria survives your continual intervention in its affairs”.

    If that is not a complete repudiation of a father by a daughter, I’d like to be told what it is.

    Governor GeorgeAkume of Benue state, as he then was, also wrote about Nigeria’s longest serving Head of state.

    He wrote in:’Obasanjo’s Grandstanding on Restructuring'(16 March, 2020):”I remember my discussion with him during his visit to Benue State, preparatory to the PDP Jos Convention of 1999 when I referred to what Ken Saro Wiwa wrote about him in his book ‘On a Darkling Plain’.

    “… but this comment by Ken contradicted sharply with what Gen. James Oluleye said of him in his autobiography that he was a bundle of tricks”. When I brought that aspect of the book to his attention, he had a good laugh, and told me that Nigeria is a structurally complex, and socially pluralistic, country where no leader, WITHOUT TRICKS, can survive”.

    Concerning Akume’s lament to him about PDP’s very poor showing  in the South West, Ogun state in particular,  Akume wrote:”He regretted that the Yorubas were making a costly mistake about secession. He would not be involved in such a tragic event. The Yorubas, he said, would be GOADED by the Igbos to make a tragic move with cataclysmic consequences. The Igbos would then DITCH them, join the North and DESTROY them in a REVENGE offensive”. 

    Now how many Igbos would ever  believe that their friend, Peter Obi’s godfather, could ever describe them as being so treacherous?

    But that is not all as my co – columnist on this stable,   Idowu Akinlotan,  has severally weighed in on  our former President’s antics but the relevant one here is his comment of  8 January, 2023 on Obasanjo’s endorsement of  Peter Obi for the 2023 Presidential election.

    Akinlotan wrote:”Contrary to what many supporters of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo think, those who chide him for his unusual and intemperate letter endorsing the presidential candidacy of Labour Party’s Peter Obi are not doing so because they regret his refusal to support their own candidates. He has the right and pleasure to support anyone he wishes, regardless of the bad choices he has made over decades. What the complainants quarrel with is the tone of the endorsement letter, its instigation rather than logical persuasion of the youths, and the former president’s unbelievable deployment of mediocre philosophy of leadership.

    He is free to support anyone he likes, whether his critics like it or not, but it was expected that he would do it with the dignified poise of a leader, the decorum associated with great leadership, and with balanced, even-tempered and unassailable logic. He had all of 85 years to develop and hone that poise and maturity, and over 11 years as head of state and president to acquire the experience needed to set the right example for the nation. Now, all those years seem a horrible waste.

    Somehow, as is customary of him, his letter of endorsement was full of hysteria: hysteria against his imaginary foes, hysteria against his successors in office, and hysteria against his compatriots and God whom he sometimes gives the impression is permanently at his beck and call.

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    Mr Obi, a sophist like no other, probably deserves Chief Obasanjo’s support. The two sophists are thus obsessed with specious reasoning, and roundly complement each other. For whatever the endorsement is worth, no one should begrudge the controversial former president from backing Mr Obi’s candidacy. It was perhaps too far-fetched for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to expect Chief Obasanjo’s endorsement. Too much had soured in their relationship to realistically expect even a grin from the ex-president. Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) would have been unable to fathom any endorsement from Abeokuta. That left the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, and LP’s Mr Obi to vie for the bilious old man’s attention. It would have been incongruous for the APC, as the party knows very well, to receive the nod from their old and unforgiving antagonist and sparring partner.

    All the leading candidates for the 2023 presidential election had visited Chief Obasanjo in Abeokuta, more as a courtesy than necessity; but it would be hard to gauge what value they would have attached to his endorsement had he deemed them worthy of the gesture. Even Mr Obi who finally got the nod has remained nonplussed. He is uncertain what to do with the endorsement, especially seeing that the repeated hurrahs he had got from the politicised churches of Nigeria had not given his candidacy the needed boost. The streetwise LP candidate knows by instinct that Chief Obasanjo is long past his expiry date. In fact, much more, he knows that all that is left of the phlegmatic old warhorse from Abeokuta is his nuisance value. But better not to draw the ire of the sleeping bear: if he cannot be for you, at least make him indifferent to you. That was why Alhaji Atiku and Asiwaju Tinubu visited him. Both men were too smart not to know where Chief Obasanjo leaned; but they thought they could lessen the pungency of his vitriol. Alas, the former president remains as incandescent and malignant as ever”

    So why all this background history of ‘the Father of the nation’?

    It is a well known fact that President Bola Tinubu has no political godfather, not  Obasanjo, not Babangida nor is it Abdulsalam and none of them is being propitiated by the Villa like he were a god.

    Naturally, therefore, he has earned their ire, and while the last two can bide their time, no, not Obasanjo, the Yoruba top gun, who considers himself the greatest thing to have happened to the Yoruba race since sliced bread, and who is, therefore,  irredeemably angry that God allowed another Yoruba man to emerge  President in his lifetime. Without a doubt, he will hold that angst to heart till his entire life.That exactly was why he raced all the way to Minna straight from Benin city.

    Obasanjo is not one to let the present crises bedevelling the country, mainly economic and insecurity, not forgetting the high cost of living, pass without wanting to pay Tinubu back for the outlandish shellacking he and his candidate got at the elections in 2023. No, not when there are willing associates ensconced on the hills of Minna and an Atiku Abubakar that is never too far away, ever spewing nonsensical diatribes.

    However, the former President has not been bold enough to tell Nigerians his mission to Minna, except to reach into that bag of tricks and tell us he went there to celebrate, mid – September, a man whose birthday was in August.

    But he must try a little more to successfully spin this as Nigerians are no fools.

    The Nigeria media too will not  let him get away with this outright decoy. So snippets are already coming out of  what the serpentine Minna meeting was all about.

    Long story cut short, their meeting, to which General Aliyu Gusau was not, unexpectedly invited, was aimed at making a shortshrift of the Tinubu government, if not now, then in 2027, using the current economic hardship as cover.

    But they must, indeed, be very poor students of history.

    Not many could have forgotten Obasanjo’s spirited effort to abort the 2023 Presidential election long after voting has ended. He actually wrote one of his usual hate- filled letters to President Muhammadu Buhari, ferociously questioning the integrity of the election.

    I invite interested readers to please Google: Obasanjo and Charlie Boy on the 2023 Presidential election to listen to the telephone discussion in which the former President told his ‘son’ to go and OCCUPY Nigeria so as to, unceremoniously, abort the election. How very quickly he forgot the history of elections under his watch; elections he called ‘do or die?

    But if he forgot, Google never forgets. Below, therefore, is a portion of the UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) report on the 2007 Presidential election conducted under President Obasanjo, the result of which the chief beneficiary,  President Umar Yar Adua, publicly condemned. It reads:”

    The Nigerian elections of April 2007 were judged by most observers to fall a long way short of the standard for credible, free and fair elections and is considered the worst in Nigeria’s post-independence, electoral history”.

    “The reports of domestic and international observers provide confirmation that all stages of the elections were fundamentally flawed”.

    “Widespread malpractice occurred throughout all stages of the elections, with failures in the late delivery of voting materials, late commencement of polls in most of the states, ballot box stuffing, allocation of votes where voting did not take place, falsification of votes, deliberate denial of election materials to perceived strong-holds of the opposition, and other such actions”.

    “Moreover, the current ruling party fixed the results in advance, even for local government, in all but a handful of states as part of an intra-elite deal, accidentally leaking (accurate) ‘results’ to the press a few days prior to the election. Some states, such as Rivers, Ogun,

    Oyo, and Ekiti, saw vote totals far above the number of registered voters. 2007 broke from 2003 in going from ‘competitive rigging’ to a vote-allocation, or ‘direct capture”

    “Elections were, as well, marked by extraordinarily high levels of political violence.

    55 people died on the day of the election and unofficial estimates for the whole electoral period were 200 deaths nationwide”.

    Above is a true picture of all the elections which took place during President Obasanjo’s administration just as the one that saw him to office in 1999 was no exception.

    That is the man who wanted the 2023 Presidential election cancelled because of infractions but, in reality, because Peter Obi, his candidate, who placed third  overall, did not win.

    It is a crying shame to see President Obasanjo go this low given the fact that a time was when as a Nigerian, one was proud to see him being counted among world leaders.

    Unfortunately, that was then.

  • It is time for a Marshall plan for Northern Nigeria

    It is time for a Marshall plan for Northern Nigeria

    The truth of the matter is that Europe’s requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products—principally from America—are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character”

      The above are the words of U. S Secretary of State,  George C Marshall, while advancing the idea of a European self-help program to be financed by the United  States in an address he delivered at  Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A on June 5, 1947.

     Northern Nigeria situation today – economic, security, climate, name it, is analogous to  the post World War 11 situation in Europe when the U.S, “fearing  that the poverty, unemployment, and dislocation occasioned by the war were aggressively reinforcing the appeal of communist parties to voters in western Europe”, that something just had to be done. That was what eventuated in the much celebrated Marshall Plan. 

    If the security situation in Northern Nigeria failed to point, unambiguously, to the urgent need for something to be done  to rectify the situation, the horrendous consequences of the Alua Dam disaster in Konduga, Maiduguri, Borno state, should.

    Enough is now enough. Northern Nigeria urgently needs a Marshall Plan to restore it back to its glorious Sadauna days.

    And for the sake of Nigeria’s long-term survival, and to be able to live in peace and  avoid  attracting the attention of the international community the way countries like Afghanistan,Yemen and Syria – the 3 most insecure countries in the world, according to the Global Peace Index (GPI 2024) do, then our restive North must be restored back to its pre-Boko -Haram

    (Nigeria’s notorious extremist insurgent group sitting atop the Global Terrorism Index) and banditry days.

    This is neither intended to stigmatise the North nor to suggest that we can so easily overlook the horror that terrorism and economic deprivation have spurned in the South. Rather, it is the received knowledge in my Ekiti part of the country that “ti igi ba wo legi, tori e la ma koko gbe”, meaning that one must necessarily priotise the resolution of his/her challenges. The horrific situation in the North is simply incomparable and must now be frontally confronted.

    Happily the Arewa Consultative Forum – Northern Nigeria’s foremost quasi-political, and socio-cultural association – has taken the lead, as epitomised by its  meeting, a week ago  on 4 September, 2024.

    Described as “ACF seeks unified action in addressing Northern Nigeria’s challenges”, the Chairman of ACF Board of Trustees, Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu, wasted no time in acknowledging the collective failure of Northern leaders in tackling the region’s crises. He also and underscored the forum’s commitment to revitalizing its role in resolving the region’s escalating crises. He let it be known that the meeting was designed to be special, serious and focused; far beyond the usual routine discussions.

    “The meeting”, he said, “is not a platform for political blame, but a sincere effort to confront the collective failure in safeguarding the region”.

    Like Nigeria, a part of which it is, the North is completely overwhelmed by a myriad of existential challenges, each of them enough to drag the region back several years.

    For him, the most troubling challenges are: insecurity, poverty, environmental degradation, and corruption but with the recent collapse of the  Alua dam and its horrendous consequences, I feel certain that he will have no qualms  adding Climate Change to the list.

    Without a scintilla of doubt, there are justifiable  grounds for other parts of the country to claim that what is happening in the North is  comeuppance.

    They could even  justifiably say, serve them right, but that will neither profit  anybody nor  take us, anywhere, as a country.

    But the reasons for such a claim will simply be indisputable.

    For far too long the North was in near total political control of the country and, as I recently wrote on these pages, even during those periods when Nigeria had presidents of Southern extraction, they ruled almost at the behest of the North; with some Northern leaders literally putting the gun to their head.

    This reminds me of  some events during the  administration of the seemingly powerful President Olusegun Obasanjo, 1999 – 2007.

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    At the Agbajo Yoruba Agbaiye, a budding Pan – Yoruba socio – cultural association under the sterling leadership of Lt. General Alani Akinrinade -one of Yoruba’s, no Nigeria’s very best – we had to set up a 4- man Rapid Response team with Professor Jide Osuntokun as Chairman, Dr Dele Sobowale, MrsTola Adenle and yours truly as members, to put President Obasanjo under constant observation regarding his almost total neglect of the South as he, routinely, awarded multi – million naira irrigation projects to the North at every monthly federal executive Council meeting. Alhaji Muktar  Shagari was his Minister of Water Resources and hardly did a project come to the South.

    It was the same  during President Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure. He had, statesmanly, embarked upon the Normadic school programme hoping, thereby, to infuse  western education curriculum into the Islamic education system so as to make the graduates  employable as well as curb insecurity. All the programme harvested was a resounding

    failure because those in charge preferred to misapply the huge funds appropriated for the purpose – and that is to put it nicely.

    But listen to President Muhammadu Buhari’s Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, when interviewed on the subject, which no Head of state  of Northern extraction ever considered worthy of any meaningful attention:“I think the conception of Almajiri schools and how to run them were not properly done by the government we inherited. But I know right now they are being incorporated into our schools”.

    “As I told you, there are now about six million out-of-school children, probably some of them who are trooping here (Abuja), but certainly there should be government policy to stop the movement of Almajiri or Almajirai, as they’re called in Hausa. A provision should be made for instructing them wherever they are.”

    Apart from the racist slur, and as a result of Adamu’s position, Northern state governors soon started uprooting these rootless children- who know neither their father nor  mother – from their then current abode to their presumed states of origin.

    Today, not a few of them must have relocated to one forest, or the other, all over the country as either bandits, Boko Haram elements or simply killers.

    The above are the reasons the Federal Government must now have a fresh look at the myriad problems confronting our Northern compatriots for whom life has become ugly and absolutely unsafe. They now venture out of their homes – when they are not being plucked from right there – very unsure they would not be brought back in a body bag.

    And that on a daily basis.

     All these are already gravely impacting Nigeria as a whole as you would now hardly find investors really eager to come here to invest at a time the country is in dire need of Foreign Direct Investment.

    The North has so, unfortunately, socialised insecurity, especially by failing, like forever, to educate its youth. Many of the uneducated youth are, today, populating

    those places Dr  Akinwumi Adesina, President, African Development Bank, once described as the supermarket from where budding terrorists are now being routinely recruited.

    The collapse of the Alua Dam in Borno state has now added climate change to the challenges Nigeria must now seriously address in the North.

    Built in 1986 to help farmers in Maiduguri with irrigation, the dam also helps control flooding from the Ngadda River, which on occasion gets higher-than-normal inflows from water sources that trace back to Lake Chad.

    With the constant warnings from NIMET  – the  Nigerian Meteorological Agency – it   is unbelievable that many state governments still wait on their  laps until disaster  rears its ugly head, even though, being mostly natural occurencies, many are simply unpreventable. However,  as it is done elsewhere around the world, state governments must ensure, without fail, that people at risk are moved out well in advance of disaster.

    The current floods hit Borno State this past week after  the dam broke its bank as a result of heavy surge of water which buried half the state capital, Maiduguri, damaging buildings and infrastructure. Authorities say about one million people are affected, and that about 30 deaths have, unfortunately been recorded.

    To fix all these problems will require huge amounts of money far beyond the Ken of the Federal government, at least for now.

    Therefore, from my limited perspective, I think the real Marshall Plan which the North needs today should be targeted at funding.

    To resolve the multi-faceted security challenges alone will require a huge amount of money. Nigerian soldiers are reputedly well trained but the time has come for a massive infusion of modern technology into its fighting arsenal. This will require tonnes of money. With money in place, the very first thing to do will be the injection of massive technology into the fighting arsenal of each arm of the Nigerian military as technology is guaranteed to be the change factor in this over a decade and a half old war on insecurity.

    The problems in the North revolve around its multi – pronged insecurity. Solve that therefore, and you have broken the backbone of the challenges.

    A massive social re-engineering could then begin, aimed largely at reducing the region -wide illiteracy which could see over 10M- out – of – school children enrolled all over the region.

    With insecurity thus greatly reduced, agriculture, especially modern agriculture, will thrive, accompanied by several medium-sized manufacturing concerns within the entire agricultural value – chain but with particular emphasis on animal husbandry and meat processing.

    Nigeria, especially Northern Nigeria, is not short of people with the means to facilitate the quantum of money being envisaged nor are such individuals absent in the South who could also, patriotically, throw in millions of their hard earned money into such a laudable Plan.

    A plan of this gargantuan dimension must naturally have the buy-in of the President, and Commander -in – Chief for whom its success must be of the highest priority. He must ensure that the Plan is put on military footing to guarantee its success such that within a space of 20 years, or thereabout, the North, no the entire country, would have opened a new chapter of progress and development which will signpost its future.

    Nigerians, especially her leaders, in every strata, must realise that North’s failure could very well sound the death knell of the country, Nigeria.

    It is time, therefore, every terrorist, every bandit and bandit kingpin, operating anywhere in Nigeria, is made to flee, surrender or get neutralised.

    The way things are going in the North, with no end to widespread kidnappings and killings, with IDP camps like permanently receiving new intakes and with some governors allegedly ruminating over whether to buy out bandit kingpins – at least for a season – it is time President Bola Tinubu takes the bull by the horns, buys into a Marshall Plan for Northern Nigeria, so as to bring peace and progress to our torridly restive North, nay Nigeria.

    This is not beyond the scope of Nigeria, the largest agglomeration of the Black race on the surface of the earth.

  • Bravo and happy birthday Governor Segun Oni

    Bravo and happy birthday Governor Segun Oni

    With every due sense of modesty I can claim that there aren’t many  who have been more involved, and for as long as I have, in the politics of Ekiti state. I can, therefore, write as authoritatively as anybody on the subject of Ekiti politics, an aspect of  which is what I am doing here today. Interestingly, this is only the first part as I have traversed the subject so intimately since the 80’s when Ekiti was part of Ondo state, that The Nation’s commentariat once dubbed me the Ekiti columnist. That was during the Obasanjo years when the man believed he could ride Ekiti people roughshod and I felt, honour bound, to encourage our people, almost on a weekly basis, to stand, very firmly, on the straight and narrow path, politically.

    In making this claim, I am not oblivious of the crucial role played by that inimitable journalist, my dear aburo, Dare  Babarinsa, whose exertions as the State correspondent of  Concord newspapers culminated in his book, ‘The ‘House of War’, in which he generously devoted nearly a full page to my role in the state UPN. Needless to say, though, he was not directly involved in the politics of the state as yours truly was.

    This then means that I was right there during the Papa Ajasin years, that period which would best be situated as the very beginning of the crisis that has characterised Ekiti politics like forever. It was the time Ekiti politicians began their mutual loathing, and enemity, suspecting each other’s every move, every inch of the way, both inter and intra – party.

    While this was more pronounced inter party, it was not absent, intra party; and though now, happily greatly subdued – thanks to Governor Biodun Oyebanji’s uniquely accommodating, and reconciliatory – call it Omoluabi politics – which can, with considerable justification, be described as a re-incarnation of Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim’s ‘politics without bitterness’ of the Second Republic, it still simmers underground, somewhat.

    By the way, although I can pride myself as being amongst the earliest few to suggest to this Omoluabi politician, then the state’s Secretary to Government, that he should try contest the state’s governorship election slated for 2022, at a time it was fartherest from his mind as I once documented in one of my articles shortly before the election, I did not see him until well after a year after his assumption of office. One thing I am doubly sure about is that we are damn lucky to have ‘Biodun

    Abayomi Oyebanji, BAO,  as he is called, worldwide, as our governor in this critical times.

    As I told him during my visit to him at the Ekiti House in Ikeja, Lagos early July this year, I have already started the draft of an article with the title: ‘BAO – Mania: How Governor Abiodun Oyebanji Reset Ekiti Politics’, the publishing of which, God willing, may not be earlier than during the second anniversary of his assumption of office.

    The ’cause célèbre’ for this piece today, therefore, is not  the governor, but the absolutely fascinating, and highly commendable withdrawal from partisan politics, of the state’s former Governor, Engr Segun Oni, which he recently announced while addressing some journalists ahead his 70th birthday.

    He is thus quitting partisan politics at a time when the ovation is loudest; thus recording a distinct rarity amongst Nigerian politicians who would, characteristically, rather die on the job.

    According to the report, his decision to quit was not driven by any immediate political ambition, but by his desire for a more reflective, and less active role in politics adding, however, that he would be available to give advice. He concluded by announcing  his endorsement of governor Oyebanji for the 2026 Ekiti state governorship election, premising it on the governor’s unique politics, and stellar performance.

    Vintage Segun Oni!

    Born 5 September 1954, and studied Chemical Engineering at the Great University of Ife, Ile – Ife, for his first degree, Oni was governor of Ekiti State from 29 May 2007 to 17 February 2009, and from 6 May 2009 to 15 October, 2010. He was a member of the PDP but in 2014,  defected to the newly formed APC where he was subsequently elected the Deputy National Chairman (South), a position he held from 2014 to 2020.

    He was governor at a very politically charged period in the state, with both PDP and the APC having an equal number of legislators ( 13 each) in the state House of Assembly and, having to contend with a  number of court cases, topmost of which was the long – running case instituted by Dr Kayode Fayemi against his election.

    Governor Oni would later step down from office on  15 October, 2010 after the Appeal court, sitting in Ilorin, Kwara state, declared Dr  Fayemi winner of both the 2007 governorship election, as well as the subsequent 2009 Rerun Election.

    Lest the reader be surprised, I authored about the most acerbic of articles against governor Oni during his tenure as governor of Ekiti state and, even as late as during the June 2022 governorship election when he was the candidate of  the  SDP.

    I would learn later in the course of his tenure, that his Media aides, many of  them very brilliant journalists, were on very strict instructions, from him, never to reply to “Brother Femi’s tirades” against his government, adding that he knew I was writing from  my personal convictions and that he, indeed, asked them whether they have seen me benefit anything from politics. His Uncle, my very good friend, Pastor Segun Fayemi, told me all these much later. This again is another testament to his being an ‘Eni Uyi, Eni Eye’, as we describe decent people in Ekiti. Despite the many years past, I still greatly appreciate him and wish, very fervently, that his tribe will increase amongst our politicians. It is my ardent hope too that his example here would serve as a teachable curve for many a Nigerian politician.

    To show how much I have always appreciated governor Oni’s person, if not his conservative, PDP politics, l  reproduce below, my reference to him in my articles ahead the referred governorship election; articles which were intended to vigorously canvass, not his candidature, but that of the APC candidate.

    In the article titled ‘Ekiti: I Ask Again Must Our Politicians Always Fight To The Death?’ of 10 February 2022, I wrote:

    But all these could not have happened had total strangers, the likes of former President Olusegun Obasanjo  and  Chief Bode  George  not,  like  a meteor,  suddenly  appeared

     and  insinuated  themselves, needlessly,  into  Ekiti  politics.

    That was way back  2003 when they overawed the almost faultless campaign of Chief  S. K Babalola, a highly regarded Ekiti elder, politician and gentleman per excellence, thereby  effectively muddling up our politics, like forever.

    That was exactly when rain started to beat us anew in Ekiti, politically speaking, eventuating in  the: “bo ba o pa, bo o ba o bu lese”, dangerous politics that climaxed in the Ido – Osi

    scorch-earth, ‘mini war’ of the 2009 Rerun election.  During that period, Ekiti had a one day governor, witnessed an Obasanjo – inspired, but inchoate impeachment, just as we saw Mama Ayoka’s infantile, political abracadabra, to mention but a few.

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    We have now come to that point in time when any true lover of Ekiti, among the  contestants, must ‘think Ekiti, rather than be consumed by self, because  he who fights and runs away, runs to fight another day. Fortunately, they all have age on their side.These Ekiti Patriots – yes patriots – must sit down and critically interrogate the question: Why, at every governorship election cycle, must Ekiti be in the news for the wrong reasons?

    Although this article is aimed, primarily, at helping to find a rapprochement within  the APC, I also feel concerned about the PDP, since the Ekiti bird cannot fly with one wing. For instance, insecurity has become so alarming, and commonplace, that we must not allow any insecurity entrepreneur turn Ekiti into a killing field.

    Our politicians must realise that no position is worth the blood of a human being.

    “That said, let me confess that I am personally delighted at the news of His Excellency, Engr Segun Oni’s imminent departure from the PDP.  I can see now why PDP can no longer sleep easy, both here at home, and in Abuja. Governor Segun Oni is a highly respected, absolutely incorruptible politician who would never stomach the chicanery that played out at the last PDP primaries which, but for eagle – eyed soldiers,  would have been inundated by  armed thugs who were being ferried there all the way from Ibadan. He and his supporters deserve to let PDP know that he is worth every bit of his name in gold”.

    I repeated these words, and more, in the article:’Ekiti ’22 -The Inevitability of BAO’s Victory For Uninterrupted Development In Ekiti’, dated 22nd May, 2022, even though I promptly went on to show why his party, the  SDP, would be unable to ensure a continuation of the state’s developmental trajectory.

    As it turned out, Ekiti rejected both the PDP and SDP, but not without affirming their respect for, and appreciation of governor Oni’s persona, by making sure that he soundly trounced the PDP candidate, Hon. Bisi Kolawole, who he outscored by having 82,211votes to 67,457,  while the APC candidate, and now Governor Biodun Oyebanji, got 187,057 votes to emerge winner.

    Concluding, I salute Governor Oni’s courage in quitting at the most appropriate time, that is, when the ovation is loudest; happy also that by the grace of God, he will be there, in very robust health, and available, as a reservoir of knowledge, from which future generations of Ekiti politicians can tap from time to time.

    Here’s wishing him a happy 70th birthday

  • Who will lead the North? – A Reaction

    Who will lead the North? – A Reaction

    In a 2 -part article deployed primarily, I suspect, towards asphyxiating the entire Southern Nigeria into a state of somnolence ahead the 2027 presidential election when, because they are born to rule, the North would, again mount the presidency of Nigeria even if President Muhammadu Buhari – a Northerner – spent his two full terms (2015 – 2023), gentleman ILYASU GADU, got published in the Daily Trust, his article, ‘Who Will Lead The North?’ Interested readers should please see the Daily Trust of 6 & 13 August, 2024.

    For ease of reference, I paraphrase Gadu’s main beef below in what was, essentially, a Tinubu put down.

    In my part of the country we say that even if you were sent a message befitting a slave, you deliver it like a freeborn.  No, not Gadu, who cut President Tinubu no slack whatever.

    For instance, in Gadi’s words:”From the tenor of the nationwide protests, Nigerians now see President Tinubu as the signature image of Nigeria’s current tribulations”, even if that selfsame protest was dominated in the North solely by uneducated urchins, who know practically nothing, besides shouting whatever it is they are told to shout, Putin inclusive; and regardless of whether Tinubu had, himself, earned their angst only in the process of  trying to clear the Augean stable of the clueless eight years which preceded him.

    Rather than honestly bemoan the North’s loss of political power, our friend chose to write:”Now that Tinubu has finally ascended the presidency of Nigeria by the instrumentality of the same northern political elite, it is ironically the north that is groaning most from the harsh economic policies of the Tinubu administration”.

    And concerning his Northern political elite he believes that President Tinubu has locked out, ‘benched’ he called it, most Northern APC leaders, Nasir El Rufai, the erstwhile, powerful Kaduna state governor, inclusive.

    As I used to do during the tenure of governor Jonah Jang of Plateau state when I usually exchanged ideas on critical issues of state with Elder Tony Sani, then ACF Publicity Secretary, and also to eschew any notion of any personal prejudcces, I contacted a regular reader of this column, a University Professor, to ask for his views on this very important article.

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    His comments which are also paraphrased for space constraint, reads as follows:

    Ilyasu Gudu’s article captioned ‘Who will lead the North?’ and published in the Daily Trust of 6 & 13 August, 2024 is , in my view, a very unfortunate one, reflecting as it does, the mode of thinking in the North.

    To describe it as horrifying will be an understatement. It portrayed a mind left behind in the primitive morass of feudal nostalgia, and delusional pomposity, earnestly celebrating  excessive entitlement mentality; something that has become an epidemic, of sorts, with our Northern politicians. It defies logic and benumbs reason but, unfortunately, yet persists.

    The author, therefore, must have captured the minds of many of his Northern compatriots which, to say the least, is a shame because he deliberately ignored many obvious, and undeniable, facts.

    He failed, for instance, to mention the North’s proclivity for primitive existence which places heavy encumberances on the average northerner’s path to growth or progress. The fact that they deliberately keep their people down is of no moment to the writer, at all. He equally ignored the fact that Northern leaders clothe the talakawas with a garb of ignorance, poverty, destitution and other forms of human degradation. This is perhaps to ensure their amenability.

    With millions of children, and youth, roaming the streets – with no education, no skills, no parental guidance, no direction, no control, no hope, and nothing to live for – why wouldn’t their existence be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutal and short”, (apologies, Thomas Hobbes).

    In blaming the Tinubu administration for the hardship in the north, Mr Gadu feigned a blissful ignorance of  the atrocities and misrule of the past in the hands of Northern rulers, civilian and military alike.

    Or come to think of it, hasn’t the North always held the levers of power in Nigeria? Have they not always been in total control, even when a  Southerner is on the seat, as

    Dr Yusuf Datti Baba – Ahmed once had the occasion to gloat about? Or aren’t  Southern Presidents often subjected to threat, intimidation and blackmail till they are compelled to do the bidding of the North? Obasanjo was no exception, nor was Goodluck Jonathan who was literally ran out of town with some Northern leaders of his party, the PDP, eagerly working for his defeat. Or aren’t  they now doing it to Tinubu?

    Conversely, when a Northerner is in power, all is well, and they keep the peace. Which was why no one heard from Ilyasu Gadu during the depredation, and chaos of the immediate past regime – an era that berthed a multi billion Naira crime industry in kidnapping and banditry.

    What, too, of an ethnic militia – ‘Fulani herdsmen’- recognised by the World Global Terrorism Index, 2023 as the third most dangerous terrorist organisation, worldwide, operating freely and leaving a huge trail of blood and tears across the country during the entire Buhari administration? How many Nigerians  live in IDP camps today simply because they were driven out of their ancestral homes by local invaders and murderers?

    Mr Gadu is here representing  the voice of predators which is why he did not mention the scorch-earth greed and insensitivity of the northern elite.

    An elite that cares only for itself and promotes the comfort of a few at the expense of the many. An elite so unfeeling, so merciless, indeed, so   conscience-less it steals from orphans and widows, from the weak, the infirm and the dying.

    I find the article totally  repugnant. All the North wants is power, power without accountability but power to control and denigrate; the reason Gadu wrote the article now, eagerly awaiting the next Northern Emperor.

    The Leaders of the First Republic had great plans for their respective regions and  the country as a whole. And they worked towards its realisation. Up north, the Sardauna worked hard to take his people out of the morass of the dark ages. But today,state capture remains the ultimate goal of those who inherited his power, the reason Ilyasu Gadu is so agitated he wants to know who would next lead the North and, ipso facto, rule Nigeria the way they want.

    Unfortunately, it’s like the South and the Middle Belt are both cursed, and will never, ever find accommodation for each other. They can complain together about their misfortune and mourn their tragedies together. But no. They never sit together to articulate a proper response to those  snapping dangerously at their heels. They are embroiled in their own little wars and big hates, giddy peskiness and endless shadow chasing. 

    And what’s more? There is no end in sight. For without that response, nothing will change.

    Yes, Nigeria needs leadership.  But not leadership blinded by ethnic irredentism, religious bigotry and tribal exceptionalism. Not leadership mired in corruption and rhetorics and self service. It is time to look for leadership with vision, empathy, wisdom and the strength to pull back from the brink. Nigeria needs leadership that can bring hope back to the largest black nation on earth. It needs leadership that can look across the mountain and see hope. Leadership that can cast its glance across the ocean, look beyond the seas, and tell the people: “there’s hope. Let us go forward together in amity and brotherliness”.

    May that day come.

  • The national assembly needs a reputational makeover

    The national assembly needs a reputational makeover

    Under the sterling leadership of Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, SAN, as Charman of ICPC, the  board instituted a novel initiative of ensuring accountability and transparency in the implementation of  Constituency Projects.

    A portion of the initiative’s report reads:

    “In addition, findings under the phase two exercise revealed that there were projects sited on private properties of the sponsors or their cronies – breaching Procurement Act 2007, using personal companies to execute government projects, passing off or round tripping of projects, converting projects vehicles to personal property, and lack of needs assessment before projects are sited.

    Furthermore, the exercise uncovered lack of synergy between outgoing and incoming legislators, such that projects initiated by the former are abandoned by the later. Another shoddy dealing uncovered was collusion between sponsors’ aides and contractors to defraud Nigeria and contract over-invoicing.

    Other key findings of the exercise was that despite the annual appropriation of N100 billion for constituency projects, some projects were duplicated in the mandate budgets of some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) – which the same National Assembly approves – as constituency projects. This, did not only fuel corruption,  it also distorts national planning, leading to poor and inefficient budget performance”.

    Above is how the National Assembly, routinely, pads annual budgets.

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    From the above, it becomes crystal clear  that the huge emolument of National Assembly members, concerning which Nigerians have shouted themselves hoarse, complaining ad infinitum, is only one of the many ways the country is being rapaciously  shortchanged by those expected to lead by demonstrating unimpeachable behaviour.

    Each successive session of the National Assembly has been worse than the one it succeeded and it has become obvious that in the matter of resolving opacity in that arm of government, Nigerians are, no doubt, between the  devil and the deep blue sea.

    I say that because

    they  make our laws and would not  snatch lolly from their own mouths, the way British Prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, snatched milk from school children by making laws to outlaw their own corruption.

    Unfortunately, Nigerians are yet to see the executive branch do anything to mitigate it.

    The dilemma does not end there.

    In the article, ‘Wake Up RMAFC’, The Nation, Sunday,18 August, 2024 I  wrote about how the RMAFC Chairman inellegantly, if not shamelessly, washed  the agency’s hands off any responsibility for checkmating a National Assembly  paying its members allowances that are  far in excess of  what  it recommended for the President’s approval; which approval it knew never given but was, instead, self -awarded. Nothing can be more irresponsible than playing that dumb on the excuse that the constitution does not, expressly, include that in its mandate.

    Suppose, for instance, that Assembly members were paying themselves a hundred times the figures they recommended after an exhaustive  consideration of relevant data. Would it still be rational to claim ignorance of what was happening; thus calling RMAFC’s very existence to question?

    Which was why I was thoroughly flabbergasted when I saw the following  reaction, by a supposedly educated Nigerian, to my article referenced above.

    He wrote:”The author,  I am sorry to say, is ignorant. RMAFC did its job; recommended a pay package which the president sent to NASS in the form of an amendment bill and it was passed into law.

    If NASS members are paying themselves more than was recommended, it is neither known to RMAFC (perhaps because they live in China – columnist) nor the duty of that body to police or audit NASS bla bla bla”.

    If he has been around, and not marooned on some faraway island, he should have known, as I showed in the article  that the allowances National Assembly members currently earn, is not a product of the process he wasted time describing; but rather,

    the result of self – help by the law makers who thought nothing of suffering Nigerians.

    The article reads:”When, during  the past week, the EFCC finally caught up with Hon.Dimeji Bankole, the erstwhile Speaker of the  House of Representatives,  Nigerians came to know that under his leadership, the House of Representatives has been borrowing, illegally, for un-appropriated purposes. It was with an eye on such funds 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’.

    The payment of outstanding allowances, dating back to 1999 – 2007, all from these un-authorised funds was also approved .

    To  meet these unilaterally approved emoluments, the House leadership  resorted to borrowing and decreed that  all the loans should be  included in the 2011 budget as if Nigeria were a banana Republic”. 

    But some questions arise: aren’t Nigerians entitled to know what  is captured in this so – called running costs? Are they taxed, or not, and since they should be paid as an advance, are these funds ever retired as is the practice in government?

    The opacity in the affairs of the National Assembly simply rankles.

    Can Nigerians be allowed to see the electronic traces of these so- called expenses supposedly made in our behalf? Nigerians, acutely aware of their several

    recesses, often ask how long members actually sit, even though they always claim they are busy on committee – those juicy committees – duties.

    In the U.S from where we copied our mode of government, Congressmen who want a particular project in their constituency know that they have to lobby the relevant agency in the executive branch unlike here where “Senate President Godswill Akpabio could, according to BudgIT, effortlessly, allocate projects worth N90bn to his constituency of only 10 Local Government Areas”.

    If we are helpless in making the National Assembly members contrite, can they, by themselves, humbly retrace their steps along the path of rectitude, even if out of pity for poor Nigerians, 131M of whom were, in ’23, said to be multidimensionally poor? I feel certain that those two chambers have within them, some of the finest Nigerians, patriots indeed, some of who have been so troubled and so conscience – stricken, they have ‘whispered loudly’, the figures most of their colleagues would dare not mention even in their closets. Without a scintilla of doubt, there must be within the National Assembly, even if a tiny minority, men and women of conscience, who must be feeling pained at what percentage of the National resource is devoted to catering to the stupendous living style of only 469 Nigerians – (Senate  109, and House,  360); men and women who are, in no way more Nigerian than the rest of us. Only this past week, Senator Ishaku Elisha Abbo, who represented Adamawa North Senatorial District in the 10th National Assembly, in a currently trending WhatsApp  video, told Nigerians that, whereas he earned a cummutative N14.4M monthly, his former colleagues now earn N29M monthly. Please don’t try multiplying that by 12.

    In the article:’Reducing Nigeria’s Monstrous Cost Of Governance Through The President’s Personal Example’

    of 2nd July, 2023, I wrote:

    “With respect to this nerve racking problem, that is, reducing the cost of governance, President Tinubu is in a situation analogous to that of the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo when the  following was written about him:

    “To accomplish these, Awo and his colleagues were determined to blast their way through whatever problems, and compel the force of any adverse circumstance to serve their will. This was because they had put in, long and hard preparations …”

    “With 30 years of productive engagement in Nigerian politics, preparing his life long ambition of becoming the Nigerian President’, he should be able to own that assertive pronouncement about AWO, regarding his own preparedness for office.

    In consequence of that, he should now go ahead and deploy  his well known attributes as a dogged strategist, combined with his varied experience, and not inconsiderable network, to do that which his predecessors couldn’t do.

    President Tinubu just has to tame the conundrum of Nigeria’s unsustainably high cost of governance, especially the atrocious emoluments of members of the National Assembly which is the elephant in the room.

    It will, no doubt, be difficult because that is another arm of government. But if the President would start with himself, and substantially reduce the emoluments going to the executive branch, he would have, through such example compelled same in the legislative arm.

    The President will have to lead by personal example; one that would be so irresistible, members of the National Assembly would have no option. He must demonstrate that the Nigerian presidency became his life ambition  only because he saw the office as the utmost position from where he could positively impact the lives of Nigerians,  irrespective of clan, tribe or religion. A country that serially borrows to implement its annual budget should, if led by a serious government, never run a government half as expensive as Nigeria presently is. Making it

    worse is the fact that Nigeria presently suffers a huge revenue shortfall, a fact further exacerbated by massive oil theft that has run like for ages. The President should now realise that significantly reducing the cost of governance is long overdue. It is no longer a stitch in time which, as they say,  saves nine. It is, indeed, already late. And two things he can be sure of  are: that he will have the overwhelming support of Nigerians, and the National Assembly would have no option whatever, lest Nigerians ‘storm the Bastille’.

  • Wake up RMAFC

    Wake up RMAFC

    In your case, with all due respect, you’re not supposed to fix your salaries. But you decide what you pay yourself, the allowances that you give yourselves (including) newspaper allowances.

    “You give yourselves all sorts of things, and you know it is not right. It is immoral, (yet) you are doing it, the Senate is doing it, and you are beating your chests about it. In some cases, the executive gives you what you’re not entitled to. You all got N200 million (each).” – Former President Olusegun Obasanjo while addressing some members of the the House of Representatives who paid him a courtesy call in Abeokuta recently.

    Apparently, for some agencies of government, the fear of the National Assembly is the beginning of wisdom. On top of that ignominious ladder is  the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission whose

     Chairman, Mohammed Shehu, in the process of trying to shield the Assembly from attacks like the one by President Obasanjo, was furtherest from the truth when, this past week, he caused the following statement to be issued to the Nigerian public on how the Assembly’s jumbo emoluments came about.

    According to him: “A breakdown of their monthly earnings revealed that each Senator collects a monthly salary and allowances of N1,063,860, consisting of a basic salary, N168,866:70; motor vehicle, fuelling and maintenance allowance, N126,650:00; and personal assistant, N42,216:66;

    Read Also: Obasanjo more disillusioned than ever

    domestic staff N126,650:00; entertainment, N50,660:00; utilities, N50,660:00; newspapers/periodicals, N25,330:00; wardrobe, N42,216,66:00; house maintenance, N8,443.33:00; and constituency allowance.

    “It is instructive to note that some allowances are regular while others are non-regular. Regular allowances are paid regularly with basic salary while non-regular allowances are paid as at when due. “For instance,  furniture allowance (N6,079,200:00) and severance gratuity (N6,079,200:00) are paid once in every tenure, and vehicle allowance (N8,105,600:00) which is optional, is a loan which the beneficiary has to pay before leaving office.”

    I urge Nigerians to pay necessary attention to these huge sums of money at a time hunger has driven millions of Nigerian youths to the street in what they called the Days of Rage.  Yet as you read this, our senators are yet to indicate that they would give up anything to cushion the effects of the poor economy to mirror the House of Representative members who, cleverly, slashed 25 per cent of their salaries for six months rather than give off even 10 per cent of their humongous allowances as sacrifice.

    While a layman, with no relationship, at all, to the Revenue Mobilisation Commission can be forgiven for making the incredulous statement by the Chairman, it is absolutely beyond rationality for the him to try to sell that  statement to Nigerians except, of course, he has  been away from this country in the last decade and a half because, sometime within the period,  National Assembly members awarded  to themselves, allowances that were far and above those ever recommended by the commission.I cannot understand the Commission Chairman now playing dumb to that fact, as he did in his statement.

    We shall,however, come to that anon.

    But he was not yet done as he  went on:”the RMAFC does not possess the constitutional authority to enforce compliance with the  remuneration package for lawmakers.” That statement will be strange to Nigerians.

    But then what other agency of government does?

    Further expatiating, he said:“The commission also wishes to use this opportunity to state that any allegation regarding other allowance(s) being enjoyed by any political, public office holder outside those provided in the Remuneration (Amendment) Act, 2008 should be explained by the person who made the allegation”.

    Really?

    Why not by those enjoying them? I urge the reader to chalk that up to government agencies’ infernal fear of the National Assembly with its powers over budget approval.

    He then capped it all up, hectoring: “To avoid misinformation and misrepresentation of facts capable of misleading citizens and members of the international community, the commission considers it most appropriate and necessary to request Nigerians and any other interested party to avail themselves of the opportunity to access the actual details of the present remuneration package for political, public and judicial office holders in Nigeria published on its website: bla bla bla.”

    My reaction to that is this:

    If the allowances on the website bear any semblance to the actual allowances currently being earned by National Assembly members , it would only mean that RMAFC, behind our backs,  was browbeaten into subsequently approving allowances which it  knew nothing about; nor granted in the first instance which will be quite a shame. And if that turns out the case, it would mean that while government refrain in this harshest of times has been that ordinary Nigerians should further tighten their belt and make additional sacrifices, even where that might mean a family having no more than one meal a day, all that concerns Almighty RMAFC is more enjoyment for National Assembly members; a people who, as Olatunji Ololade recently put it, already “enjoy obscene privileges and spoils from the commonwealth.”  This, indeed, is the reason our elections have become a do or die affair.

    Now to the ‘koko’ of the matter in pidgin – speak.

    The RMAFC Chairman had deliberatel about it. the claim by a Senator, Abdurrahman Kawu Samaila(NNPP, Kano South) that he collects N21M monthly besides his salary of  nearly N1000 per month even as that confession was actually an additional evidence to what  Senator Shehu Sani had, long ago, told Nigerians about him earning N13.5M monthly which means that our ‘Ogas at the top’ have since increased their lolly by a princely N6.5M per month, an amount enough to pay the salaries of  nearly 100 workers @ N70,000 per month.

    So just in case RMAFC truly doesn’t know how those mountainous allowances came about, let me help them.

    I’II do that by quoting the relevant portion, only, of my article of 12 June, 2011 on these pages, titled:  ‘It Is Time We Storm This Bastille’.

    It reads as follows:

    “When, during  the past week, the EFCC finally caught up with Hon.Dimeji Bankole, the erstwhile Speaker of the  House of Representatives,  Nigerians came to know that under his leadership, the House of Representatives has been borrowing, illegally, for un-appropriated purposes. It was with an eye on such funds, we learnt, 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’.

    They also agreed payment of outstanding allowances, dating back to 1999 – 2007, all from these un-authorised funds .To  meet these unilaterally approved emoluments, since the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, KNEW NOTHING about them, the House leadership  resorted to borrowing. First it took a N2.5billion loan from  the  National Assembly, then another NI.5 billion from the Senate  Committee on Appropriation, followed by N6 billion from  diverse sources; all by a body fully aware that it is illegal to spend unappropriated funds,  and despite protests from the office of the Clerk of the National Assembly. This is grand impunity, if ever there was one.

    The  Clerk’s negative reaction caught no ice with the House leadership which  further sourced the N6 billion loan, all of which they DECREED should be  included in the 2011 budget, as if Nigeria is a banana Republic. 

    Meanwhile, they continue to bandy about RUNNING COST. Where exactly are they running to and where has this led Nigeria in 25 years, that is, since 1999?

    If it is truly running cost, do these legislators retire the amounts advanced to them to know how it was spent?

    Enough is enough.

    Let me conclude this article by telling members of the National Assembly a thing or two about Sweden.

    Sweden, a Scandinavian country with a population of 10,673,669, is one of the wealthiest, most socially just, and least corrupt nations on earth.

    Swedish Ministers and MPs do not have official cars – not to talk of buying cars costing N150M for each of its members – nor do they have private drivers. Instead, they travel in  buses and trains, just like the citizens they represent”.

    Any lessons?

  • In celebration of late Professor Femi Olaofe

    In celebration of late Professor Femi Olaofe

    Come Friday 16 August, 2024 the mortal remains of my cousin, the late Professor Olo’unfemi Olaofe, will be committed to mother earth after a funeral service at the St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Are – Ekiti, in a community where we were both born in the mid- 40’s but which, since Tuesday, 9 July, 2024 when he was kidnapped from his house in GRA, Ado – Ekiti, has become the indisputable capital of melancholy.

    Are-Ekiti, our serene and peaceful town in the Irepodun – Ifelodun Local Government Area of the state, is a community where you would, with considerable justification, make the biblical claim of everybody being his/her  brother’s keeper, and where, in my seven decades on terra firma, I have not witnessed a single communal strife.

    This is the town whose peace has since been so shattered it can no longer sleep, with the entire population hunkered down in vigils and 24/7 prayers, pleading that the Almighty God will hear our prayers and bring Femi safely back to a town he so deeply loved and gave his all. I cannot remember one single event that has so united us, even though, unfortunately, in an utter gloomy circumstances.

    It just couldn’t have been different because Femi was so uniquely unique in the town. No, not because he was a professor as Are- Ekiti can boast of dozens of  them, but because Femi simply did not deserve the manner in which he joined the Saints Triumphant. But not even that,  painful and depressing as it is, will stop us from celebrating one so dear, ever so worthy; indeed, an exemplar.

    Femi was home on that fateful day when those sons of perdition, since arrested, walked in apparently armed, seized and whisked him away in his own car which the police, which immediately began a search, would later find on the outskirts of Ado – Ekiti, the state capital.

    Read Also: Olaofe for burial today

    The long search thus began but, unfortunately, proved futile.

    In the course of the search, I made contacts with the Director – General of Ekiti state Homeland Security Agency who told me that everything was being done by the police and the state’s security apparati, to track down the kidnappers and rescue Femi, hinting however, that our rather loud approach, with a delegation of Are’s elite visiting some important state officials we believed could facilitate his rescue, wasn’t exactly the correct approach to a matter that should have been conducted in complete stealth, with only the security people involved.

    It was, in this manner, he told me, that they were able to rescue some Ekiti women who were kidnapped in Kwara state earlier in the year.

    I, however, told him  we have never had such an experience and were very eager to have him rescued from the claws of the vermins. It was in our belief that the visits would fast track his  rescue that they did all that. It is my prayer that we will never have cause to use the DG’s golden advice.

    I know exactly what I was doing when I doubly used the word ‘unique’ in describing Femi. An epitome of gentility, our departed compatriot would not hurt a fly. A man of strong principles and quiet mien, Femi was always an asset to whatever group he belonged.

    An absolutely brilliant scholar – the Olaofe’s are reputedly brilliant – with two other professors of Mathematics and Medicine – Femi was  self – effacing; no airs whatever. I never one day saw him get angry or lose his cool. We were close enough for me to know that.

    Apart from being in  Christ’s School, Ado – Ekiti, at about the same time, we were close, being cousins, any way, that on a visit to London during his graduate studies, my wife, and I, visited him and his adorable wife, Kike, also now of blessed memory, in Bath(UK), some distance from London.

    Femi was the go to person on many issues in our natal town but none would rival his commitment to our Church, St Andrew’s Anglican Church. A man of deep faith, Femi was an ever ready assistance to the church and as close as I am to our Vicar, news of many church programmes got to me first through him.

    Immediately I heard of his passing, I  telephoned HRH, Oba Jacob Boluwade Adebiyi, JP, The Alare of Are – Ekiti, to commiserate with him, personally, and through him, convey my condolences to the entire Are- Ekiti community, after which I reached out to Kunle, Femi’s son, to express my deepest sympathies to him and his siblings.

    If Femi was great at home, he was no less at his forte, the academic community, where he shone like a thousand stars.

    Celebrating Femi, Venerable Adeyinka O. Fasakin wrote inter alia:”With a PhD in Chemical Engineering and decades teaching Chemistry, and Applied Chemistry at the Ekiti state University, Ado – Ekiti, where he was once the Deputy Vice- Chancellor,  Prof Olorunfemi Olaofe left an indelible mark on the academic community and the lives of countless students. As a seasoned educator, he nurtured generations of chemists, inspiring and mentoring numerous PhD students who will now carry on his legacy. His expertise, and passion, for multidisciplinary approaches would have been invaluable to Nigeria as it strives to produce versatile chemists capable of driving innovation in manufacturing”.

    Although we lost Femi in very tragic circumstances, there will be joy in  heaven, where his soul lies in eternal peace at the bossom of his Lord and Master, our Lord Jesus Christ.

    Yes, Apostle Paul says we are not saved by works, but by “grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone”, but

    beyond a shadow of doubt, Femi was a faithful servant of God, who exemplified Christian values and compassion. His dedication to his faith in Jesus was incomparable, and evident throughout his entire life.

    With the assurance that he is now singing the Halleluyah chorus together with the Celestial Choir, it is now left for me to condole with all those he left behind: our highly traumatised Are -Ekiti community, young and old, his bereaved academic community to which he gave his all, the incomparably disconsolate Olaofe family of Are -Ekiti whose shining star he was, Ekiti state, mourning one of its great academic achievers and, of course, his amazing, over- achieving children, Tope, Femi

    Ronke and Kunle

    who must, forever, feel mighty proud of the prodigy who sired them, knowing full well that Femi and Kike – their loving parents – are together again, at the feet of Jesus.

    ADIEU Femi.

    Till we meet to part no more.

  • A protester’s right ends where that of a non protester begins

    A protester’s right ends where that of a non protester begins

    Article 20 of the UDHR, Article 21 and 22 of the ICCPR, but more specifically, S.40 of the Nigerian 1999 constitution  states that:”every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interests.

    The right contains the freedom to assemble and associate freely with others, but it further states that the assembly must be peaceful because “public order supersedes the circumference of this right.”

    That concluding proviso is what many contemporary Nigerian activists forget when claiming, vociferously, their right to freedom of assembly.

    In his days, Chief Gani Fawehinmi of blessed memory, a man of 

    daring courage, and resourcefulness, would never have been found leading obidiots’ and election losers’- inspired protests, the types now holding Nigeria  by the jugular, led by some nameless unknowns,: and whose objectives include regime change. They are keen on  weaponising our current economic challenges to cause utter confusion as well as inflict wanton destruction of both infrastructure and public institutions as we saw during their 2020 #EndSars# madness when, from some 3000 miles away in the UK, Nnamdi Kanu was  telling his foot soldiers via radio, where and what places to burn down as a result of which Lagos state lost almost N2T in properties burnt.

    In those days,  alongside Chief Fawehinmi you were sure to find democracy titans like the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Dr Beko Ransome Kuti, Femi Falana, SAN, Olisa Agbakoba, SAN and Ayo Akele to mention a few; not today’s ragtag unknowns, flexing muscles behind the curtain.

    All you now know about these so- called protest planners is limited to what the  lawyers claiming to represent them volunteer, whilst inexplainably,  standing in the gap for, not only the dark planners, but also  the thousands of protesters, most of who are driven by politics, and ethnic considerations. 

    As authorities in Law, I need not remind these eminent lawyers of Section  45(1) which states that “nothing in sections 37, 38, 39, 40

    and 41 of the Nigerian Constitution shall invalidate any law that is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society. Indeed, 45(a), specifically provides for the protection of the rights, as well as, the freedom of other persons.

    The protesters they claim to represent, are  persons who may be armed with just about  anything; from hydrogen bombs to molotov cocktails, not to talk of guns which have become three for a penny in Nigeria. Indeed, the recent seizures by the Nigerian customs of assorted weapons, shipped into the country from overseas, may not be unconnected with this “take their country back” protest, which is allegedly being heavily funded from abroad by ethnic supporters of election losers. It is also not unusual for these protesters, many of who are under the influence of drugs, to take over township roads and work places, destroying things as they go.

    It is apposite to mention that this past month, five climate activists from the

     “Just Stop Oil protest” group were each jailed for at least four years in the UK over a conspiracy to block London’s M25 motorway. That is in the UK these protesters are ever so eager to reference with regards to observance of human rights.

    Read Also: 95% of Borno protesters underage – Zulum

    While there is no doubt, whatever, that the Nigerian circumstances today is axyphisiating, many of the problems a carryover from the Buhari administration and, of course, some ill- digested policies of the Tinubu government, most of the  protesters’ demands, where not funny, are plain unreasonable, being political in nature, and issues the President cannot executively effect without  reference to the legislature.

    Hereunder are the demands, including, naturally,  the release of Nnamdi Kanu which is, of course, already being, more commonsensically, approached by Southeast leaders:

    Revert petrol pump price to N100/litre in spite of the landing cost of imported fuel;

    Combat insecurity and hunger, as if nothing is being done;

    Close all IDP camps and resettle the campers, even if their towns are still unsafe;

    Total electoral reform

    Independent probe into the electoral budget of N355 billion, even without prior allegations of mismanagement or corruption;

    Immediate release of ENDSARS protesters still in detention, even if government has already denied the existence of any;

    Implementation of living wage (minimum wage of N300k), being, obviously the funniest of their demands;

    Compulsory free education from primary to secondary school, even if presently unbudgeted for;

    Children of public office holders must attend public schools in the country. Those outside must, on their say so, be rapidly brought back to the country;

    10.Government must patronise made-in-Nigeria goods. Also

    Transition to unicameral legislature, as well as.

    Judicial and constitutional review.

    Apart from the Federal government initiating many paliative measures and programmes, some of which officials in charge, unfortunately, do everything to frustrate, President Tinubu has copiously shown himself a listening President.

    It is pertinent to mention that in their reaction to the protest, some state governments, rather than resort to strongarm tactics, have reasonably, approached the courts to ensure that they do  not suffer the horrendous loss Lagos state experienced during the #EndSars# protest.

    With regards to the protest slated for 1-10 August, a damn long period as if Nigeria has no other business, Niger – Delta leader, Mujahid Asari Dokubo, a first class protester himself, has come up with some words of advice with which I shall like to conclude this piece.

    I quote him, non – verbatim below, at some length, to perfectly situate the mutuality of the freedoms of both the protesters and non- protesters.

    Addressing a mammoth crowd of his supporters this past week, Asari Dokubo said words to the following effect:

    I thank all of you. I will go straight to the point. I and all of you who believe in me, and are committed to Niger Delta, will have nothing to do with this protest.

    If anybody has the right to protest, I also have the right to resist protest. Where your right stops is where my own begins. Those who think they have given me money should go and take their own.

    Are Niger – Delta interests reflected in the protesters’  demands?.

    No. We are not important to them. It is our (Niger – Delta) resources they want to share.

    What have they done to impact their society or the environment?

    These are anarchists. When you fail election, go and wait for another election season.

    President Tinubu went through travails, yet won the election.

    Go and wait for your turn.  We are all sitting here in peace. Go to Liberia or Venezuela and ask questions.

    Libya used to be a very peaceful, and prosperous, country. Today, it is hell fire. This is no peaceful protest. Is a protest, aimed at regime change, a peaceful protest?

    Nobody is happy that people are hungy but is this the first time people are hungry?

    Why don’t we all work to ensure that this govt does not fail?

    This govt will not fail…”

    Words of wisdom, indeed, for protesters and those political leaders encouraging them as we saw in Kano state where the governor not only encouraged them, but promised to join them, because he saw it as another phase of his juvenile, proxy contestation with former governor Abdullahi Ganduje.

    He got his comeuppance and has had to subsequently declare a 24 hour emergency in the state.