The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • RHIDF/EET: PBAT ramping-up infrastructure, economic governance

    RHIDF/EET: PBAT ramping-up infrastructure, economic governance

    President Bola Tinubu‘s 44th week as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was an exceptionally loaded one. A lot happened in this last one week than most of the preceding weeks could boast of.

    In just this last week, the President introduced some of the most critical policies and programmes that will in the coming months and years determine the outcomes of governance, as well as the economic survival of not just Nigeria, as a nation, but for most Nigerians who will see the opportunities being created by the State and will take advantage of them in various sectors. For instance, during the week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the President presented an infrastructure development marshal plan called the Renewed Hope Infrastructure Development Fund (RHIDF), targeting to bridge the nation’s $878 billion infrastructure gap.

    As explained by the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zacch Adedeji, who is also Special Adviser to the President on Revenue, at the post-FEC briefing, and later elaborated in a statement by Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, the RHIDF, which will absorb an earlier vehicle, the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF), will invest in critical national projects that will, among other things, promote growth, enhance local value-addition, create employment opportunities, and stimulate technological innovation and exports.

    The RHIDF, according to Adedeji, will be launched after the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning has presented a Supplementary Appropriation Bill that will take care of the projects to the National Assembly. He said it will include establishing an innovative infrastructure investment vehicle to attract and consolidate capital, serving as a dynamic driver for economic advancement; executing strategic and meticulously chosen national infrastructure projects across several key sectors, including road, rail, agriculture (irrigation, storage, logistics & cold chain), ports, and aviation, among others; and utilize and aggregate accessible low-interest loans such as concessionary loans and Eurobonds, supplemented by the procurement of other favourable financing options, in addition to budgetary allocations, efficiently.

    Also, during the last week, President Tinubu, in his bid to make the nation’s economic governance framework more robust and properly aligned, as well as to urgently attend to the real sector growth, especially as the monetary and fiscal policies have been adequately dealt with, created two economic platforms; the Presidential Economic Coordination Council (PECC) and the Economic Management Team Emergency Taskforce (EET). The PECC, which is now the highest body for economic coordination, under his chairmanship, will oversee the outcomes of all economy-related organs of government. The EET, which has a six month mandate to execute its set targets, also has a mandate to formulate and implement a consolidated emergency economic plan.

    Other members of the PECC include the Vice President, who is also the vice chairman of Council; President of the Senate; Chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum; Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance; Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); Ministers of Agriculture and Food Security; Aviation and Aerospace Development; Budget and Economic Planning, Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy; Industry, Trade and Investment; Labour and Employment; Marine and Blue Economy; Power; Petroleum Resources (State); Gas (State); Transportation; and Works.

    It also has thirteen key members of the organized private sector joining for a period not exceeding one year, subject to the President’s directive. The private sector leaders include Alhaji Aliko Dangote,Mr. Tony Elumelu, Alhaji Abdulsamad Rabiu, Ms. Amina Maina, Begun Ajayi-Kadir, Mrs. Funke Okpeke, Dr. Doyin Salami, Mr. Patrick Okigbo, Mr. Kola Adesina, Mr. Segun Agbaje, Mr. Chidi Ajaere, Mr. Abdulkadir Aliu andMr. Rasheed Sarumi.

    For the EET, which is more like an ad-hoc arrangement because it was designed to address immediate economic challenges and expected to achieve targets within six months, the President tasked the team to submit a comprehensive plan of economic interventions for 2024 to the PECC within two weeks of its inauguration. The team, which is made up of selected members of the Economic Management Team (EMT), the private sector, as well as the sub-nationals, has the mandate to formulate and implement a consolidated emergency economic plan. Since the EMT, which traditionally meets once a month or as required, has the core of its membership drafted into the EET, the EMT will suspend its meetings for the six months when the EET will be operational.

    The EET comprises of Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance (Chairman of the EET); Minister of Budget and Economic Planning; Minister of Power; Minister of Agriculture and Food Security; Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare; Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment; Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria; National Security Adviser; Chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum; Governor of Anambra State; Governor of Ogun State; Governor of Niger State; Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service; Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation; GCEO, NNPC Limited; Director-General, Nigeria Economic Summit Group;               Special Adviser to the President on Energy; Dr. Bismarck Rewane, Economist; and Dr. Suleyman Ndanusa, Economist.

    Read Also: Why it’ll be fatal to stop PBAT’s reforms

    Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, while speaking about the establishment of both bodies during post-FEC briefing at the State House on Monday said “I did share with the Federal Executive Council, Mr. President’s approval of a request to set up an Economic Management Team Taskforce to over the next six months implement major measures in that growing the economy, increasing production, thereby creating jobs and reducing poverty and of course, achieving rapid sustained inclusive growth that is the mandate and commitment of Mr. President. So currently, we do have the Economic Management Team and, of course their work feeds into the Federal Executive Council, National Economic Council and even the Presidential Economic Coordination Council, which is the highest body for economic coordination, chaired by Mr. President himself, with the Vice President as his vice chairman of that Council.

    “So below that there is now, instead of just the Economic Management Team, an Economic Management Team Taskforce and for the next six months, that task force, made up of selected members of the Economic Management Team, the private sector, as well as the sub-nationals, representative of the Nigerian Governors Forum, will work assiduously to ensure that having dealt with major issues of monetary and fiscal policy, that the real sector growth is assured; companies are helped through these difficult times with fiscal incentives and other measures to ensure the survival of companies, both the large scale as well as the medium and small scales. That is the real meat of this Economic Management Team (EMT) Taskforce, and they will be starting immediately, reporting regularly to Mr. President on over the next six months, rolling out initiatives aimed at growing economy”, he said.

    Like I indicated at the start of this piece, I wrote about how the week was so loaded with achievements and actions that not many of the previous weeks could rival, the President found time and opportunity to speak his mind on a couple of issues. By now those with open minds know that our President does not just do things, he does them with reasons. He does not go out just for fun, he does so to achieve goals, either immediate or long term. For instance, each time he has to travel, it has to be with the intent to achieve something for Nigeria. So since the Ramadan month commenced, he has had to host a couple of Iftar, which is the fast-breaking dinner for Muslims, and during those Iftars, he has achieved one goal or the other.

    He did it again last week. First it was with the Nigerian Judiciary on Tuesday; justices and judges, both serving and retired, all led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Olukayode Ariwoola. They had their dinner, but he had a message to the Bench, they are the ones charged by the rule of law to be the forthright and fearless arbiters. Their duty is to pass judgments without fear or favour , they are the ones who must be above induced prejudiced. So the matter of criminals who kidnap, especially children, came up and his opinion to people who might have to judge them when they are captured and brought before the law was how they ought to be dealt with.

    “We must treat kidnappers as terrorists. They are cowardly. They have been degraded. They look for soft targets. They go to schools and kidnap children and cause disaffection. We must treat them equally as terrorists in order to get rid of them, and I promise you we will get rid of them”, the President said, even as he hinted them of his view of their welfare matter. Indicating that there will be a change of story about the judicial workers’ welfare, he said “I recognize that the judiciary has one of the most unrewarded responsibilities. They are yet to modernize equipment and recordkeeping, and their progress towards improvement is slow. When you look at the career path of a judicial officer, they cannot practice the vocation for which they were trained after retirement. While the framers of the law may have their reasons, I perceive this differently and see this from a fair compensation angle that should benefit all”.

    Then on Thursday, he had another Iftar, this time it was with traditional rulers and religious leaders from across the country. He said so much, at least he spoke for more than fourteen minutes, but the message that resonated most was the appeal to clerics to pass the right message and be the right examples. To the clerics he said “pray for our country, educate our children, the sermons we preach to the members of our churches and mosques are important. Do not condemn your own nation. This is your country, do not condemn it in sermons, do not abuse the nation. Leadership is meant for changes. Yes, this leader is bad, fine. Wait until the next election to change him, but do not condemn your country. Do not curse Nigeria. This is a beautiful land”.

    Happy Birthday Mr. President

    Then it was the week of his 72nd birthday and the first birthday anniversary he would be celebrating in the Aso Rock Villa. His last birthday was just after he won the mandate to lead the nation, then he was just President-elect. Usually, his birthday anniversary has always been marked by his annual colloquium, countless newspaper and electronic advertorials across the media and the dinners. However, this year, because of the solemn mood of the nation, he called all these off, just to let the nation know he is not oblivious of the state of things. If anyone feels so religious about celebrating him, he directed them to use the resources to cater to the need of the less privileged.

  • Closed minds

    Closed minds

    He mind is a terrible thing to waste.” This timeless statement is the motto of the United Negro College Fund founded in 1945 by the African-American Microbiologist Frederick Douglass Patterson. As noted by Marian Johnson-Thompson in an article in a 23 February, 2023 publication of the American Society for Microbiology, it “remains an indelible phrase in the fabric of our nation to encourage and support those who lack educational and training resources.” It is not only the minds of those who lack those opportunities that are a waste. Equally wasted are closed minds.

    But, what does it mean to be closed-minded? According to Cambridge Dictionary, to be closed-minded is “not willing to consider ideas and opinions that are new or different to your own.” In other words, a closed-mind has fossilised ideas marked by an inability or refusal to think deep. As the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English puts it, “if people, ideas, systems, etc., fossilise or are fossilised, they never change or develop, even when there are good reasons why they should change.”

    Closed-mindedness is linked to incredulity which Oxford Languages defines as “the state of being unwilling or unable to believe something.” This definition implies that closed-mindedness can be willful. Many times, such closed-minded incredulity is presented as being ‘principled’. So, those who lapse into such insidious incredulity also suffer the delusion of thinking that what ails them is an unwillingness to compromise their ‘principles’. In human societies, closed-mindedness is ubiquitous and has continued to harm both the closed-minded as well as their targeted victims.

    So, it is pertinent to ask here, “Does education open a closed mind?” Unfortunately, the answer is, “Not necessarily.” In fact, ironically, some of the most despicable closed minds or bigots are people who have been highly-educated. This makes it pertinent to distinguished between ‘being highly-educated’, or ‘being learned’, from ‘being well-educated’ or ‘being properly-educated’. A pigheaded, highly-educated person would not rise above the level of a magisterial ignoramus. Examples can be found in television and newspaper analysts and they exist even in academic settings. This is the case because education is essentially socialisation. So, if a person has had extensive exposure to toxic socialisation in school, their string of academic certificates can only be a magisterial testament to mental incapacitation.

    This fact is recognised by the Yoruba saying, “Ìwé yàtọ̀ s’ọ́gbọ́n.” (‘Learning is different from wisdom.’)  This means that it is possible to have ‘an unwise knowledgeable person’, and they are often narrow-minded, fossilised in thinking, incapable of admitting new facts, asinine in outlook, operating in a bubble, incapable of accurate self-perception, arrogant in perspective, suffused with negativity, and above all prone to unhappiness.  A closed mind is therefore characteristically a sick mind.

    In world history, one of such closed-minds is Paul Joseph Goebbels, a PhD holder in Philology – the study of languages and literary texts – who was Adolf Hitler’s chief propagandist and who was remarkably skilled in public speaking. He was reported to have deployed his oratorical skills in propagating virulent and genocidal propaganda. History records it that in the end, he committed suicide through cyanide poison. 

    The title of Joseph Goebbels’s propaganda newspaper was, in English translation, “Attack”. Can you find a comparable propaganda media outfit in Nigeria today, which has a name syllabically similar to “Attack”, and semantically consonant with inciting insurrection? In Nigeria’s highly adversarial political climate, you can often find pitiable presumptuous political analysts with closed-minded views flowing like lava from their mouths.

    A closed mind can be self-propagating, but some of such minds are reversible, especially if the closed-mindedness is willful. However, some appear to be irreversible, seemingly because it may be said that the key with which they can be unlocked has been long lost. So, it is difficult for them to admit, acknowledge or accommodate any new or alternative facts, views, opinions or perspectives. It is easier to reverse or open a closed mind, if the closed-mindedness is not coupled with arrogance. In this regard, those who created the terms ‘intellectual humility’ and ‘intellectual honesty’ deserve commendation for their perceptiveness and foresight.

    Even in international fora like United Nations, elements of closed-mindedness is discernible, especially with respect to the veto – the power by any one or combination of two or more out of five member countries to override the decision of the around 200 remaining countries. This power to veto has been condemned by some of the leaders of the non-veto-wielding countries and they have called for scrapping it. For example, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, as Prime Minister of Malaysia stridently campaigned against the veto power.

    For example, he said as follows the 74th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on 28 September, 2019: “Almost three quarters of a century ago five countries claimed victory in the Second World War. On the basis of that victory they insisted on the right practically to rule the world. And so, they gave themselves veto powers over the rest of the world in the organisation they built – an organisation they claim would end wars in the solution of conflicts. The veto power – they must know – was against all the principles of human rights which they themselves claim to be the champions [of]. It killed the very purpose of the great organisation that they had created. It ensured that all solutions to all conflicts could be negated by any one of them. Broken up into ideological factions they frustrated all attempts at solving problems. Each one of them can negate the wishes of the nearly 200 other members. It is totally and absolutely undemocratic. Yet, there are among them those who berate other countries of the world for not being democratic or being not democratic enough.”

    What Dr. Mahathir Mohamad was accusing the 5 veto-carrying countries of is what psychologists call ‘cognitive dissonance’, and which Oxford Languages defines as “the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioural decisions and attitude change”. The appeal to good conscience as Dr. Mohamad did in his UNGA speech is also akin to what in Yoruba Language is encapsulated in the proverb, “Ẹni tó bá sùn laa jí; ẹnìkan kìí jí apirọrọ. ” (‘It’s only a person who is really sleeping that you wake up; nobody wakes up a person playing possum [i.e., pretending to be sleeping.]’) 

    The closed mind phenomenon also manifested in the Arab Spring which started in 2011. The agitators believed that it was only in dislodging their incumbent leaders at that time that their liberation and advancement lay. Now that some of the agitators have achieved their aim, stories abound of widespread disillusionment. In the specific case of Libya, the killing of Muamar Ghaddafi has ended up turning the erstwhile stable and prosperous country into a basket case of sorts. Similar closed minds who could not reconcile themselves to the fact that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu defeated their candidate, went to the Defence Headquarters to invite the army to take-over the government in order to stop the then-President-Elect from assuming office. Some of such closed minds also seem to be perpetually crouching in wait for bad news about Nigeria. It excites them whenever anything they perceive as negative happens to the country. Whenever anything positive happens to the nation, such perverse minds try to minimise or give it a negative twist.

    Closed-mindedness and its related phenomenon, group think – uncritically jumping on the bandwagon of the opinions of some vocal elements in society – can also be identified in the ongoing efforts to review the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). One of the refrains by a category of commentators and analysts is “Elections should be won at the polling booth and not in the court.” This seems to be an attempt at a mental shortcut. The analysts, ostensibly pursuing partisan goals, claim that when the court has determined that there is fraud in an election, the court should only order a rerun. It is not certain whether those who hold this view have sufficiently exercised their intellect. When the court has determined that a particular candidate had the majority votes in an election, how just and democratic would it be to direct that the election be rerun? Would that not constitute double jeopardy for the person who was cheated in the first place to ask them to face their electoral tormentors afresh?

    Read Also: Religious mindset won’t advance your life – Woli Arole slams Christians

    Is the constitution review an effort to ensure that future elections in the country are freer, fairer and less litigious?  Or is it that some vocal or influential people think that the person they didn’t like won in the 2023 elections, because certain provisions were not in the constitution then? Are they trying to be like the dog in the Yoruba proverb which went to hide the knife after it had been used to cut its ears? Are they being wise after the act, as an English idiom would put it? Are they trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted?

    Interestingly, it is not only in race, politics and religion that closed-mindedness manifests. It manifests even in science. Pharmaceutical research is one area in which it is found in the form of sexism – the inequitable treatment of the sexes. In fact a 14 July, 2016 feature article by Sharon Florentine in CIO.com is wittily titled “Rats! Sexism is really everywhere.” The article deals with the preference for male rats in the efforts to develop new medicines, using the excuse that hormonal fluctuations could make research using female rats unreliable. Researchers have debunked this claim. According to Rebecca Shansky, as reported by Hannah Devlin, the Science correspondent of the Guardian (of London) on 31 May, 2019, “People like to think that they are being objective and uninfluenced by stereotypes but there are some unconscious biases that have been applied to how we think about using female animals as research subjects that should be looked into by scientists.”

    Hannah Devlin further reports that one of the consequences of using male mice and thereby focusing on male humans is that “across all drugs, women tended to suffer more adverse side effects and overdoses.” Another element of closed-mindedness is that it was also reported that some of the younger researchers were reluctant to accept the use of more female rats in their research, because, while in training, they were taught using largely male ones.

    As intractable as close-mindedness may seem to be, special mind-liberating training and retraining can yield positive results. Specifying that being sufficiently broad and equitable in scientific methodology is a requirement for grant eligibility has also been found to be very effective in accommodating change. Above all, taking personal responsibility, reviewing one’s own ideas and attitudes regularly and effecting necessary change in outlook would always be of immense value in tackling closed-mindedness.    

  • How the North made peace kiss Nigeria goodbye

    How the North made peace kiss Nigeria goodbye

    Northern Nigeria is not developing its human capital. It also does not have the time to do so anymore. Therefore, it is now ill-equipped to fit into either the knowledge-driven world of today or the new world of tomorrow. It needs at least 20 years to become significant in any way. But, rather than wake up to this benumbing fact, there is the pursuit of the illusion of dominance. Meanwhile the people of the region lack the skills for tomorrow, as majority of its youth lack everything that could make them part of a 21st century world. I think we are not doing ourselves much good by the way we are living, and by refusing to educate our children. We rather produce and send them to the streets to beg for what they will eat, neglecting their character and learning.” – the highly regarded elder statesman, Ahmed Joda in: ‘Attitudes North Must Change to Develop’ -There’s no way reverred Ahmed Joda could have attributed the spate of insecurity in the North to unemployment, as former President Olusegun Obasanjo recently did, because he knew what  proportion of Northern youths is actually employable.

    What is happening in the North today was foretold. Rather than act, successive governments, state and federal( North – dominated) preferred to treat crimes with levity with no criminal ever  made to have his day in court as long as he was a Northerner. Now the chick’s have come home to roost.

    This piece, substantially an old article, details the beginnings of banditry and other crimes which went unpunished in the North. It is aimed at correcting those lapses in the hope that sanity can still be restored, lest the North self – destructs.

    But more importantly, it should inform Northern leaders, now pointing an accusing finger at PBAT, that the remaining four point directly at them. It is a story of how ‘absence of government’ and preferential treatment of Northerner offenders by federal security agencies, especially the police, enabled killing and kidnappings on industrial scale, to boom and blossom.

    In addition to their menace, some  Northern politicians were alleged to have, in 2015, brought into the  country some foreign Fulanis who exponentially increased insecurity in Nigeria.  The article, captioned as above, and published 20 December, 2020,  reads as follows, with slight additions, here and there:

    “There were a few people who foresaw what we are going through today in Nigeria with regards to insecurity, especially in Northern Nigeria where, in the last three weeks, 300 persons, mostly school children, were kidnapped.

    One such person was Chief Obafemi Awolowo who severally warned that by denying western education to a large proportion of their people, the North was sowing the wind, and was certain to reap the whirlwind. But prescient as he always was, not even Awo could have foreseen the present level of horrendous  insecurity. Below is Professor Adebayo Williams on Awo’s capacity for such clairvoyance. He wrote  in ‘The Titan and The Titanic: Awolowo in and through History’: “This is a man we thought we bade a final goodbye 17 years ago. If it is so, it must be the longest goodbye in history. For at every tragic turn, at every miscue, be it at the level of the structural deformities of this unfortunate nation, its suffocating and stifling unitarism, its economic malaise, its educational  collapse, its spiritual bankruptcy, its corrupt and  thieving political class(budgeting N193M as cost of a single borehole in 2024), and its gradual descent into the anomie of ungovernability, we are confronted by the figure of the man with the  horn-rimmed glasses. And until we come to terms with many of his ideas, either by transcending them through superior political engineering or working through them through a more rigorous intellectual engagement, the piercing eyes behind the lens will continue to haunt us, reminding us of our inadequacies as intellectuals, as philosophers, as politicians and as a nation”.

    But Awo was not alone in drawing the attention of Northern leaders to the ugly grass that was growing under their feet. Another person who was  uniquely positioned to do so, being a Northerner, was Dr Abubakar Siddique Mohammed, the Director, Centre for Democratic Development Research and Training, Sango Shanu, Zaria who, together with his team, did such stupendous research work on the subject of insecurity in the North that were successive Northern governments alive to their responsibilities, insecurity there would most probably have become history by now.

    Let me quote, at some length, from a thoroughly illuminating  interview Dr Mohammed granted in 2019 on what has since become ‘the Nigerian nightmare’, accounting for a total of  no less than 17,469 Nigerians, according to the Civil Society Joint Action Group, kidnapped between 2019 , and now.

     Four years ago,  you warned that unless urgent steps were taken to stop the crisis in Zamfara, the whole country could be consumed. With what is happening now, it seems you were prophetic. We are 20 years into democracy and Nigerians are wondering why insecurity has become such a big issue.

    Four years ago when we first did our studies, it was farmer/herders conflict. What I am going to talk to you about is what is happening today in the North-West, Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara, which is the epicentre of insecurity in the North. This conflict has been on for more than four years. It started as farmers/herders conflict but it degenerated into something else. Some years ago, there were armed robberies in the North-West. In the Zamfara area, some Fulani boys were alleged to be the major culprits.

    In the areas we studied, there were so many ungoverned spaces: No electricity, telecommunication and local governments existed only in name. You could hardly see anybody when you go there. Over a long period of time, traditional leaders and Islamic teachers were the ones dealing with the crisis. There was no presence of the state. (Yet, every month, Northern states harvested billions of Naira from the Federation account in the name of Land Mass). The roads were extremely bad and the people left to their fate. So when the armed robberies persisted, people took it upon themselves to bring about law and order, they formed vigilante groups.The vigilante groups were quite often not trained. So they went beyond their limits whenever they went on operations. In the Dansadau area of Zamfara, they identified some boys, who also happened to be of Fulani stock. They attacked some of them and killed them. They were very brutal. They wanted to stamp out armed robbery in the area. They were the police, the prosecutor and judge. They did not stop in the towns and semi-urban centres. They pursued the Fulani deep into the forest and, in the process, killed so many innocent people. This was the immediate cause of the conflict.

     Ethnic coloration

    Those who organised the killings happened to be Hausa and those who were killed were the Fulani.  When the attacks on the Fulani became generalised, some of them withdrew, went and re-organised and came back to those localities where they were attacked, identified those who organised the attacks and sought revenge. Those whose kids were of fighting age were forced to donate their kids or provide money.

    In all the areas we visited, there were no banks. People kept money at home. These bandits will break into a man’s house and insist that he gives them all his money. In some cases, they will rape his wife and daughters in his presence. It was a terrible situation. 

     What was government’s reaction to the worsening security situation?

    M. The government in Zamfara was not serious about the challenge, ab initio. From fighting rural banditry by the vigilantes to the retaliation by the Fulani, the challenge morphed into generalised rural banditry. At this stage, the farmers and pastoralists became victims of a superior force. The pastoralists lost their herds because some other forces had come in and subjugated both the pastoralists and farmers.

    A third force then emerged which dispossessed the pastoralists of their cows, dispossessed the farmers of their savings which they kept at home, and drove them away from their lands.

    In the areas we studied, virtually all the cattle had been rustled by bandits. From rustling the cattle, they moved to kidnapping. When the crisis degenerated between the bandits and the vigilante groups, it escalated. In one town in Zamfara, the vigilante group there was meeting to discuss how they could deal with the rural banditry. The bandits heard about the meeting, they attacked the town on a market day and killed about 200 people. When we got to the town shortly after, it was like a ghost town. There were no human beings in sight. When these youths lost their cattle, they had nothing to do anymore. But, surprisingly, they started seeing some of their rustled cows with some of the rich people around the area and that is what triggered the kidnappings. They could not get to some of the rich people because they had their own security guards armed with AK 47 rifles or police protection. So what the criminals did was to also acquire AK 47 rifles as a balance of terror. I have not spoken about land.

    All that time, there was a Zamfara state governor who was, more or less, operating from Abuja. And as at that time, no Emir remembered to send alarm bells to Abuja claiming  that they could no longer control their youths.

     The crisis in Zamfara is multi-dimensional.

    Some years back, the Zamfara government, under Sani Yerima, decided to drive the Fulani out of their ancestral land to pave the way for big farmers. These were people who had lived there for over five hundred years. Overnight, they were pushed out and their land given out to the rich,  with many of the Fulanis having to relocate to other parts of Nigeria or other parts of Zamfara which, in turn, heightened conflict with farmers.

    Read Also: Obasanjo to Nigerians: Don’t lose faith in the country

    The Fulani were dispossessed, first of land, and later of their cattle. Violence was used in both instances. Many of the boys operating around the Abuja-Kaduna highway are from Zamfara.

     Q. What was government reaction to your study which was made public four years ago?

    M.We made it known four years ago that this thing will get out of control. We recommended that concerted efforts should be made to stop the crisis.

    You cannot solve the problems in Kaduna, Katsina and Sokoto without dealing with the situation in Zamfara. (Only last week, the school pupils kidnapped in Kaduna state were ‘warehoused’ in Zamfara and the state governor, Dauda Lawal, has not stopped shouting about his helplessness with no Northern leader offering a helping hand. They would rather blame Tinubu.)

     Q.How can the situation in Zamfara be tackled?

    M. The Zamfara situation has gotten out of control. The security architecture we have in the country cannot deal with the crisis. It is going to be with us for some time to come. Take for instance the police. Let us say we have 370,000 policemen. How can they effectively cover the 774 local government areas and tackle the different security challenges in the country? We are certainly under-policed. The police cannot deal with the situation. They can only do their best but they cannot deal with the situation.

    Everywhere you go in the country, there is one form of crisis or the other; so the police are overstretched. Same goes for the army. They have also been overstretched. We need to expand the armed forces and the police”.

    The above tells the story of how the North socialised insecurity in Nigeria and turned the  country into a no man’s land where killers roam, anyhow, raping, kidnapping and killing at will.

    As a result Nigeria is now ccomparable only to the likes of Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia and Libya where there is no discernible head of state.

    Being in your house, or on your rice farm, in school or on the Abuja – Kaduna, anywhere in Birnin-Gwari,  or on the Lagos – Ibadan expressway, no longer guarantees your safety, even your life.

    As things stand in our country today, it is everybody for himself and God for us all.

    It is hoped that everybody or agency  concerned with security in Nigeria – the Feds in particular – will have some take aways from the article and go on to do the needful, such as  creating state police and substantially increasing the number of our armed forces personnel, far beyond what we presently have.

  • Rain (III)

    Rain (III)

    The middle years of the seventies of the last century were pivotal, for good or to be honest, mostly for ill, in deciding the present situation in Nigeria. And this hinges on the so called oil boom which drastically changed all societal features within the country. From the genteel poverty of the sixties to the frenzy of the seventies, our default settings were changed so profoundly that we began to operate on a much shorter and destructive wavelength than we imagined we could ever be at the time the civil war broke out in 1967.

    There is no doubt that the war caused a great deal of  change to Nigeria but even after that monumental upheaval, the country was, by and large still recognisable from what it was before the sounds of artillery began to disturb our peace. In the immediate aftermath of that war, the country can be said to have been busy trying to manage the peace which had brought that bloody but weary episode to a close or at least that is what we thought at that time. All signs pointed to the fact that sooner than later, we were going to try and bring life back to what it was before the war. The situation changed and changed profoundly as soon as we were called upon to manage the influx of petrodollars which started after the Yom Kippur war in October 1973. Within a period of only one year, our trajectory had changed forever and a new country had emerged.

    As long as there was a war on there was no opposition to the military government of the day so that all attention could be paid to winning the war and complete its self-appointed task of keeping Nigeria one and setting up the programme for winning the peace.

    The situation changed shortly after the war as all politicians, old and young began to manoeuvre themselves into positions to take over from the soldiers. The most visible civilian member of the military government and indeed the de facto deputy head of government Chief Obafemi Awolowo who had looked after the financial affairs of the country all throughout the period of the war was the first to step out of the military orbit as soon as the immediate post-war period had been successfully negotiated. According to him, it would be doing great violence to his democratic credentials if he continued to be part of an unelected government once the emergency conditions associated with the war had been removed. This was the signal for all the politicians, most of them without a single democratic bone in their body  to start to agitate for a return to civilian rule or, to put it another way, a return of the military to their barracks.

    After more than five years in the seat of power, the military were (understandably?) reluctant to even entertain any thought of reducing themselves to playing war games or whatever they usually amused themselves with in their barracks. Instead, they began to make noises which suggested that they were in no hurry to vacate the political stage. Indeed, the head of state stated quite categorically in his independence day broadcast in 1974 that it was no longer realistic for the military to hand over to a civilian government by 1976. This was in spite of promises that had been made in 1970, all of four years before that military rule was going to be brought to an end by that time. This meant the military government had given itself six years to wrap up whatever was necessary to be done to prepare a viable transition programme. With only two years to go however, the military admitted brazenly that their transition programme was faulty, was no longer viable and therefore needed to be scrapped. Not only that, no new date was submitted for consideration so that it appeared that the country had to prepare itself for an indefinite period of military rule. Looking back to that period, it is perhaps not a coincidence that the promised return to civilian rule was unilaterally taken off the table at a time when American dollars were flowing into the country at an unprecedented rate. With the benefit of hind sight we can say that as soon as the promise to hand over power to an elected government was retracted whatever bonds that existed between the military rulers and the ruled had been severed and looked irreparably broken from whichever way you looked at the situation. There was therefore an obvious need for some sort of reconciliation and looking back, there is a suggestion of a pro quid quo from a government which was coincidentally sitting on a mountain of dollars and the civilian population which wanted them gone. The government needed support for its determination to hang on to power  and reasoned that it could get this support by putting money, a whole lot of money into as many pockets as possible. What followed was the Udoji Award which put a lot of money into individual pockets and went a long way into winning some sympathy if not love for the government.

    The Udoji Award was the result of the work of the Udoji Commission which was set up  primarily to review the conditions of service of the civil service with a view to creating a public service institution which was both efficient and effective. It was thought that it was only by doing this that a public service capable of administering a modern and progressive economy could be created. It was soon realised that a major, if not the major requirement for any reorganisation of the public service was the monetary compensation which public servants needed to induce them to make the required contribution to societal development. This is why the result of the work of that commission is now remembered mostly for the Udoji Award or bonanza which followed it. Anything else that may have been achieved by Chief Udoji and his team paled into piddling insignificance when placed side by side with the irresistible financial package which came with it. And of course, the award was not and could not be restricted to the public service as everyone in  salaried employment benefitted from the rain of cash which was unleashed by the Udoji Award. Actually, people in the private sector went home with something substantially heavier than their counterparts in the public service. After all, salaries in the private sector were even at that time  significantly larger than what civil servants were being paid. The gulf in salaries between the two sectors has now widened into an unbridgeable chasm but that is not within the scope of this discussion.

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    The Udoji Commission recommended a salary increase across board with new salaries being just about double the old one but it has to be said, the arrears of one year’s salary which were also paid together with the grossly enhanced salaries was the brainchild of a government in bribing mode. The people were too busy spending the loot which had in the manner of manna from heaven just fallen by gravity into their lap to worry about the tenure of the government which had just more or less buried them under the weight of unearned income. The richest thing about this process was that the government could pay out all that money because according to the elated or perhaps, befuddled head of that generous or perhaps more appropriately, profligate government, the problem facing the government was no longer about the availability of money but how to spend it. There was an abundance of cash and there was no point with being stingy especially since the public was amenable to being encouraged like a headless mob to do considerable violence to their own interest. The heirs of the assassinated Julius Caesar had used a similar tactic to sway the fickle Roman plebeians to their side when it was revealed that every Roman had been mentioned in Caesar’s will and stood to receive some money from the great man’s estate. It was sweeter still that the money which changed hands on this occasion came from the now elastic government treasury.

    The point that has to be made about the Nigerian economy then and now is that the vast majority of the actors which operated it, did so outside the formal economy which fell under the jurisdiction of Chief Udoji and other members of his commission. Like an iceberg, most parts of the Nigerian economy is actually lying but not quiescent under water.  Indeed there is a whole lot going on within the more or less invisible informal economy. The market women and men selling all kinds of exotic items in all the markets in the various nooks and corners of this country operate all the mechanisms which govern the massive informal economy were of course not captured by the Udoji report but there was no way that they could be excluded from the government largess. These people waited patiently for their own award, arrears and all by manipulating the prices of every item they sold. Prices of everything immediately went through the roof as it were but this did not deter Nigerians from blowing their winnings in an orgy of spending. They now had money enough for buying whatever caught their fancy; cars, motorcycles, clothes, building materials and of course, frozen chickens from anywhere. The major consideration in making a purchase was no longer if something was needed. It only needed to catch a fancy and it was immediately purchased and flaunted.

    The genteel poverty which we had contrived to navigate for several decades was cast aside like old clothing and we put on expensive new robes which did not cover our nakedness any better than our old clothes but which caressed our pampered bodies as we moved around to our satisfaction.

    Our society was suddenly transformed into one which was characterised by a high level of consumption, one which was however not balanced by any increase in our productive capacity which actually fell drastically. Whatever money was brought into the country in the wake of the oil boom was immediately cancelled out by the cost of imports which were flung in our direction from all parts of the world. There was great rejoicing in the coming of the oil boom which came upon us like a clap of thunder but soon left us shivering in the rain which followed immediately after it. Our rainy season had arrived out of blue cloudless skies.

  • Tinubu: when apology would not do

    Tinubu: when apology would not do

    Ever before Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu became President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, his birthday has almost always been celebrated with fanfare. And when I say fanfare, I mean fanfare.  I have had the privilege of attending many of those occasions. At least since the country’s return to civil rule in 1999. It was an occasion that media houses in Nigeria looked forward to because of the deluge of adverts that the occasion usually attracts. This newspaper in particular has always remained a major beneficiary of such adverts. We usually smiled to the bank days after the March 29 celebrations because the adverts kept coming. Several other newspapers do, even if in varying degrees.

    That was when Asiwaju was ‘Oba lola’ (future king). If newspapers had such a deluge of adverts when the man was not yet president, you can only imagine what would have happened adverts-wise in his first birthday as President. Friends and foes alike would have been falling over themselves to congratulate him. That is Nigeria for you. Success has many parents; only failure is an orphan. It would have been such a harvest of adverts that vendors would have to look for truck-pushers to help them carry their newspapers on Friday, last week, when President Tinubu clocked 72 years.

    But, while many newspapers were finalising details on advert placements for the occasion, the President released the equivalent of a bombshell: no fanfare this time around. No congratulatory adverts. No fanfare, I can understand. Public funds should not be spent to congratulate him. Again, that is fine by me. But what is the President’s problem with people who want to celebrate him, I mean corporate and private individuals? Why stop those ones?

    Just follow the release: “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will turn 72 on Friday, March 29, 2024. The day will be another important milestone in his life as a leader and a statesman.’’ Good talk.

    “During an auspicious occasion as this, it is customary for family members, friends, and associates to celebrate him in different ways.’’ Yes, yes.

    Then the seeming bad news: “As the leader of our country, President Tinubu, in deference to these challenging times, will not host any birthday event and does not want any of his associates and numerous well-wishers across the country to organise any celebratory event on his behalf or in his name”, the statement read. One would think the message was clear enough at this point. But the presidential spokesman went on: “President Tinubu appreciates the honour of being the leader of Africa’s leading nation at this time and he is working very hard to make life better for the generality of our people.

    “According to him, because of the present mood of the nation and the recent killing of the officers and men of our army and police in Delta State and the recent spate of security breaches by criminal elements in different parts of Nigeria, there should be no form of birthday event and placing of birthday goodwill advertorial messages in newspapers. Goodwill messages should not be placed on radio and television stations either” (for effect and so radio and television stations would not want to take the lacuna of their brand of the mass media not specifically mentioned to carry congratulatory messages on the occasion).

    This was a huge blow to several newspapers that had been waiting in the wings to pluck whatever providence made their lot through the birthday adverts. As they say, ‘at all, at all, na im bad’. It was really devastating because of the huge gap it would leave in the revenue of the newspapers. Even if they take speedy ‘recofa’ drug, many of them would not recover for some time to come.

    As a matter of fact, in this newspaper, we counted our loss as a result of this singular decision at some meetings we had on Monday and Tuesday, last week. We went down memory lane and tried to project how much we could have made this year if we were able to rake in so much this time last year when Tinubu’s fate was still hanging in the air; as in when he was not yet in power. Although he had as far back as March 1, 2023 been declared winner of the presidential election quite alright, there were still several court cases that could make his position uncomfortable. Today, he is not just in government, he is also in power.

    So, for us, the hope of raking in the ‘mother of all adverts’, the kind that eyes have not seen and ears have not heard (to paraphrase Bishop David Oyedepo), was dashed with the President’s order or directive banning congratulatory adverts for him on his birthday. Ordinarily, though; 72 years is not a milestone and so might not have attracted a deluge of adverts; but the birthday was his first on the throne. That reminds me of something that is trending at popular pepper soup joints all over the place; that the President should be thinking along the line of having at least an Abioye (a child born during his father’s reign). If that is not already in the works, the President would do well to kick start the process as soon as some of the troubles in the land subside. I mean when election losers must have finally accepted their fate, and birds begin to sing like birds, and rats cry like rats. But that Abioye must be from the source; I mean the official source. I need to make myself clear so that neither the President nor the acclaimed source would misconstrue an otherwise genuine piece of advice. I don’t want somebody to look at me with one kind eye when I have the opportunity of visiting the seat of power. No matter how long it takes, women don’t forget such things! So, ‘Olorunsogos’, beware! ‘Surulere’ is in charge! I mean no vacancy.

    I digress.

    This newspaper may have been the major loser in the ‘don’t-congratulate-me-with-advert’ ban, other newspapers also suffered to certain extents.

    As a matter of fact, it was such that when the paper’s managing director was addressing us at our regular meetings last week, and he parroted the same message, it was like ” what is this man saying? If people brought personal adverts for the president’s birthday or a corporate person did the same unsolicited, why should we turn them down”?

    It however turned out that many people and organisations obeyed the president’s directive, as only a few newspapers made some three or four pages of congratulatory adverts on the president’s birthday, apart from Tantita Security Services that went full blast to do as it often does on occasions when it feels like making a point.

    Hope is not lost, though. The President has promised to apologise later and I know he knows how to apologise very well. So, I don’t intend to lecture him on that. For now, the newspapers (that I here represent) have temporarily accepted the apology. In other words, we are GRATE. When the ‘mother of all apologies’ finally comes, we will then add the FUL, to complete the word grateful. I know that knowing Tinubu very well, the latter apology will be greater than the former. I mean the ‘apology’ would be heavily laden!

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    While we earnestly await the President’s latter apology, I must say that his decision on the celebratory adverts was the best in the circumstance. Money is not everything. As a matter of fact, a Yoruba proverb says if someone is going in search of money and meets honour on the way, it is better for him to turn back because, after getting the money, it is honour that he would spend it on.

    Be that as it may, there is a lot to say for the President’s decision. And the presidential aide also did a good job of crafting the piece: simple, sweet-flowing prose. No contours. The land is indeed troubled. The economy is not smiling. Insecurity, including its political variant, is yet to be nipped in the bud. Power supply is still epileptic. Youths are roaming the streets in search of non-existent jobs, etc. A sensitive President cannot pretend to be blind to all of these. And, even though the government is taking actions to ease the pains, the fact is that government cannot in all good conscience pretend that all is well and celebrate the President’s birthday with the usual pomp and pageantry like when he was a private individual. His actions are expectedly more under public scrutiny today than ever before.

    As a matter of fact, I do not know how meanings would not have been read into the celebration if the President had not made the announcement, especially with the gruesome murder of 17 officers and soldiers of the Nigerian Army in Okuama, Delta State, on March 14. That was exactly two weeks to the President’s birthday. The soldiers were only buried on Wednesday, 48 hours to the President’s birthday.  An elected President must be sensitive to the fact that these slain soldiers meant several things to several people. They were husbands to some women, fathers to their children, children to their own parents (for those of them whose parents are still alive), brothers, uncles and nieces to several others, etc. The President could not have been in celebration mode when all these bereaved people would still be mourning their losses.

    I must confess that I am impressed with the President’s performance at the burial of the military personnel on Friday. The different awards he gave to their families, his personal presence at the funeral. All of these would go a long way in assuring the families that the country the soldiers served is ever there for them. It would also incentivise those still in service that even if they die in the line of duty, their dependents would not suffer. But the government must follow up on the promises to the dependents to ensure that none is trapped in the military bureaucracy.

    May their souls rest in perfect peace. And to the President, too, happy 72nd birthday.

  • Reminder of the bad days

    Reminder of the bad days

    When I joined others in asking for the whereabouts of the Editor of First News, Segun Olatunji last week in this column, I was worried that those who abducted him were trying to buy time to see if the call for his release would subside and they can pretend not to know anything about it.

    With the deafening silence of the military authorities on the matter, despite claims that Olatunji was arrested by some men in military uniform, there was the danger of the matter ending as a case of unknown soldiers who could well have been kidnappers acting on behalf of those unhappy with some reports by First News.

    Thankfully, he has since regained his freedom, at least for now, from men of the Defence Intelligence Agency who eventually admitted having him with them despite initially denying it when the International Press Institute (IPI) insisted Olatunji was in their custody.

    Unfortunately, the DIA did not even own up to top government officials including the Minister of Information, Mohammed Malagi and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu until they succumbed to pressures to do so and reminded us of the days of military regimes when people could be arrested without warrant and would never be found having been disposed in whatever ways.

    The harrowing experience Olatunji was subjected to, including being handcuffed with hands and legs in detention is condemnable under a democratic dispensation and those responsible for his arrest and detention must be identified and not be allowed to get away with the impression that they are above the law and can do whatever pleases them under military cover.

    How serious was the offence Olatunji allegedly committed that soldiers had to storm his house to arrest him and be flown to Abuja for interrogations? Why go to the wife’s shop and force her to take them to their house to arrest the husband in the presence of the children?

    While the aggrieved military men may be displeased with publications by First News or any other media organization, they should not have resorted to arresting him in the way they did and locking him up incommunicado. There are enough legal options for seeking redress that they should have explored instead of taking the laws into their own hands.

    How would they have justified their illegal action if Olatunji had died under the conditions they subjected him to? While release him under the bridge instead of their office where he had been detained for days.

    DIA’s action is an embarrassment to the federal government which has many persons in office, including the President, who have a history of being committed to ensuring press freedom.

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    For those who have been indirectly calling for the return of the military, the manner of Olatunji’s arrest and detention is an example of what happens in a military regime when press freedoms are not guaranteed and decrees can be promulgated to justify any military action.

    Indiscriminate arrest and detention of journalists was common under the military. Media Houses like The Punch, The Guardian and the defunct National Concord were shut down for over a year and their offices were occupied by military men.

    I commend the IPI, Nigeria Guild of Editors, Nigeria Union of Journalists and other groups and individuals for rising to ensure Olatunji’s release and they must pursue this case to a point when the facts of the matter can be ascertained to service as a deterrent to future occurrence.

    As the fourth estate of the realm, the media has the role of holding the government and any other arm of authorities accountable and nothing should be done to muzzle journalists.  

  • The Tinubu mystique

    The Tinubu mystique

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, 72, has a mystique about him. Narrowing it down mainly to his policy successes, amply exemplified by his ongoing tentative recalibration of the Nigerian economy and politics, will be grossly unfair. This writer seldom does a copious examination of his policies, considering that even tyrants sometimes stumble into great policies and occasionally mange to rebuild and transform their broken countries. However, President Tinubu has chalked up over the years some spectacular policy successes worthy of consideration, not least when he was governor of Lagos State, and remarkably too outside office when he assigned himself the prefectural but unconstitutional role of inspiring and coaxing the state and his successors into a disciplined army. The writer made a tangential reference to this insubstantiality of the Tinubu essence on March 17, 2024 when he commented on Gen. Christopher Musa’s national admonition on the power of the spoken word with respect to the peace and stability of Nigeria.

    To, therefore, attempt barely nine months into his first term to discuss and celebrate President Tinubu’s policies, or to excoriate him on the same score, is to open oneself to accusation of flattery or prejudice. It will take time, hopefully shorter than expected, for his policies to mature and deliver results or miscarry. Policies have their gestation periods; those enunciated by the president on his assumption of office, or any leader for that matter, are not exempted. What is, however, unhidden, no matter how carefully a leader tries to conceal it, is his character make-up, his intrinsic, essential person. That intangible self endures well after everything else is dissipated, and that essence is not vitiated by wealth or poverty, praise or persecution, or background or status. It would be unkind to look at President Tinubu’s 72 years on earth strictly from his policy successes or status attained. These are of course notable policy triumphs intertwined with his person, but they are too limited to give a proper understanding of the man, his politics or leadership.

    President Tinubu’s governorship in Lagos gave only a small glimpse of his person; the last presidential campaigns gave an even far better glimpse of the kind of person he really is, especially how closely he approximates the algebra of leadership. Unlike ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and a former United States president Calvin Coolidge who both seemed propelled on the wings of luck or celestial interventions in their affairs, everything about President Tinubu has seemed anchored on the deliberateness of his plans and actions. Gifted with boldness that flows from intuition, and borne on the wings of fate that transcends his will, he has faced great risks, braved incredible challenges, and taken on formidable enemies. Here he finds himself in fellowship with some of history’s great leaders, not only in Africa but also in Europe, the Americas and Asia. Had he come at a different era, he would have been a military conqueror, dreaming campaigns of conquests over vast lands and territories, his fallibilities and sometimes failures assuaged by the sanguinary thrills of battles and victory parades.

    To become the president of Nigeria last year, he overcame two daunting obstacles. The first was the opposition within his party and conspiracies by his party that were religiously and ethnically curated for years before being unleashed upon him months before the ruling party welcomed any aspiration to the throne; and the second was the opposition by the general populace to any aspirant or eventual candidate connected with or presented by the All Progressives Congress (APC). No earthly political calculus favoured President Tinubu, either as an aspirant, at a time he was deeply loathed by his friends and fellow party men, or as a candidate, when he was overwhelmingly reviled and mercilessly caricatured all over the country. It was abnormal in those circumstances for anyone to throw his hat in the ring. One might conceivably swim against the tide; but his intuition led him inexorably into that abnormal unthinkability of swimming against rapids and waterfalls, sometimes maintaining contemplative silence in the face of general doubts by family and long-term friends and associates, and at other times demonstrating the fitful effervescence of someone who had just consulted the gods. His forte, it is increasingly clear, is political gambling, which some detractors and aides sometimes interpret as unbearable cocksureness and inflexibility. (Chief Obasanjo once infamously quipped in his accustomed colloquialism that he backed Labour Party’s Peter Obi because he needed someone he could reprove. Candidate Tinubu, he was convinced, was inured to reproof). It was, therefore, unsurprising that on the day aspirant Tinubu consulted with then President Muhammadu Buhari regarding his intention to contest the presidency, and then proceeded to announce his aspiration to a motley assembly of jaded pressmen, he was accompanied by only his media adviser, Tunde Rahman, with both of them looking forlorn and probably wondering what they were getting themselves into, or what demons they were unleashing.

    President Tinubu loves life and has enjoyed it to the fullest, a paradox for someone so normally contemplative, a politician not dissuaded by the inevitable paralysis that often accompanies too much thinking. But this is one of the enduring conundrums of his mystique, that such a man who loves life so consummately and dances to and interprets the talking drum, can also summon the chutzpah to produce a winning and yet nuanced same-faith presidential ticket that baited and tamed the religiosity of conclaves of opposition bishops and Pentecostal preachers driven into frenzy by his political audacity. Few knew he could win; but he won and then spurred many more rounds of angry detritus of prophetic offerings from clerics. At first glance, everything about his life seemed designed to consign him to unremitting ordinariness. But not only has he achieved the impossible by winning the presidency against an opposition that would have long broken any other person of lesser mettle, he has also walked incredibly more surefootedly beyond the first few tentative months that could equally have crippled probably anyone else. Fathoming the mysteries and mystique of his trajectory so far does not lend itself to casual analysis using popular analytical tools.

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    One more explanation can be hazarded. Despite the security challenges upending parts of the country, and the economic hardship that sometimes makes the country to nearly keel over, not to talk of the contrived opposition by powerful interest groups still stunned by his victory, the undecipherable mystique that imbues his person with strength and ennobles his policies may yet produce the magic powerful enough to animate his success and ensure that once the curtain falls on his presidency, Nigeria would never remain the same. For him to transcend the incredible opposition that assailed his presidential ambition, regardless of whether you like him or hate him, may be an indication that he seems tuned to the spiritual wavelength of forces imperceptible to the human mind. Should President Tinubu prove adept at riding on God’s coattails, not withstanding his occasional policy missteps, no one may stop him from climbing the heights he has envisioned.

    Would he, like President Buhari wailed in his early weeks in office, also yield to the despair that sometimes accompany winning the presidency as a septuagenarian? President Tinubu’s gait is of course not as strong or brisk as when he was in his 40s or 50s as governor, and his elocution has sometimes seemed tortured; but the vigour of his mind has not been attenuated by age nor his zest for life and leadership wearied by the ravages of time. He was a distinction student at the university, and later a keen and exemplary accountant and auditor. That combination affords the owner a forensic and logical mind incredibly capable of grappling with normative science. Added to his passion for politics and newly acquired indifference to the foibles of men, and being a bit of an adrenalin junkie, he will see his new age as a challenge to be confronted not evaded, a reason to live and lead, not a trigger to evade or abdicate. He has matured considerably as a septuagenarian, has acquired the sangfroid and sharpness great leaders are noted for, and his definition of loyalty and friendship has become less idealistic and convoluted. He will in fact do much better now than when he was governor, especially considering that the cruel and stifling opposition he faced on the road to the presidency had mollified his temperament and made him more resilient and more keenly aware of his place in this era.

  • Kuriga abduction: now the hard part

    Kuriga abduction: now the hard part

    Since abduction of schoolchildren became popular with bandits, the federal government has been unable to come up with an effective response to rein in the crime. Nigeria’s security agencies are both overextended and in many instances poorly equipped to deal with the ubiquitousness of a crime that continues to traumatise families, embarrass the government, and lower the esteem of Nigeria in the eyes of the world. The problem has festered so badly that suspicion is rife about the real reasons for the government’s impotence. For a genre of crime that began way back under the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, it is shocking that no effective panacea has yet been developed. It remains to be seen whether the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration will buck the trend, for it has also been left reeling and unrespited from many brazen abductions. Predictably, controversies have trailed the freedom of the 137 Kuriga, Kaduna State, schoolchildren abducted by bandits on March 7 and freed some 17 days later in Zamfara State at a location nearly 100km away. There was confusion as to whether they were released or rescued. But that was nothing compared to the speculation of whether ransom was paid or not, especially in the face of the administration’s determination to preclude ransom payment.

    Some reports indicated that ransom was paid. The federal government denies the reports. But far beyond the dispute over ransom payment is what the government proposes to do to stem the tide of school kidnappings which, more than any other kind of abduction, expose the government’s impotence. How it approaches every ‘rescue’ effort will determine whether it will finally be successful in eradicating the disease. No ‘rescue’ effort since 2014 has been carried out with the panache that deters kidnappers and bandits, or raises the esteem of the country. The Chibok, Borno State, abduction was haphazardly and half-heartedly resolved with ransom payments that left about one-third of the 276 schoolgirls taken by Boko Haram in April 2014 still in captivity, perhaps never to return home. The 110 schoolgirls also taken from Dapchi, Yobe State, in February 2018 exposed the government’s shambolic approach to school security and handling of the kidnapping crisis. They were freed about a month later after ransom was paid, and there were no lexical confusions about ‘rescue’ and ‘release’.

    Schoolchildren abductions began in earnest in the closing months of the Jonathan administration. But they have surprisingly metastasised under the Buhari government which flaunted its stentorian approach to civil administration. Under Dr Jonathan, kidnapping was talked about in whispers as politically mischief. Such suggestions were later dismissed under the Buhari government as fictional. The inability of the two administrations to curb the crime triggered suspicion that they were actually inept. If the Tinubu administration is to avoid such a contemptuous characterisation, it will need to break the mould, review its strategies beyond the mere deployment of a school protection force, sneer at lexical paradoxes, free itself from thralldom to the military as exampled by the Okuama reprisals and honours, and generally outthink bandits as well as their presumed political, economic and military sponsors and collaborators. The Kuriga abduction should afford the administration the opportunity to devise a more effective and systemic approach to dealing with a malaise that has suffocated the nation for years.

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    The Tinubu administration may have negotiated the ‘release’ or plot the ‘rescue’ of the Kuriga abductees, but like the bandits who kidnap at will, it is not bound by any hypothetical deal that constrains it from devising holistic plans to defeat both banditry and kidnapping, not only in the Northwest but also elsewhere. In line with this, it is time for the administration to put together a team to propose a solution. It is unlikely that a solution could be found that would not involve locking down states and communities where abductions are carried out. And if the bandits make a quick get-away, as they often do with surprisingly effective logistics and planning, including infiltrating the security services, reconnaissance flights should pinpoint their hideouts which should then be besieged for as long as is required. Recruiting and training a school protection force is symbolic, tokenistic and unworkable. The government will never be able to staff the protection force on a scale that would deter further attacks on isolated schools in remote, inaccessible villages.

  • Okuama-17 and improbable honours

    Okuama-17 and improbable honours

    In order to honour the 17 officers and men of the Nigerian Army who lost their lives in an ambush at Okuama, Ughelli South local government area of Delta State, on March 14, the federal government announced a string of national awards, house gifts for their families, scholarship for their children, and timely payment of their benefits. The gesture was a profound way of honouring soldiers who pay the ultimate sacrifice. In any military in the world, a soldier giving his life for country is often regarded as the highest form of sacrifice. The federal government was, therefore, right to acknowledge the sacrifice of the 17, and even righter to look for ways of honouring them. If victorious football teams could be honoured with houses, why exclude national heroes who give their lives?

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    In principle, honouring the slain men was the right thing to do. The problem, however, is whether those honours were not misplaced. The military and the country honour their heroes in ways not denoted in material terms; the government should have stuck to that style. It opens up a whole gamut of controversy to single out for attention and reward one type of sacrifice over another. Scores of military men lose their lives in other theatres without attracting the kind of attention bestowed upon the Okuama-17. The government should have waited until all controversies surrounding the killings were resolved before proceeding to garland the slain men. There was no need for hurry. More importantly, the government should have stuck to military tradition, even if that tradition had been undermined in the past.

  • The Economics of Good Hope

    The Economics of Good Hope

    • How the system corrects itself

    It is another Easter period. The columnist wishes our readers well as the nation journeys through unprecedented economic turbulence and adverse political weather. As distilled in human history and no matter by what name the season is called, this is the season of hope and renewal. Hope springs eternal in the human heart. Without hope and the possibility of renewal, humanity is lost.

    As exampled by the sterling life of Jesus Christ himself, Easter is also the season of charity and compassion and the empathy that goes with it. These are the higher virtues that distinguish humankind from the lower species. Without them, the human society becomes an unlivable animal conflatum with human beasts and other strange carnivores roaming freely and widely in search of their next victim.

      The economics of hope is predicated on the prodigious capacity of human beings as rational Homo Economicus to act in their own enlightened self- interest or to rouse in self-correction when the handshake has gone beyond the elbow. 

       For example, when startling technological advances and disruptive sciences bring about dramatic inequality of political power and its economic configurations across nations, races, classes, gender and religions, other contrary and countervailing forces rise to the occasion to claw back some of the lost ground or bring about some desired parity.

    This is why our contemporary world is in such turmoil as nations, races, classes, religions and even genders square it off in a struggle for equality and self-validation. Any wonder then when it is asserted that this age will be remembered as the epoch when humanity finally lost its idyllic innocence?

      In Gaza, Ukraine, Russia, Myanmar, normally sedate Canada, America, Australia and many postcolonial nations in Africa particularly Nigeria, an explosive mix of national, racial, religious and economic forces are up in arms against each other. As these forces link up in violent confrontation and multi-sector hostilities, it begins to feel as if a new type of global war without symmetry or synchrony is upon humanity. When the cloud has cleared, the world will be created anew.

       This is why in societies where people have been through the worst example of feudal bondage, where they have been subjected to political, economic and spiritual subordination, something always gives eventually no matter how long it takes.  The emancipation of subjugated people does not take forever.

      In some cases, it is visionary and farsighted members of the old oligarchy who lead the charge for reform which makes it far less contentious and conflict-ridden. But when and where the situation is allowed to deteriorate to a point where adversarial classes seize the momentum things can get very nasty and bloodcurdling indeed.

      The originating thesis and title of this piece is not original. It is taken from the December 2021 edition of Prospect, the agenda-setting and cerebral London-based magazine with the same cover title. Why it is being foregrounded in this column almost two and a half years later is as interesting and sobering. It is a story of renewal and hope and is worth retelling on its own merit.

      In December 2020 upon returning to London after a short trip to the US, yours sincerely had stopped over as usual at a famous news retailer at Heathrow Airport to buy the latest newsmagazines to tide one over during the Christmas period. Among these was the magazine, Prospect, a cogitative tavern for intellectual gourmets. It promised to be a big literary feast leavened by quiet meditation and introspection. But it was not to be. The columnist succumbed to the dreaded Covid-19 plague.

      It was quite an irony. At that point in time, the scourge of Covid-19 had significantly abated in many parts of the world except in America where it retained the status of a pandemic rather than an endemic. The dreaded plague still laid its icy claws on America. It was a severely cold early December in New York. With the streets entirely deserted, this magnificent conurbation of humanity felt dreary and eerily unwelcoming; a snow mausoleum of the dead and the dying.

      It was an appropriate punishment for heedless wanderlust, what is known in the northern parts of Nigeria as Sokugo or the wandering disease. One must have succumbed to the disease while aimlessly ambling about the precincts of the hotel in boredom and disorientation. But it did not manifest immediately since one was able to scale the compulsory medical hurdle of passing the Covid-19 test.

      Before then, one had thought of himself as an untouchable phenomenon having earlier in the year survived a grim four-month medical internment in England as the pandemic ravaged and razed the entire world. It was a scene out of the apocalypse, like the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Nothing seemed to be moving.

      London streets were empty and evacuated of humanity giving the impression of some post-human commune in all its grim surreality. It might have been due to hyperactive imagination, but one was convinced of a faint cadaverous smell about, like the sanitized stench of overwhelmed and overfilled morgues. The body froze as the daily news from Nigerian broke the story of luminaries who had succumbed at home. It began to feel like some endgame for the human species.

    It was a memorable moment for humanity which also showcased the human capacity for heroism and empathy. One watched in dreadful silence as television footage showed images of the serving British Prime minister, Boris Johnson, unconscious and fitfully breathing as he was wheeled in to the Emergency Ward.

       Yours sincerely believed he knew the precise moment the dreaded virus struck. It was while taking a stroll around the 153rd Street in Jamaica, Queens. One felt a clump suddenly fastened to the back of the skull like a blind bat in a dark alleyway. But one had shrugged it off as a product of fear and morbid imagining.

      Few days after arriving in London, it was clear that this was no longer something to be shrugged off as the virus kicked in and took strong hold. It was a phenomenal battle between human will and sheer mortality. It began with severe bodily ache and a feverish condition which soon deteriorated into a hallucinatory haze which made it impossible to even doze off. At this point, one began to experience what felt like out of body experiences. Despite all this, one insisted that all was well to all solicitous inquiries.

      The tie-breaker came about the sixth day. With the whole body palpitating and the hands shaking uncontrollably, one had attempted to make a cup of tea for himself. It ended in a fiasco with the whole cup spilling on the floor of the kitchen. While furtively trying to mop up without raising any alarm one felt an overpowering urge to lie peacefully on the floor and one succumbed.

      In what felt like an eternity later, one was roused by the loud cry of our host, our son, who always believed that his father was a cat with a thousand lives.

      “I see, you have been deceiving me about your real condition. I will now call for the ambulance!!” the affrighted young man yelled as he headed for the phone. In a spectacular burst of energy about this equivalent of a death sentence, one had leapt up almost hitting the ceiling of the kitchen.

       “I am not going to the hospital!! Don’t you ever call the ambulance!” I screamed. As every right thinking person knows, it is always the last call for a person over sixty five to be taken to the hospital as a Covid-19 patient in those days. The medical personnel will just put you aside and ply you with enough analgesics for ease of passage to the great beyond.

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      It is a medical tradition known as triage which owes its origins to a Napoleon era military surgeon of the same name. It is like a needs-tested mode of treatment, whereby in circumstances of huge and sudden casualties such as you find in wars, priority of medical attention must be given to younger soldiers who are able to make a quick recovery and return to the battle field rather than fretting over old people who are already on their way out anyway.

      Sounds very nice and comforting to old people, doesn’t it? We must thank the almighty for the surviving traits of communal and communitarian living in Africa which compel us to take care of our old people as well as the poor and needy.

      This may change over time as African postcolonial societies take on a more complex form. We must enjoy it while it lasts. One of the incontestable and unassailable cruelties of the modern capitalist societies is the way old age is faintly criminalized and old people regarded as surplus to requirement. They even steal their gratuities, gratuitously so to say.

      It is a great irony, but suffice it to add that the threat of being taken to hospital was the best treatment one had for covid-19. The balance of forces between human will and man-made adversities dramatically altered in the next few days. Recovery was so swift and irreversible that the following week one was able to stage a dramatic return to Lagos after finally passing the covid-19 test.

       In ending, and this being the season of renewal and regeneration, we must reaffirm our faith and hope in the Economics of good hope and the fact that human society has a capacity for renewal and self-revalidation as a result of the inherent capacity of humankind to make a rational evaluation of their circumstances. When this human capacity is so hobbled by adverse national circumstances such as make rational choices impossible, a society plumbs the depth self-annihilation until a new group emerges.  Happy Easter to all our readers.