The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Sharia Council and govt’s economic policies

It is strange how the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria conflates economic policy and religion, in this day and age, and in a democracy, not a theocracy. The organisation’s president, AbdurRrasheed Hadiyyatullah, disclosed at its recent national conference that they supported and voted for the Muslim-Muslim ticket in order to help the country achieve progress, success and triumph. Instead, he wailed, the nation had sunk deeper into economic hardship.

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He did not say why he thought a religious ticket could achiev the miracle the Council craved. The APC presidential ticket made no such claims, drew no correlation between religion and economic and social progress, and indeed emphasised to the contrary that the party’s same-faith ticket was nothing more than a strategy to win the presidential poll. Clearly not many people were listening to the party’s standard-bearers; instead, groups like the Sharia Council were looking only at the face of the ticket. If it is any consolation to the Council, he should be informed that the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world neither pray nor have a state religion.

January 21, 2024
Uzodinma’s swearing-in and Jagaban’s coded message to IPOB/ESN

It was another very hectic week for President Bola Tinubu, from Monday till Saturday, moving from events and engagements to others. However, gracing the swearing-in ceremony of the Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma, trumped all other events, owing to the many significant codes hidden in the event.

The coincidences around his visit to Owerri, the capital of Imo State, for the second-term swearing-in of Governor Uzodinma, made the outing stand out and deserving of the star event of the week spot. The strenuous nature of the event deserved it and the significance he himself pointed out in his speech made it the more worthy of the spot.

Before going to Owerri on Monday, he had led other national figures to the National Arcade, Abuja, in commemoration of this year’s Armed Forces Remembrance Day celebration, an annual ritual performed to honour the memory of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the sakes of Nigeria and Nigerians. Though it was not meant for speeches, the actions of the President, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, are meant to encourage those who are still on duty, fighting with everything to protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria.

Then on to Owerri, where a mammoth crowd of citizens and top dignitaries were awaiting his arrival and the commencement of the event of the day, the swearing-in ceremony of Governor Uzodinma and his deputy, for his second term in office. Remember it was a Monday, a day the peculiar non-state actors of the East, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), had hijacked for its brutally enforced sit-at-home across the states of the Southeast. In the past, the streets would be expected to be deserted; businesses shut, vehicular movements suspended, at least for that day.

That was the day the Imo State Governor was scheduled for second term swearing-in and he invited the President to come make another history at the ceremony. It was historical because, according to one of the masters of the ceremony, no President had graced the swearing in of a governor in the state. But beyond that history-making attendance, the fact that Owerri could play host to an event of that magnitude, with all the categories of guests, yet it was void of any negative drama, as in the enforcers of IPOB could not be seen or heard, on a Monday, with all those people, then it was significant for, not just Uzodinma, but even the President and he did not fail to mark it out in his speech.

“I’m glad we are showing to be a very united country and moving forward. The relative peace that you are enjoying here will be better and we will work hard with you to achieve that peace. Before now, every one of us was enveloped in fear to come to Imo State, but today Imo is safe and ready for business. What we learned from this is for us to work together, join hands and pay attention to our internal security. Incidentally, today is the Armed Forces Remembrance Day. I will invite all of you to State House to have dinner, but which date, I cannot say yet”, he said.

He left Owerri at some minutes after 5pm to return to Abuja for other events scheduled for the next day, Tuesday, which started on a pensive note. You will recall that strange things have been happening in parts of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, in the past few weeks, so it was not strange when we started seeing security chiefs assembling at the Villa, to meet with the President.

The fact that the media was blacked out after the meeting; as none of the security chiefs agreed to speak after the meeting and the Presidency would also not issue a statement on its outcomes, affirmed the seriousness of the situation and the determined position taken on it. On this one, not much to say, we just need to wait and see results of agreed action plans from the meeting.

However, the President said something about a security strategy his administration is adopting, when he received a delegation from Jam’iyyatu Ansaridden, a highly respected Islamic movement, at the State House, still on Tuesday. He said his administration will fight insecurity from its roots, unleashing education to treat poverty, which will in turn heal the nation of the menace of insecurity.

“There is no weapon against poverty that is as potent as learning. We are dedicated to building a lasting peace with a focus on the comprehensive education of our children. We will get our teachers and their owners involved in an education process that will be relevant to the future of this country. It is important. Knowledge brought me here with your prayers and your support. Without knowledge, there is nothing to generate hope for mankind”, he told the delegation.

Tuesday, coincidentally, happened to be Chief Bisi Akande’s birthday and anyone who knows anything about Jagaban will know the very cordial relationship he has with Chief Akande. So after the events of the day, including being part of the unveiling of a memoir written on former President Muhammadu Buhari by his former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, President Tinubu organized a special birthday dinner for Chief Akande, where he revealed a bit of his personal life, in relation to his connection with the octogenarian.

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“We the younger ones are very lucky to have you. You deserve to be celebrated. Anyone who wants to learn forgiveness, candour and reliability should see Chief Bisi Akande. You’re a father to many and you’ve lived a life worthy of emulation…You taught me perseverance, patience, honesty and management of resources, be it human and capital resources. Thank you because of who you are and what we are today. You kept telling me, be patient, forget the past, keep looking forward. Today I am not looking at the past but looking forward”, he told the celebrant.

Then on Wednesday, he presided over the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, during which he brainstormed with his ministers. The Council meeting, unlike most of the editions I have seen, rather did more of tinkering with policies and strategies than apportioning costs to contracts. For instance, the ministers who briefed, including Mohammed Idris (Information and national Orientation), Lateef Fagbemi (Attorney-General and Minister of Justice), Mohammed Badaru Abubakar (Defense), Professor Ali Pate (Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare), Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite (Industry, Trade and Investment), among others, informed journalists of various decisions aimed at easing life for Nigerians.

An outstanding example was the information provided by the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Pate, that three resolutions were approved by the President. According to him, the first aims to make pharmaceutical products cheaper for Nigerians, by supporting local manufacturers to be able to meet local needs. The second one targets empowering the regulatory organizations in the health sector to be effective, by giving them the required financial provisions. The third aims at bridging the vacuum created by the Japa Syndrome in the sector.

The meeting also addressed the need for prioritizing safety of Nigerians. This followed the review of the devastating explosion, which occurred in Ibadan on Tuesday evening. The FEC decided on the review of laws governing possession and handling of explosives. President had earlier in the day vowed action over the explosion.

Then on Thursday, he met with Supreme Council for Shari’a in Nigeria (SCSN) and held a couple of other private meetings. He also held a couple of private meetings on Friday that was after he had returned from the Jumat service. Among his guests on Friday were the governors of Nasarawa, Abdulahi Sule; Plateau, Caleb Mutfwang; and Oyo, Seyi Makinde.

‘Baba, safe journey’

One of the highlight of the outing in Imo State on Monday was the chanced-meeting between the Jagaban and former President Olusegun Obasanjo at the second-term inauguration of Governor Hope Uzodima. They were both cocooned, along with some other national leaders, inside the glazed state box, at the Dan Anyiam Stadium, and sat with just one person sitting between them.

Of course they spoke, with lit-up faces, what they uttered to each other are what I might not be able to tell you because I could only see them from afar, and later in pictures. There is hardly any politically aware person, of age, who does not know the adversarial colour their relationship has always worn, especially from the 1999 era. The most recent of their interactions was the negative intervention from the former President during the 2023 electoral process.

It was Chief Obasanjo’s right to support a presidential candidate, he’s also a Nigerian with a voting right, what he might have taken overboard was coming out to display his choice and knowing the ramifications such held, he was deemed to have done it with an injurious intent to Asiwaju’s chances. Well, all that became history with Tinubu’s resounding victories at the polls and at the courts.

May be a point must be made here that Chief Obasanjo has always been the aggressor, always working to undermine the younger politician, like devoting himself to ensuring Asiwaju fails. Shall we talk about the cantankerous attempt at sabotaging Lagos development when Asiwaju was governor, or the futile attempt at de-marketing him at the last polls? Well, if you thought OBJ was done with trying to slight his kinsman for whatever reason, you thought wrong because he always has one more up his sleeves.

At the Owerri chanced-meeting, despite the smiles and hugs, Baba Obasanjo waited all through the proceedings until President Tinubu took the stage to address the people, waited a bit longer for his speech to reach some peach, then he did another one; OBJ stood up in the middle of the President’s speech and exited the stadium.

You can trust Jagaban, he knew who he was dealing with. “Baba, safe journey” was his simple way of washing off the provocative irritation. One of the journalists who were recording the the President’s speech, an Imo State journalist, just looked up and said “OBJ can never change, he will take this from anybody”.

The new week starts today and more is expected to flow out from the Villa, more impactful decisions and activities from the President. You can be sure to get the gist in next week’s edition. Have a great week.

January 21, 2024
The Army and its Hoi polloi

It is just as well that the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Taofeek Lagbaja has paid a well-publicized visit to the governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwoolu. This is coming against a background of rising insecurity, the growing spate of kidnapping, the return of marauders to our highway and the increasingly unruly behavior of some military personnel particularly of the lower cadre to constituted civil authorities.

As far as the optic of military-civilian relationship is concerned, it is expected that the visit, a symbolic reaffirmation of the superiority of civil authorities over the military, should go a long way to smoothening ruffled feathers and reassuring the public that all is well. Jide Sanwoolu is not known to be a boorish and uncooperative fellow driven by egomaniac pomposities. He should let the verbal bruising in circulated videos serve as a reminder of the seething furnace of anger and resentment in the land.

All over the world, a sense of entitlement can be found even in the highest echelons of the military. More often than not, this is always well-managed. But if it is not, it leads to humiliation and self-deflation as General Douglas MacAuthur, arguably America’s most decorated military officer, was to find out to his chagrin when he attempted to tango with the feisty no-nonsense President Harry Truman over the direction of the Korean War.

He was summarily cashiered. In recent times, it was only when a top serving American general hinted that the sacred tenets of presidential transition would be enforced to the letter, even if it means physically bundling out any intruder that the anarchic presidential rogue slunk out of the White House. He would have been treated as the unruly thug and bounder that he is.

Ever since human society discovered the deployment of force and violence as the organizing principle of the state, the arms-bearing classes have always been accorded a pride of place at the apex of the society. They are seen as the custodians of societal stability and arch defenders of its corporate and territorial integrity. Often in times of anarchy and turmoil, they usurp the supreme authority of the sovereign to protect the sanctity of the dominion.

But this is only a temporary measure to stem the tide of anarchy as they must return to their hideout on the margins of the society from whence they came once order is restored. Even in ancient times, the established consensus was that the military hierarchy does not have the governmental nous, the basic competencies and skills to rule over the complex and countermanding perplexities of the human society in its variegated intrigues and treacheries.

    Military training is of a different order: to instill discipline and enforce strict compliance. The difference between military and political leadership can be illuminated by Sir Isaiah Berlin’s famous dichotomy between the fox and the hedgehog: the hedgehog knows one big thing, but the fox knows many small things.

    There are however some exceptional and extraordinary individuals of genius who combine in their unique personality the countervailing prototypes of top warrior and world-historic statesman: Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Charles de Gaulle, Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh, Dwight Eisenhower and arguably the founding troika of the Russian Revolution: Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.

   What is incontrovertible is the fact that Modern societies accord serving and retired military personnel rare honours, respect and privileges in recognition of their patriotic services to the nation and the willingness to lay down their lives at short notice at the behest of the society.

   In the summer of 1999, after lining up for several hours among a teeming crowd queuing for an American visa in Amsterdam, yours sincerely was quietly intrigued when a lady calmly called out American serving soldiers and ex -servicemen to form a much shorter queue. One later discovered that this is quite the norm in America where serving or delisted soldiers of whatever rank are treated with special respect and admiration wherever they go.

One would have thought that in an arms-suffused society, the normal tendency would be for arms and their bearers to suffer a drastic demystification. But then there is a qualitative difference between professional managers of violence and its mere purveyors. In a nation where the refinement and sophistication of the instruments of incapacitation has reached the zenith of human ingenuity, the fear and awe of the military class is the beginning of wisdom.

   The same intriguing dynamics has been at play in the evolution of the Nigerian military from a colonial army of internal occupation to current efforts to make it regain its reputation. The annulment of the freest and fairest election in the history of the nation, itself an act of physical and psychological intimidation against the civil populace, remains a blight on their record and reputation. But since the advent of the Fourth Republic, the military hierarchy, despite minor hiccups, has put their best foot forward.

Unfortunately, there is always a weak link in this tough chain of professionalism. And it is the lower-most ranks, the military rabble or what we choose to call the military hoi polloi. They are the ones who come into most contact with the civil populace. Hard and hardy indeed will be the senior officer caught in the market haggling over the price of yam or freeloading on a battle-tested motorcycle.

As a result of their elementary and rudimentary training, particularly where it comes to psych-ops and the manipulation of reality to achieve a stated objective, military underlings lack the discipline, the fortitude, the endurance and the capacity for higher deception, dissembling and dissimulation associated with the higher ranks.

In retrospect, and given their extraordinary civility and gentlemanly conduct, nobody would have thought that the mid-ranking officers’ formation of the Nigerian army was a seething cauldron of anger and discontent in the run up to the mutiny that terminated the First Republic. Or just imagine the calm and placid atmosphere that preceded some of the most momentous military uprisings in Africa.

   We may have to thank the military underclass for their understandably lower threshold of pains and capacity for suffering without flinching. It may be an accurate barometer for gauging the smouldering resentment among the subalterns. In confronting the errant soldier, Governor Jide Sanwoolu was faced with a testy and nerve-tingling conundrum, and he acquitted himself honourably.

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   To have allowed the errant soldier to go scot free would have amounted to opening a floodgate of traffic anarchy and chaos. That particular route was already becoming notorious for the disproportionate number of military personnel and some miscreants driving deliberately against the traffic with impunity and disdain for order clearly written on their visage. It may be due to the presence of a nearby military barracks. Horrendous accidents have occurred as a result of such impunity.

    However justified the case may appear, there can be no two laws in the same society, one for soldiers and another for the civil populace. It is an invitation to chaos and anarchy. Perhaps as a result of his limited education and exposure, the subaltern compounded his initial error of judgment with an appalling sense of entitlement, repeatedly insisting to the governor that he was a serving soldier who must be granted some positive discrimination. As we have demonstrated, this is not how soldiers in civilized polities conduct and comport themselves.

For his rogue colleague and the other impersonating confederate to have taken to the airwaves to babble insensate nonsense about Sanwoolu and the federal authorities may well be an indication of the massive discontent among the lower ranks of the armed forces which cannot be blithely brushed aside. There is too much anger and resentment in the land.

Consider for example when Tunde Fashola arrested a redneck for driving on a designated route. The senior officer took it in the chin and was contrite and very remorseful indeed. The lowly soldier does not speak the same language with the governor. There may even be a possibility that he considered his apprehension an act of monumental injustice.

We must do everything possible to avoid a revolt of the military underclass in this complex and complicated country. In Liberia, it led to unremitting savagery and a fifteen year eclipse from which the country is yet to recover.

This is an excellent opportunity for the Lagos State government and the military authorities to enter into a partnership to alleviate the horrific living conditions of the subaltern. Better barracks, better transportation dedicated to the lower ranks, a revolving loan scheme and improved welfare are urgent necessities.

Understandably, the need to insulate the army hierarchy from partisan politics may prevent open flirtation with the political class beyond the call of duty. But these things can be done quietly, without funfair or publicity and with maximum integrity.

Unless the army is operating under an old feudal code in which every soldier’s status is already preordained and pre-assigned, it should open the eyes of its lowly cadres to further education and useful training which will prepare them for life beyond the barracks. Every soldier must learn a useful modern trade before being de-commissioned.

The possibilities for military/civil authority collaboration are immense and should not be thrown away simply because of the misguided angst of some errant service people. In the coming world order, quite a lot will depend on the superior intelligence and the capacity for swift reaction of the average soldier. The illiterate army of the future will be the army that has refused to educate and re-orientate its lower masses.

January 21, 2024
Apocalypse in Ibadan

Oh dear, oh dear, the metropolis of gold and rust and of pound for pound civil affrays has itself taken a pounding. Irrepressible Ibadan, the city of no-nonsense warriors, wears a shell-shocked grimace after a freak calamity arising from impunity and official irresponsibility.

Forty years ago in an essay commissioned by Newswatch magazine to commemorate Nigeria’s independence anniversary, this writer posited that Nigeria is a consuming paradox. Ever since then, paradox, like irony its sister and ambiguity its brother, has defined every facet of our national life. It throbs, weaves itself into the fabric of national existence and bobs up everywhere we turn.

But it does appear as if the paradox is getting more gruesomely paradoxical. Or how else does one explain the apocalyptic nightmare that almost took down the Bodija suburb, arguably the most civilized and refined enclave of this ancient warrior city with it on Tuesday night? It was a mining mystery laced with the typical Nigerian paradox.

How does one explain, after crass impunity has been factored into the equation, that dangerous explosives meant to be detonated in some faraway pits have found their way into an upper market residential area without eyebrow being raised until tragedy struck? It reads like fabulous fiction, like King Solomon’s Mine, Sir Rider Haggard’s phantasmagoria about a mythical mine of incredible riches located somewhere in the heart of darkness.

But if that was straight from the colonial imaginary which adequately explains the later scramble for Africa, how about this one? A postcolonial mine and its violent accessories this time located in the heart of the most urbanized section of Africa’s most populous nation and superintended by a Malian native. Echoes of the manager of the interior, Joseph Conrad’s uppity supervisor of some misbegotten African jungle in the old Congo?

It would appear that the more ungovernable spaces Nigeria boasts of the more minable its governable enclaves have become. Let us put this more starkly. The more undermined a country is, the more over-mined its natural resources are. This is the Charles Taylor’s Law of extractive predation.

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Remember him? Charles Taylor was the Liberian warlord-ruler who simply carved up some parts of his country and added ungovernable lumps from Sierra Leone and Cote D’Ivoire for the purpose untrammeled plundering until nemesis caught up with the rogue Americo-Liberian.

Our Malian brother who caused all this with obvious internal connivance has probably bolted with the winds leaving traumatized Nigerians to clean up the horrendous mess. On the board of directors of his so called company, there is only one Nigerian without instant name recognition. He got away with murder without any eyebrow being raised. Wonders and paradoxes will never end in this country.

This column commiserates with those who lost relations and valuable property in the inferno. We share the grief of Funso and Muyiwa, children of the great and unforgettable Cicero, whose Solemia Residence was severely rocked by the violence and force of the explosion.

It would have been gentler and easier on the soul if one had not severally visited and had been entertained in some of the affected homesteads. Solemia was the site of epic intellectual duels in the early nineties with the great man sometimes calling for a truce which would end in delectable dinners at the nearby Alma guesthouse.

We condole with Niyi Akintola, SAN who wrote with trembling hands on the total devastation of his upper market hotel in the area. Our heart also goes out to our great friend and senior politician, Barrister Iyiola Oladokun, whose wife is a great fan of this column. We learnt that their residence was completely obliterated.

Once again, Nigeria has become the laughing stock of the entire world. How can a gifted and much admired nation allow this kind of seismic damage to be inflicted on its populace? They have been mining in South Africa for eons and we have never heard of this Kafkaesque nightmare. One day the nation would rouse from the horrendous sleepwalking

January 21, 2024
Needed: radical measures against insecurity

After it became quiet on the north-eastern front, with Boko Haram and ISWAP militants significantly degraded, banditry, which had imperturbably boiled as a slow civil war between Hausa farmers and Fulani herders, recrudesced in the north-western front into a brutal war. While Kanuricentric Boko Haram never quite metamorphosed into a kidnapping industry, and found it difficult to gain a foothold in the Northwest, banditry has effortlessly morphed into a profitable kidnapping industry. The entire Northwest has consequently worked itself into a lather, as the regions governors, with a helping hand from the federal government, mismanaged the revolt. Now, Abuja is threatened and unable to sleep, and the whole country is in uproar. The kidnapping crisis received wide publicity 10 days ago when gunmen in military uniforms abducted the Mansoor Al-Kadriyar family and others in the Bwari area council of the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, murdered three of the victims, and upped the ransom from N60m to N700m. Former Communications minister Isa Pantami sensationally, but sanctimoniously, embarked on crowdfunding to aid the release of the victims.

A rash of copycat kidnapping may follow, leading to widespread apprehension in all parts of the country, and infernal pressures on both the Bola Tinubu administration and the FCT minister Nyesom Wike to rein in the madness. The Middle Belt is flaring up again, and it is a question of time before other parts of the country follow suit as more militants sense government’s weakness and desperation. It was always clear that Nigeria’s security strategy, never properly conceived nor standardized in the first place, was chaotic and outdated. The future has caught up with the country. How the Tinubu administration responds to this festering crisis will determine whether peace and stability would be quickly restored. Past administrations had either been ad hoc or lethargic in battling insecurity. By keeping the security system centralised and needlessly uniform, while also leaving many things undone for decades, including refusing to restructure the security system along more federalist lines, the current crisis became inevitable. In order not to be overwhelmed, the administration must now urgently regain the initiative by responding smartly and comprehensively to the kidnapping nightmare. The age of innocence is gone for good.

The first question the administration must ask is whether the sudden upsurge of kidnapping is merely a security issue consequent upon the nation’s socio-economic crisis or wholly or partly a political issue. If its diagnosis is right, its response will be conditioned by its findings and the panaceas will probably be effective. Three weeks ago, this column warned that there might be a correlation, no matter how tenuous, between the administration’s anti-corruption probes and the upsurge of insecurity. Nothing so far leads this column to think otherwise. The Christmas Eve attacks on Bokkos LGA in Plateau State were, for instance videoed and disseminated on social media. There was obviously a method to that madness. There will be many more of such provocations. However, regardless of the purpose of the kidnapping and senseless attacks on sleepy communities, whether to raise cash for nefarious reasons or just to feed fat on the misery of the helpless, it is the constitutional duty of the government to guarantee the safety and security of the people. And it is the duty of the security and intelligence services to know why the attacks are waged and by whom.

So far, the federal government has not demonstrated a proper understanding of the ongoing kidnapping and genocidal attacks, especially the whys. Responding to the siege on Abuja, particularly the outlying communities of the FCT, the Defence minister had suggested that pressures on bandits in Niger and Zamfara States might be responsible for the migration of militants to the greener pastures of Abuja. It is true that the Northwest is vast, with Niger State alone bigger than many states put together in some regions of the country, but it is unlikely to be a strong factor in the sudden upsurge of abductions. In any case, should that migration not have been anticipated and thus included in the strategy to restrict, cut off and destroy the bandits? Rather than treat attacks and kidnappings episodically, and instead of summoning security chiefs and giving them the marching order, it is time the administration carefully and intelligently understood why the attacks are happening on this scale and at this time. If it is wholly or partly politics, it should say so. And if they are convinced it is wholly or partly economic, seeing the hardship prevalent in the country, it should also admit it.

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After understanding the reasons and patterns of the attacks and abductions, some of which predate the Muhammadu Buhari administration but worsened in the last eight years, the administration should then address the nation and enunciate its plans to combat the disease. Failure is not an option. The Tinubu administration has never lacked the courage to take on difficult issues, policies, or saboteurs, but it must do so from the position of knowledge. As far as this column is concerned, there is some deliberateness to the attacks and abductions, all of which seem planned to expose the government as weak or impotent, or to compel it to back off some of its stated goals and probes. The administration will of course not flag in its zeal to right decades of policy and political wrongs, no matter the cost, but it must carefully calibrate its response in such a way as not to compromise both regime security and survival. Indeed, it has a greater stake in national survival than the unscrupulous, emerging and malfeasant money power hinted at by ex-Osun governor and former APC chairman, Bisi Akande during his 85th birthday lecture. The new money power couldn’t care less what happens to the nation.

The situation is, however, not hopeless. But the Tinubu administration must reassert itself, do way with ministers and officials helping themselves to the nation’s money and creating image crisis for the administration, present itself as fair, unbiased and ethnically and religiously balanced, and with boldness and smartness take on those who have strangulated the country for decades, whether they belong to the business, political or religious class. The administration must never be perceived as weak or fearful. After diagnosing the current crisis, including identifying its tentacles, the president must sit with his security chiefs to convince himself that their comprehensive plans to curb the ongoing madness and ultimately defeat the cancer can and will work. From their plans, he will know whether he has the right men for the job. It is a shame that the intelligence services of the military and police cannot identify the dens of the militants when those who supply them food and materials can. And after ransoms have been paid, it is a far worse shame that the security services cannot follow the phone and money trails. If appointees can’t shape up, it may be time for the administration to tell them to ship out. Better their heads than the president’s.

January 21, 2024
Buhari on cabals, Emefiele, naira redesign

Ex-president Muhammadu Buhari’s responses on some of the key issues that dominated his presidency between 2015 and 2023 may not raise eyebrows, but his seven-page contribution to his former adviser, Femi Adesina’s book provides an invaluable window into his leadership style. Publicly presented with fanfare last week in Abuja, the book, Working with Buhari: Reflections of a Special Adviser, Media and Publicity (2015-2023), is certain to elicit some interests and reviews. Ex-vice president Yemi Osinbajo whetted public appetite with quotes and anecdotes from the book that shed light on the former president’s style, earthiness and arcane sense of humour. Undoubtedly, some of the reviews are bound to be unsparing and caustic, not only because the book exposes the president’s difficulties in weighing some of the complex policies that befuddled him but also because of his serial denialism over persons and issues which to any ordinary observer needed no expatiation.

For now, three of his responses, which are perhaps archetypal of his presidency, invite fair and ready commentaries. They are: his reluctance and ultimately refusal to sack former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele over his presidential ambition; the naira redesign policy which threw the country into turmoil on the eve of a major election; and the suffocating hold of cabals on his administration. For those loaded issues, it has surprised many that his perspectives were incredible oversimplification of complex state matters. On Mr Emefiele who openly and unlawfully politicked while still serving as CBN governor, the president attributed his refusal to sack him to the rather baffling excuse that the man in question did not tell him directly he aspired to be president. “I met Emefiele in office when I came,” began the former president curiously, “and unless there was firm evidence against him, it would be unfair, and an act of injustice to remove him, acting on hearsay. If you punish a man unjustly, it could dog his footsteps throughout life; so if you would punish, you must have evidence…I’m very conscious about the morale of people who serve with me. I also expect whoever succeeds me to be fair to me. I have family, friends, who will feel it. I’m very conscious of fairness.”

What the former president didn’t say is whether he was not aware of what Mr Emefiele was doing, or if in doubt why he did not call for evidence from the security services. There was hardly any Nigerian who was not aware of Mr Emefiele’s shenanigans. He was both brazen and profligate about it, and he was even cocky, perhaps daring the authorities to question him. The former president’s incredulity is hard to explain. And if he truly didn’t know about Mr Emefiele’s presidential ambition, his ignorance was still inexcusable. However, President Buhari was simply being disingenuous. His response never quite suggested he didn’t know what the former CBN governor was up to; all he said was that the controversial banker did not tell him directly. For a matter that screamed in all newspapers and went viral on social media, it was clear the president decided not to ‘know’ so as not to be forced to take action against a servile poodle. The additional excuses of staff morale, fairness of job tenure, and concern for the consequences upon Mr Emefiele of sacking him were absolutely hilarious. It is strange that the president was less mindful of the damage the former CBN governor’s politicking brought upon the apex bank and the country as a whole.

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The second point the former president addressed is the controversial and deadly matter of naira redesign. He exculpated himself in this fashion: “The scarcity of money was not deliberately done to punish Nigerians. There is no denying that the Naira redesign policy gave us cleaner elections. It was people who had too much money that had problems with it. When it was said that the new notes were not available, over $260m was found with one bank chairman. Did I take on the Supreme Court on the issue? No, I could not have. Some APC Governors went to court. I refuse to judge people by my own standards. I am not materialistic, but it will be too much to expect all Nigerians to be the same way. It is not fair to condemn anybody, but it is up to them and their conscience…” What the former president did was to completely sidetrack the issue. Everyone knew who was targeted by the policy, and even the candidates of both the PDP and LP gloated in private, assured that their roads to the presidency were being paved with the goofy intentions of a naïve administration. The policy was not meant to punish the people, the former president said; but when it became obvious that the policy’s unintended consequences far outweighed its good side, the former president neither cared nor took immediate remedial measures. His administration even stalled court judgements, balked at the Supreme Court ruling, and relented only when a constitutional crisis seemed imminent.

On the far more exigent issue of cabals believed to have compromised and undermined his administration, the former president, barely able to disguise his irritations, pretended not to know anything. “If El-Rufai had mentioned the cabal members,” the great denialist said with a hint of irony, “I would have taken it up with him, but he didn’t. Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State made his own allegations. Well, they were just governors, I was President. If they had their facts, they should have named names.” Don’t believe the former president. The media were awash with key names of the cabals, and one of them even attempted to set the cabalistic hierarchy of importance. And they acted and spoke openly about their stranglehold on the Buhari presidency. Neither Mallam Nasir el-Rufai nor Abdullahi Ganduje needed to name anyone. There was no debate and no confusion about who constituted the cabals. Perhaps what the president was saying is that he did not see the cabals in the sense in which the public saw them, and that the whole labeling of influential people close to his administration who determined the order of things was nothing more than a definitional lacuna, a mere storm in a teacup unworthy of his attention.

January 21, 2024
Datti’s enigmatic views

Datti Baba-Ahmed, running mate to Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential poll, has an incredibly whimsical way of reacting to national issues. He is of course not ideological, and can, therefore, not react in a consistent and philosophical way to anything. The closest he has ever got to anything consistent is his ephemeral pragmatism. When he insinuated last week that the ‘exit’ of Shell PLC told Nigeria something sinister which no one else but white men knew, it aligned with his entrenched disdain for the country’s current leadership, if not the country itself. Except that, as usual, his reading of Shell’s partial divestment was exaggerated and distorted.

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Shell PLC has clarified that it was divesting only its onshore assets, nothing more, and was still keeping its other three subsidiaries. Could Mr Datti, founder of Baze University, Abuja, be persuaded to apologise for misleading the public on the same Twitter where he sold that falsehood? Not a chance. His statements since he joined politics, and especially after LP lost the presidential poll, reflect his fanaticism; and his politics mirrors his discordant personality. Taken in addition to Mr Obi’s obsession with anything superficial, both the LP and its former presidential candidates demonstrate their abysmal lack of capacity.

January 21, 2024
Forgotten widows

Is it true that the wives of military officers who perished in the Ejigbo crash in 1992 are yet to be paid their benefits?

This year’s Nigerian Armed Forces Remembrance Day may have come and gone, there are at least two issues that arose from its activities, at least as far as I am concerned. One was the report that wives of victims of the September 26, 1992 plane crash in Ejigbo, Lagos, were yet to get their dues, 31 years after. And, two, another report that children of military officers who died in the line of duty forfeit their chance of getting scholarship if they can’t secure admission once they are above 18 years of age.

Let me start with the former.

But before I proceed, it would be better to recap the Ejigbo disaster in which Nigeria lost a generation of young military officers, not in the war front, but in a period of relative peace at home. It happened on September 26, 1992, when a military plane, Hercules C-130, conveying 163 people, who were middle-ranking army, navy and air force officers, crashed about five minutes after take-off from Lagos. Some reports claimed there were 174 on board, or even 200, including some unidentified civilians, and possible military personnel who hitched a ride. However, a total 151 Nigerians, five Ghanaians, one Tanzanian, one Zimbabwean, and one Ugandan military officers were confirmed to have died, according to Wikipedia.

The military officers were on their way to attend a staff college course in the north. Nigerians would remember the kinds of insinuations that trailed the crash, chief of which was the allegation that it was designed to happen, to check the restlessness among the middle ranking officers who were dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the country then.

It sounds like it just happened yesterday but that was some 31 years before. To now be hearing that their widows had yet to be paid their entitlements is incredible. I know we can’t put anything beyond our system as a country, the fact is; if this is true, then it is the height of callousness.

But because one should try not to be judgemental in an issue like this, it would be necessary to hear from the military authorities whether this claim is correct or not. Put differently, what kind of entitlement is being referred to here, because it is incredible that the military would not have paid the dependants of the dead officers a dime since their husbands died 31 years ago?

The widows bared their mind in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, during the visit of the President of Defence and Police Officers’ Wives Association (DEPOWA), who is also wife of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Mrs. Oghogho Musa, to distribute palliatives to wives of the fallen heroes. The gesture is an initiative of Department of Civil/Military Relationship, in conjunction with Office of the Wife of the CDS, in commemoration of the 2024 Armed Forces Remembrance Day.

Oghogho, who was received by the General Officer Commanding, 6 Division, Nigerian Army, Major-Gen, Jamal Abdussalam, distributed cartons of noddles, bags of rice, beans and other foodstuff to the widows at the occasion.

It was in the course of her giving the vote of thanks that one of the beneficiaries, Mrs. Folake Lasisi, the wife of late Lt.-Commander Lasisi of the Nigerian Navy, lamented that the entitlements meant for widows of the soldiers who died in the plane crash have not been released to them.

According to her, some of the widows have died, which is natural because 31 years is too long a period to expect that all the beneficiaries would still be alive. As a matter of fact, some of the children left behind by the officers have also died.

Lasisi said: “I am standing here as a representative of the widows of the Hercules C-130, plane crash on 26 September 1992. We the women, have not been given our entitlements after 31 years.

“We want you to help us to take our message home to the mother of the nation, the First Lady and the Armed Forces too. We want to feel a sense of belonging, even though our husbands are no longer there. We want to feel that we are still in your midst. We want to feel a sense of belonging.’

She added that “There are some things that are necessary for us to do and that is, our children. Some of them are not getting educational sponsorship. We want them to look at it and do something about it.”

It is already more than a week since Mrs Lasisi made the allegation that the widows were yet to be paid their husbands’ benefits and we are yet to hear from the military authorities. Some people say the military cannot respond to such issues just like that. I don’t know what that is supposed to mean. If it is true that these women have been left to their own devices in the last 31 years, then the military should have responded as early as yesterday, beginning with a public apology and an assurance to do the rightful with immediate effect. And all of these within three to four months because a lot of time had been lost already, not due to the fault of these widows but because of systemic collapse or inefficiency. So, they should not be punished for this.

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Even in normal times, we know what it is for the load of two people to now be carried by one, and the minor partner in the equation for that matter, in this instance. Even where both parties are working to keep the home going, we know it is not easy these days, given the rate of inflation and the general economic meltdown in the country.

As a matter of fact, the military authorities must work towards paying the entitlements with interest because whatever the money could have bought if paid promptly is not the same that it would buy today. This is the only way to ensure fairness in this matter.

But closure cannot be brought to this matter until we also know why this had happened at all or why it has indeed lingered. Are we sure these entitlements had not been released and cornered by some people? This is Nigeria where just everything is possible. Corruption is a thriving industry in the country and not

even the military is exempt. We have seen how defence money had been stolen by some military chiefs in the past.

This takes us to the issue of scholarship for the dead officers’ children. I don’t know whether the policy of such children forfeiting their scholarship once they don’t secure admission after 18 years is general with the military or peculiar to the Ejigbo victims’ children. Whatever it is, it is not the best that these children should get. The truth of the matter is that many children do not secure admission into higher institutions of their choice at that age. Even for those having both parents around and with the capacity to pay their school fees, it is not in all cases that the children make it to the university before they clock 18. Not to talk of a situation where only one parent, in most instances the mother, who now singlehandedly takes responsibility for the training of the children after their fathers’ demise. For the widows of the Ejigbo crash victims, it is even double jeopardy. They are not paid entitlements and they have responsibility to, say, three or four children. The tendency is for them to take one step at a time like, asking one child to wait for the other to finish secondary school because they can’t afford to send the two of them together. We know what it is like in a country where there are no scholarships, no structured help anywhere! How is it possible for children in such situation to make it to university before or by the time they are 18 years?

What I am saying is that the military authorities have their job cut out for them. The country’s armed forces can only make little progress with treatment such as the one suffered by the wives of these young military officers who died in the Ejigbo crash. The military hierarchs must look out for the extant rules and regulations or directives and policies responsible for these kinds of treatment to the dependants of people who paid the supreme sacrifice for the country to be at peace. It is true that soldiers had signed to die for the country. This is huge a price on its own. To now realise that their children and wives or other dependants have no guaranteed future after they die in active service is more than enough disincentive to upcoming officers.

The widows have pleaded with the president’s wife to intervene on their behalf. Although Mrs Oluremi Tinubu does not have any axe to wield directly in the circumstance; as a former governor’s wife and now the country’s first lady, she knows how to use her influence to get these women out of the predicament that Nigeria has put them. The widows too know she can be of help, that was why they specifically pleaded with her to come to their rescue.

The Nigerian Armed Forces Remembrance Day should not be an occasion to review parades and do gun salute alone. It should be an occasion for sober reflections and tackling serious issues affecting the dependants of our fallen heroes if we do not want their clan to go into extinction. Just as we cannot afford to forget the heroes, we cannot also forget their widows. It is by doing both well that we can win the kinds of internal wars that the country is facing today.

January 21, 2024
The evil that men do

For those wondering why the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) released its documentary report on the founder of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, the Late Pastor T.B Joshua more than two years after his death, the answer is in one of the famous quotes by Mark Anthony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”

The simple meaning of this quotation is that while the good that people do can literally be buried with them and quickly forgotten, their evil and unpleasant acts will always be remembered for long.

It’s up to people or organisations to choose to speak about, remember or focus on what they want to of the dead. If only many people cared what they would be remembered for, they would be more careful about the things they do in their lifetimes.

Unfortunately not many do. They carry on as if they would live forever and their actions and inactions would not someday be subjected to review and criticisms which they would not be in a position to respond to. They forget that some of those they took advantage of because of the vantage position they occupy would live to tell what they suffered from them.

Even while alive, much was reported about the questionable actions of Joshua and whatever revelations are contained in the BBC report are just further confirmation of the kind of the kind of person he was.

I have read more damming reports and watched videos about what many claim Joshua did to them and other allegations than those contained in the BBC report and there is no point for anyone to claim he is being spoken ill of when he is not alive to defend himself. Even when he could, he never did, just as the Church refused to state their side of the story when the BBC asked for their reaction to its findings and only waited to fault it after it was released.

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No one is contesting that some people did not have negative experiences with him. Still, those who experienced his other side should be free to tell their stories whenever they choose to even if the late pastor cannot be held accountable.

The good thing about the BBC report even long after Joshua is no more is to enable people to learn from it and let those who may be engaged in such atrocities know there would be a day of reckoning.

There are still many so-called spiritual leaders who are subjecting their followers to all kinds of inhuman treatment and should be called out for what they are. While many of those who easily get brainwashed by their spiritual leaders may not take the warnings seriously, like many didn’t while Joshua was alive, let it be known that they ignored the truth about the danger they are exposing themselves to.

While the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, there should be a way to ensure that people are not misled by false prophets who exploit people’s ignorance and needs. It should not be impossible to investigate accusations against faith leaders and anyone who engages in any act that abuses the rights of others.

If only some past accusations against Joshua and others like him had been thoroughly investigated, we would not have to wait until they are dead before exposing their misdeeds.

January 21, 2024
Energy deficit

The Lagos municipality was first electrified in 1886, long before our country came into being.

That is certainly impressive but much so is the fact that New York, now known to the world as the city of lights was first electrified in 1882, a mere four years before Lagos was connected to the modern miracle of municipally supplied electricity. Lagos was, in the beginning juiced up with electrify provided by two generators with a combined capacity of 60 Kw and must have generated a great buzz among the Lagosians who were alive at the time.

I spent my early years in the provinces and was witness to the arrival of electricity in Osogbo in 1957 where it generated great excitement, not least in our household. We had just arrived from Oyo at the time where we were familiar with the brightness of the electric light bulb. This is because we lived on the premises of the famous St Andrew’s College which had a generator which was operational until 10 pm and so we were very excited at the prospect of resuming our acquaintance with the wonders of electricity. By the time we arrived in Lagos in 1960, Lagos had a steady supply of electricity from the coal powered station at Ijora and from the point of view of electricity, life could not be better as power supply could, at that time be taken for granted at all times. The streets of Lagos were brightly lit by electric lamps which everywhere banished the oppression of darkness and turned Lagos into a twenty four hour city which never slept. The lights went off during the Civil War and never really came back again so that today, landing at the Lagos airport at night is like landing in another century, one that existed before the world knew the wonders of electricity. This is in sharp contrast to other more fortunate cities whose welcoming lights could be seen a long way off before your plane begins its descent into the sea of lights which they represented.

Now, there are not too many places in Nigeria where there is no supply of electricity, at least nominally. The vast majority of houses are wired for electricity even if the supply is at best, only fitful. But long after the miracle of 1886, electricity is no longer about light but power, power to do so many things that to be without it is to descend into the hell of the Middle ages and before. Now, the modern household will feel terribly deprived if electricity supply lasts only until 10 pm because fans, television sets, fridges, not to talk of those mobile phones waiting to be charged and all those other wonderful gadgets which keep us constantly in touch with modernity and life itself, need a constant all round supply of electricity. This is a far cry from what it was in 1886 when the mere provision of light was enough to send the citizenry into undiluted ecstasy. And there is no limit to the boundaries which electricity can cross at will.

This is a far cry from 1831 when Michael Faraday first created an electric current. This was a marvellous invention which caused such great excitement that Prince Albert, consort to Queen Victoria had to come to see for himself what all the fuss was about. Apparently, he was more puzzled than impressed by the demonstration of the existence of electric currents because after seeing the demonstration of this phenomenon he asked the expectant scientist what was the point of the electric current . As far as the royal visitor was concerned, the infant current was no more than a gimmick, something to provide some short lived entertainment for the multitudes of the great unwashed. The inventor, taken aback by the question replied with a question of his own. ‘Your Majesty, what is the point of a new born baby?’ That particular new born baby, treated by the prince with a distinct lack of enthusiasm has grown and is growing in so many directions that life on this planet would simply be impossible without it. In fact any debate about the usefulness of electricity to the world would be like the argument about the chicken and the egg as to which came first because in terms of the modern world, can there be a world, any world at all, without electricity? All round the world the materials which we consume in vast quantities are coming off all kinds of conveyor belts all driven by electricity without which nothing is made that was made. These days, you cannot even get a hair cut or clean your teeth without the involvement of electricity and we carry the badge of our serious underdevelopment in our inability to generate enough electricity to power the machines which produce all those artefacts which give meaning to our lives. And this is in spite of the fact that Lagos, the so called economic capital of Nigeria was electrified only four years after New York entered her own electrical age.

Lagos was dragged into her electrical age but unlike New York, the industrial revolution which ensured the phenomenal growth of that city did not come to Lagos and therefore, to be honest, no pre-industrial society has any real need of electricity. This is why Lagos can be said to have very little, if any need of electricity. Were the lights to go off completely in New York today, that city would be dead within twenty-four torrid hours. All the millions of lifts which keep those sky scrapers for which the city is famous operational will stop moving in an instant and for how long will the hundreds of thousands of people trapped in them survive? Navigating the streets will become impossible as all the street lights would be decommissioned with immediate effect and traffic snarled up for thousands of city miles. And what about the hospitals, tied as they are to the life support of continuous electricity supply? Those patients on life support would be dead in minutes and those undergoing any form of surgical intervention for whatever ails them would follow shortly thereafter. As for Lagos, if the lights were to go off for any length of time, the primitive beat of life in the city will go on, perhaps indefinitely and the situation, at least in the first few days, will excite nothing more than snide remarks or some form of gallows humour to make the situation bearable. There are precious few conveyor belts to be halted in Lagos and babies can be born in the feeble glow of torch lights. Under those conditions, life would go on and a lot more babies will be conceived. Humourous Lagosians would notice the bump and come up with a nickname for the cohort of babies born during the period covered by the extended power outage. In time, the dark days will be relegated so far back that it would be completely forgotten much sooner than later. For New York, life without electricity for twenty-four hours will be like a massive heart attack whereas for Lagos, it will maybe register as a little blip, not worthy of mention.

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For all that, the most single topic of conversation in Nigeria is electricity or to be more specific, the lack of it. I went to a secondary school in Lagos in the sixties, more than seventy years after the electrification of the city. I spent seven memorable years in that school and throughout that period, the school routine was disturbed on less than six occasions by a power cut and this was brought about by the general strike of 1964 when workers walked off their places at Ijora. As a result of this, evening prep had to be suspended, much to the delight of the student body which savoured the unexpected but most welcome suspension of engagement with dull school books. We gathered in little groups to tell tall tails and waited for normalcy to be restored. Now, even with generators and other backup facilities, I wonder if there are schools in Lagos that can guarantee that power cuts will not disrupt their activities at some point in time throughout the school year. This sign of a regression to the distant past is unmistakeable.

In the intervening years between my experience in a Lagos in which electricity supply could be taken for granted and now, electricity has taken on a new and disturbing meaning in Nigeria. A vast and expanding sum of money has been spent only to be incinerated in the search for the provision of electricity to the expanding population of a country that has become bogged down in a morass of underdevelopment and an insane expansion in population. More and more people are facing the contradiction of dwindling resources amidst the rigours of galloping inflation and rising demands for a better life even as the possibility of meaningful employment receded on a more or less daily basis forcing the indefinite postponement of life goals, a postponement that is threatening to become a termination. We are confronted with myriad problems but right at the bottom of the pile is that of productivity. There is a lack of the means of production and so we are unemployed, misemployed or underemployed and those that are lucky enough to be employed are underpaid and disgruntled. There is a shortage, an acute shortage of power in this country and as our population grows, our ability to cope diminishes to the same extent as the number of people needing any form of service increases.

For close to eight months now, we have been scratching our heads as to solve the pressing problem of how to afford the cost of diesel, petrol, aviation fuel, cooking gas, charcoal and even fire wood. When we factor in the uncertain supply of electricity, it becomes clear that we are in the fierce grip of an acute shortage of power to produce anything. This is why we are forced to import virtually everything from other countries where the problem of any shortage of productive power has been solved. At various times in history, certain countries have stepped forward to claim the title of workshop to the world. Following the Industrial Revolution in the middle years of the eighteenth century, the global workshop was centred in Birmingham, England. At that time, coal provided power for production and so much coal was burnt in the area around Birmingham that that area acquired the name of Black country because the whole place was blackened by the smoke from burning coal. Since then, other parts of the globe have taken up the challenge of producing the industrial goods consumed all over the world. The USA, Germany, Japan have at various times provided the world with finished goods. Today, India and more strongly, China are the leaders of consumer goods production and their respective economies are booming which is why their peoples are being promoted into a comfortable global middle class.

Over in Nigeria, we have not yet arrived at the starting point of industrial production because we are in the grip of a suffocating energy shortage. This is in spite of the fact that even though for more than half a decade Nigeria has been one of the leading producers of the greatest source of energy, crude oil from which other countries have extracted vast quantities of energy. They are using the energy availm produced all sorts of wonderful goods for which we have developed an unhealthy appetite. All we have done is set up a rentier economy which has bred nothing other than rank corruption for which we are justly famous of if you like, infamous. More and more Nigerians are falling into intractable poverty and terror stalks the land with a ferocity which is destroying our joys and well being. Nigeria is slowly roasting in the unquenchable fires of crude oil and it is becoming apparent that there is nothing we can do about it.

January 21, 2024