The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

‘Sisi Mi’ is gone!

Sisi Mi’, as my mum was fondly called before she eventually became upgraded to ‘grandma’, is gone! Mrs. Winifred Feyisetan Olaleye died on Monday, October 2, in the course of a protracted sickness that began with what we thought was a minor leg injury, following a fall between her room and sitting room, in July, last year. That was the last time she walked properly.

Read Also: How MohBad died, by Police

When in May, 2023, her right hip was eventually replaced, albeit without any seeming complications, we thought the worst was over. She had even begun physiotherapy and appeared to be recovering. Then one thing followed the other until she eventually succumbed to the cold hands of death.

She was aged 87.

October 8, 2023
A promise keeper?

Many Nigerian public officials are very tall in words but short in action. That was why I wasn’t particularly optimistic when the Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, said in an interview on Television Continental (TVC) that he was going to revolutionise the issuance of international passports, about three weeks ago.

Until recently, it was easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it was to get our passport. It could take months, perhaps longer. Indeed, Tunji-Ojo inherited a backlog of over 200,000 passport applications.

I never knew the minister from Adam. But he impressed me during the interview on ‘Journalists Hangout’. He spoke on the passport conundrum, condition of our correctional centres, etc. My conclusion of that first impression was that if only this man would match words with action, then, his ministry and indeed Nigeria would be the better for it.

Another new appointee of the Federal Government who impressed me in a similar interview on the same station about two weeks ago is the new Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal (AVM) Hassan Abubakar.

He too mesmerised me with a thorough articulation of his brief.

If the depth of understanding of their briefs by these two men is a fair representation of the government’s cabinet, then, Nigeria should be in for an early recovery, despite our present seemingly daunting challenges.

Read Also: Tunji-Ojo, Sununu resign from House of Reps

I am however devoting today to Tunji-Ojo. He has begun to deliver on his promises. ‘Talki-n-ado’ (talk and do), as we say. He has not only cleared the backlog of passports awaiting action that he inherited, about 204,000 in all, he has gone some steps further. His reforms include applicants uploading their “passport online, you upload your supporting documents online, so when you go to the immigration office, you spend just like five minutes just to have your biometric captured; that’s all,” he added while speaking with Channels Television, last week. Hopefully, this new arrangement would be in place by December. The long and short of it is that by the time he is through with his revolution in the passport offices, virtually the entire processes would be computerised, thus reducing human interaction to the barest minimum.

This makes eminent sense. Human beings are prone to temptations. Their wants (mind you, wants, not needs) are numerous. They want to own the most grandiose houses, ride the best vehicles (and, may be men or women), drink the costliest ‘koinyan’, flaunt their ill-gotten wealth, sometimes in the most annoying and ungodly manner. In most cases, it is only corruption that can produce and sustain these wants. The computer has no such need and so is not corrupt. It can only be corrupted.

It beggars belief that someone would head a ministry like that of interior for years and Nigerians would be cringing before very junior public servants and miscreants to get passport, which is their natural right.

Tunji-Ojo has proved that it is not a question of how long but how well. He was sworn in only on August 21. No one should blame those of us who suddenly had a change of our names to Doubting Thomas when he promised to clear the backlog within two or so weeks. It is not our fault. That is what we had been conditioned to believe over the years. That issuance of our passport is rocket science. Something that Christians among us have to read the Litany, the Muslims reading the longest ‘Ayat’ in the Holy Quran, or the traditional worshippers making some lengthy incantations besieging our ancestors to see us through the laborious processes of making Nigerians get international passport!

Tunji-Ojo’s achievement with issuance of passports has completely demystified his predecessors under whose watch passport ownership became a status symbol and its issuance, a growth area.

But, let no one make no mistake about it; there will be backlash from people who had been feeding fat on the decadent order, particularly in the ministry. They are the much-talked-about corruption that would always fight back. As I have always said, corruption in this country is like sin that many of us eat as if we are eating food. It is very sweet, especially as it makes its perpetrators smile to the bank with so much ill-gotten wealth for doing little or nothing.

But the war will not only come from the miscreants and leeches in the system who profit from other people’s sorrow. Some of those who had presided over the rot that sustained the delay in issuance of passports in the ministry are also not likely to take their being demystified kindly.

So, the minister has to keep watching his back all the time. There should be neither spiritual nor physical carelessness, especially with regard to his security. He is working in the midst of wolves.

But this is not to say that everybody in the ministry is corrupt. There should be some good people in the system, after all the place is neither Soddom nor Gomorrah.

The minister must, after settling down to business, sift the wheat from the chaff so as to know how to relate with the different categories of workers. Each must be rewarded according to his or her contribution.

But, if such noticeable improvement can happen in so short a time with regard to issuance of passports, then there are several possibilities in other areas, if only the drivers of the process know what they are doing.

But the government must be ready to render the necessary support. It is astonishing that a country that is celebrating 63 years of independence cannot produce its own international passport. The Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) must be provided facilities to produce such document. It should be given the marching order to do things like that after the government must have done its bit; that is, provided it with the requisite tools to perform such functions. After that, those running it should be told to shape up or ship out. The naira cannot appreciate if we continue to do some of these things that we should do within, abroad.

There should be no big deal about issuance of international passports. This is a document that virtually every country issues to their nationals wishing to travel out to other countries without hassle.

All said, Dr Tunji-Ojo must realise that he is also in charge of our correctional centres. The point must be made that although the name has been changed from prisons to correctional centres, not much has changed in terms of welfare for the inmates.

After stabilising on issuance of passports, this should be his next port of call. How can the lot of inmates in the centres be improved? The money may not be enough for everything, but the best must be made of the available resources. Leakages must be blocked because no one can convince me that the correctional centres are immune from the corrupt tendencies in the passport offices or even the country at large. The minister has to strengthen the security in the correctional centres to reduce jailbreaks to the barest minimum. I say this well conscious of the fact that the ongoing fight on President Bola Tinubu’s academic credentials is getting messy and can only get messier. It has become ‘roforofo’ fight which might be continued in every imaginable area. We all know how far some of our politicians can go to make political point.

Be that as it may, I congratulate the minister on his appointment and appeal to him not to rest on his oars. It’s a marathon. He should expect all kinds of obstacles on his way. These are mere distractions that should be ignored. He should be guided by the fact that it is he who endures to the end that gets saved.

And, as for AVM Abubakar, he had delivered in terms of his theoretical understanding of his brief. I want to also have the opportunity to write on him as I have done about the Minister of Interior. I know the situations are not exactly the same. But there is no challenge that is insurmountable. The government should endeavour to provide whatever he needs to deliver. Nigerians want to be able to sleep with their two eyes closed. Abubakar and the other service chiefs are crucial to the realisation of this dream.

October 8, 2023
Mali could unravel soon, as Nigeria is hobbled

After three coups in recent years, and the expulsion of United Nations and French military contingents, Mali is on the cusp of military and political disaster. The coups were supposedly in reaction to the flagging anti-jihadist war under two elected or interim presidents, and the allegedly complicit or ineffective involvement of the French in counterinsurgency operations in the northern and central parts of the country. After the expulsion of the UN and French forces, and their replacement with about 1,000 Russian Wagner mercenary forces, the war has still continued to go badly for the Malians, with fresh reports indicating massive gains by al-Qaeda-affiliated militants in central Mali, and the besiegement of Timbuktu.

Read Also: Africa: Coups, barrack revolts and leadership questions

ECOWAS may have had a bad time dealing with rampaging coups in the sub-region, including the latest in Gabon and Niger Republic, but they now need to urgently convene an extraordinary meeting to counter the situation before it gets out of hand. This time, they must exude less emotion, and together with their foreign policy experts, the African Union, and the chafing UN, find a solution to the crisis if they are not to be confronted by a nightmare too difficult to handle. The problem is no longer just that of West Africa; it is an African crisis. Nigeria must speedily conclude its election litigations in order to release President Bola Tinubu to provide the needed leadership to confront what may be an epochal crisis.

October 8, 2023
Conspiratorial coalition shows true colour

Halfway into former vice president Atiku Abubakar’s voyage of discovery into President Bola Tinubu’s academic records in the United States, it was all but clear that the expedition was an exercise in futility. The school attended by the president, Chicago State University (CSU), insisted he was their student, and had even finished on the honours list. Disappointed by how unencumbered the real story about the president’s university days was, and miffed by the explosion of all their myths and concocted stories about the records, the coalition of conspirators who had sworn to exposing the president and diminishing his 2023 presidential election victory have embarked on another fruitless journey. This time, apart from trying to damage the president’s personality and destroying his credibility, which they have kept in view, the conspirators have also trained their guns on his supporters or anyone that as much as offers a kind or sympathetic word in his favour.

The spatial distribution of the conspirators, not to say the victims of the social media-led campaign designed to ridicule and stigmatise, should alarm any Nigerian anxious about national stability. The conspirators may be unaware of their regional locus, and perhaps may calm down or desist altogether if they recognise the regional and ethnic implications of their campaigns, but few people can tell exactly how their minds work. The northern opposition to President Tinubu’s victory, with the possible and singular exception of Alhaji Atiku, has been considerably tame or even silent. Despite the social and economic dislocations the president’s economic policies have unleashed, the Southwest has also been largely silent, save for a few netizens and rejected or diminished Yoruba leaders and opinion moulders. Having spent an inordinate amount of time fighting the emergence of the president, the largely Christian Middle Belt, pleasantly shocked by the distribution of appointments, particularly in the security services, have quietened down and moved on.

Disturbingly, as if revealing their real identity and objectives, the coalition of conspirators has unleashed a fusillade on Southwest religious leaders whom they allege have lent support to the president. Deploying social media tools to devastating effect, Charles Oputa, aka, Charly Boy, former Aviation minister Osita Chidoka, DJ Switch, an upstart unknown before EndSARS, and Oby Ezekwesili have pilloried Pastors W.F. Kumuyi and Enoch Adeboye for saying nothing more than that Nigeria would prosper and receive political healing. Mrs Ezekwesili mocked the president over the eventual release of his academic records, wondering whether it would not have been far easier for him to have done it willingly than be coerced by US courts. And because the elections did not favour Labour Party (LP) candidate Peter Obi, and instead President Tinubu was declared winner, she advocated the ‘root and branch reform’ of both the electoral umpire, INEC, and the judiciary.

Read Also: Chicago varsity has addressed all questions regarding Tinubu, says Okeh

DJ Switch, whose real name is Obianuju Catherine Udeh, was cynical, rude and irreverent. She said: “Pastor Adeboye constantly urging Nigerians to pray for Nigeria… but rarely calls out the cause of Nigeria’s woes! Rarely calls them out for a failure to serve. The Jesus you worship served and called out corruption point blank! Some of una go say touch not my anointed! Anointing wey no dey anoint.” Her sarcasm was directed at Pastor Adeboye after he called for national healing during an October 1, 2023 service in Lagos. DJ Switch was unmindful of her youth and the age of the cleric she gave a full length of her tongue. In fact, weeks earlier, she had had ridiculed Pastor Adeboye for ‘finding his voice’ when he suggested that God would help President Tinubu fix Nigeria. In July, Charly Boy drew inspiration from the street revolt in France over the police killing of a 17-year-old immigrant to urge Nigerian youths to the streets. As far as he was concerned, Mr Obi’s votes were stolen, and the election was badly flawed and not credible.

Responding to Alhaji Atiku’s success in getting President Tinubu’s records released, and not minding whether what was released was seismic enough to cause any damage or embarrassment, Mr Chidoka weighed in against the president thus: “That all the aforementioned institutions allowed a man to be sworn in without definitive statements about his qualifications is a national tragedy. For 23 years, the issue of President Tinubu has been a recurring decimal in our national equation. Under his reign, a current youth corps member is serving as minister, and people under investigation by the EFCC and made public are sitting in the Federal Executive Council. And they all passed through security screening.” For many like the former minister, every opportunity, real or imagined, strong or weak, had to be seized upon to excoriate the president. It was, therefore, not surprising that the Emmanuel Onwubiko-led Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), which lent itself to the services of Mr Obi in the last presidential election, also responded to the released academic records by describing it as a ‘shameful case of identity theft and certificate forgery’, and asking the Supreme Court to disqualify the president or compel him to resign. The organisation offered no credible grounds for their prejudices and conclusions.

Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka is the latest victim of the regional castigators. Presuming to quote Prof James Gibbs, but it was in fact one of the deliberate concoctions with which the Tinubu antagonists have suffused the social media, they allege that the eminent professor falsely claimed to have got a first-class in Literature from the University of Leeds.

He has challenged them. However, the more he challenges them, the more he arms them with some relevance. They will not relent; for they are not motivated by anything noble, true or good. Since the professor took on Mr Obi and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, describing their electoral views as fantasies and their excoriation of the Supreme Court as a manifestation of fascism, they have continued to assail him. But the country has taken note of all that is happening, the spatial distribution of the anti-Nigerian and antidemocratic views, the effort to incite youths into rebellion and goad the military into subversion, and Nigeria will speak with one voice in the next election cycle.

October 8, 2023
Dystopia and the invention of Nigeria
- The road to Ihube
Suddenly, Ihube has acquired a fearsome reputation and reinvention in the nation’s political imaginary as a secessionist stronghold; a hotbed of IPOB’s guerilla activities and a dreaded enclave of murderous abductors. The charred remnants of vegetation and incinerated farmsteads spoke to unrelenting aerial bombardment and a new passage of thunder. But the Ihube that remains in the imagination of this writer is totally different.

   Forty eight years ago when yours sincerely served as a Youth Corper in the area, Ihube was an idyllic and somewhat somnolent agrarian community lying just off the main road that connected Okigwe to Enugu through Awgu. The place was bursting with farm produce from the outlying villages. Just after the elite Ihube-Okigwe Boys Secondary School was a lonesome unpaved road that slithered through sand and dust to the Mbala-Ngodo-Isuochi community and beyond.

If you kept going at it in the right direction, you might find yourself in Arondizuogu and its famed People’s Palace. The other direction might eventually land you in Orumba North District and Alex Ekwueme’s Okoh community.

Although the regnant scars of the civil war were still visible then, the remarkable people were making a remarkable comeback. It was only a question of a short time. Now, there is a clear danger that it may all end in tears again.

Nigerians are an awfully inventing and inventive lot. In the course of inventing and reinventing others, they also get invented and reinvented. People and places and nations collect a lot of sobriquets, nomenclatures and nicknames in the course of their existence in most cases as a response to existential pressures and historical exigencies.

Read Also: We’re ready to negotiate peaceful exit from Nigeria – IPOB

All entities, both human and non-human, are constantly imagined and their images redrawn in the universal imaginary. It is said that those who enjoy raiding rabbit warrens also have their own hind thoroughly frisked by divine retribution.

But while negative profiling and hostile “inventions” of others, particularly rival nations, is the norm in adversarial international relations, they can only stick if the reality on ground matches the adversarial portrait. No amount of “bad mouth” and negative profiling can remove the anodyne sweetness of honey, just as no amount of treatment and reprocessing can remove the sharp and nettling taste of raw pepper.

By this same token, positive and imaginative self-profiling by a nation can only succeed if the reality on ground matches the self-projection. For example, how did the word “Teutonic” come to be associated with German precision of tools and the ruthless efficiency of its industrial workforce?

Originally, the word denoted a person of Germanic ancestry. But by the time the tough Germans erupted on modern civilization, the word had acquired added meaning as a result of steely performance based on rational evaluation and militant self-belief.

The positive self-profiling by Americans of their country’s Exceptionalism, its manifest destiny as a covenanted nation and its occult valorization as a little city shining on the hills whose light cannot be obscured or occluded is validated by the concrete reality on the ground as America took centre stage as the global exemplar of a functioning democracy and accelerated national development.

One sure thing about all this is the fact that stirring tropes are impossible without elite unanimity about the destiny of the nation. This critical consensus among ruling groups is the glue that binds all exceptional nations together irrespective of ideologies: the western liberal democracies, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, China, Russia, Japan etc. Without it, nations merely toil in vain and are nothing but sheer geopolitical agglomerations of anarchic ethnicities such as we have in postcolonial Africa.

It has been observed by some shrewd commentators that Nigeria is a wonderful tribute to the subversive genius of the colonial masters. If such a big resource-laden country in the heart of Africa did not exist in the colonial imagination, it would have had to be willed into existence by postcolonial patriots thrown up by the decolonizing project.

Many have noted that this rosy projection exists mainly at the level of imagination and child-like fantasy. Out of nothing, nothing will come. The postcolonial elites of Africa have willed nothing substantial into existence and are unlikely to do so in the nearest future if the current political sterility, economic and spiritual anomie continue.

All the extant nations on the continent, except Ethiopia, are creations of colonial fiat. No new African country has been created by pan-African concert and consensus. Eritrea and South Sudan were international projects rather than local initiatives. In Nigeria, the continental behemoth, the major nationalities were boxed together and coerced into nation-hood by sheer colonial firepower.

The attempt to sustain this colonial contretemps at the level of internal colonization by the last indigenous empire met with military doom on the plains of Jukunland, the Jos Plateau and the Osun River in what is known as Jalumi War. Thereafter, the local superpower resorted to political intrigues and subterfuge to recoup what it lost on the battle ground.

This war of hegemony among the major nationalities in Nigeria, now overt and now covert; now brutally frontal and now by superb proxy is at the root of the dystopia which has made it impossible for the nation to make any meaningful progress since independence either on the political or the economic front.

Elite consensus on the political and economic destiny of the nation is a prerequisite for any major economic or political breakthrough, particularly in multi-ethnic nations. This is why coerced national consensus, such as we have seen in Rwanda, Equatorial   Guinea, Namibia and Uganda, can feel like a harbinger of peace and prosperity.

   Unable to arrive at a consensus on any major national political project or programme for the economic resuscitation of the nation, the Nigerian elite resort to spectacular stealing schemes and raids on the exchequer so daring and outlandish that they must call to question the mental wellbeing of the perpetrators.

   But the chicks may be coming home to roost. The auguries are dark and foreboding. With the economy stretchered and on a life support machine, it is obvious that some endgame is approaching. The nation is roiling in dysfunction and disequilibrium. It will be foolish for anybody to dismiss this as mere apocalyptic scaremongering.

   Last week, the nation marked its sixty third independence anniversary in a dark and sombre mood. Almost everybody wore forlorn and mournful looks. With inflation hitting the roof and with the purchasing power of the national currency sharply reduced, it will require an economic wizard with formidable political balls to get Nigeria out of the wood.

To compound and deepen the trauma of the nation is the political anomie foisted on it by an errant political class. Isn’t it a source of pain and misery and a fountain of national embarrassment that several months after a presidential election held and a winner declared, the main political combatants have refused to sheathe their swords?

More than six months after, the rancor persists; the hate-filled propaganda and no-holds barred dissemination of fake news continues. The foul and fetid odor of political muck-raking assaults the nostrils at every turn turning the country into an object of international ridicule and global obloquy. Any rational objection to the theatre of political absurdity is met with indignant howls of derision and disdain.

If you meet with the core supporters of the losing candidates and you insist that based on the current political configuration of Nigeria, the extant balance of electoral power, the patchwork alliances and the disposition of judicial forces on ground the outcome was unlikely to be different, you are likely to be assailed as an enemy of democracy, peace and progress.

Amidst so many violently colliding notions of the truth and of justice and democracy, the invention and reinvention of Nigeria also proceeds apace. If this were to be a secondary school, even the senior prefect would have been subjected to brutal assault in the consuming chaos and anarchy of wild and untamed private desires.

   Politics is the canalization and channelization of wild private desires for public order and national good. In order to escape the Hobbesian state of nature such as we have in contemporary Nigeria and much of postcolonial Africa, individuals and groups must be willing to surrender their private desires for public good or it will be done for them by an implacable homogenizing Leviathan, failing which it will be the turn of disruptive forces of disintegration to try their luck.

The impatience with natural disorder was what made Hegel, the great conservative German philosopher and ardent fan of Prussian military hegemony, to declare that what is real is rational and what is rational is real.

A great nation is often the triumph of public order however harsh and autocratic over contending private fantasies however egalitarian and republican. The French and Russian revolutionists learnt this lesson the hard way.

   We can now begin to plot our way out of the conundrum and the paradox of a nation that underachieves where the state and modern governance is concerned but overachieves where individual talents and the exploits of private citizens are concerned. Immigration officials at global entry points who profile prospective entrants speak in unison of Nigerians and their proud, imperious and lordly bearing in contrast to most other Africans. That is not taught by the state.

The spectacular explosion of talents in the arts, music, fashion and sports as well as the exploits of Nigerians abroad in their various fields of human endeavor speak to a fundamental disjuncture. Why is it that it is when the state and governance are left out of their business that Nigerians tend to come into their own?

Do we then ask the stunted and underachieving state to leave us severely alone? Not so fast and not on your life. In the absence of a potent and viable state, Nigeria will become a nursery bed and humongous hatchery for transporting and exporting talents to more viable nations abroad. The remittances will dry up and stop completely in the second generation. This is the iron law of emigration.

The problem with the postcolonial state in Nigeria is the weak national consensus on which it is anchored and the genetic indiscipline of the political elite. Rather than retreating in order to live to fight another day, the opposition appears bent on bringing the roof down. In the controversial presidential election of 2000, Al Gore was the winner by more than half a million votes and was only denied the presidency by some electoral skullduggery.

   But he bravely and nobly refused to bring the system down. The nation was far more important. The Democrats went back to the drawing board and kept at it. Eight years after, they emerged from the shadows and through the instrumentality of the Barack Obama phenomenon they were able to put the Republicans out of their misery. The ping pong has continued.

   What Nigeria needs is urgent constitutional reform which is impossible without fundamental elite amity. Our brothers, sisters and compatriots from the east should not allow their people to be made to carry the can for a dysfunctional and malfunctioning Nigerian postcolonial state once again. Their leading lights must come up with a comprehensive blueprint for achieving peace in the restive region. This writer counts many of them as his personal friends. The bloodletting and economic self-emasculation has gone on for far too long.
October 8, 2023
Taliban Times and Wigless Wonder
- As Baba Lekki surfaces
As rogue elements within the Police Command continue to harass and extort money from innocent ladies under the guise of checking indecent exposure, snooper was sure that this criminal abridgement of fundamental human rights must come to grief very shortly. Either the women would organise themselves into an invading force or they would collectively invoke the ancient curse which would see many policemen reporting missing vital organs.

    When snooper was contemplating this scenario, we did not reckon with the antics of the old hell-raiser and itinerant freedom fighter. Before then, the fear of the police was the beginning of wisdom for scantily dressed ladies.

Despite the strong retraction of the state government and the police that they had nothing to do with this ritual of medieval shame, the practice has continued with relentless and often comic ferocity. Snooper watched the police frisk some young women around Ikeja, and it was not a funny sight at all.

Read Also: Bandits kill five, abduct housewives, others in Zaria

      Last week, the superman finally came to the supermarket. It was said that the police arrested an old hag provocatively dressed and bundled the harridan into their jeep. As they began frisking the suspect, the wig, false teeth and powder started coming apart revealing a very old man.

     “Kai, mona, dis one na mammy water !!!!”, the constable screamed as he jumped out of the moving vehicle. The vehicle was quickly abandoned by the absconding cops, leaving an old man screaming at them in triumph.

“ Come oo, officer, come oo abi you no wan do again, abi old woman abunna no sweet pass your mama him pabanbari? Abi una Kukuruku blokos no fit wire for dem karuwa sam sam? Omo ale!!!” he jeered at the fleeing cops.

A huge crowd gathered and began hailing the liberator. Lo, it was Baba Lekki.
October 8, 2023
Going dark or holding the fort, the wheel’s get to keep rolling

President Bola Tinubu was almost entirely out of the public eyes all through the week, save for the occasional voice drops, echoed by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, though press releases. That did not however mean that it was a stand still at House Number 1. As a matter of fact, being the week preceding the Independence Day Anniversary celebration, to mark Nigeria’s 63rd anniversary as an independent entity, there were a couple of activities reversed for the Presidency and one must say that they were perfectly handled.

Since he left New York in the United States of America (USA), where he participated in the 78th edition of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and gave what has been adjudged by many as one of the finest outings by an African head of state at the UN, making very daring and bold statements on the unequal relationship between African and the rest of the world, the Jagaban had taken some time off to give his body the needed rest.

It would be recalled that President Tinubu has been in the air for several hours in the month of September for different international engagements and all targeted at solving many of the age-long issues we have lived with as a nation. First it was 11 hours 20 minutes Abuja – New Delhi flight on September 4, where he had to attend the G-20 Leaders Summit as well as transacting businesses on behalf of Nigeria. There are 4 hours 30 minutes time difference between Nigeria and India; like when it is 12:30pm in Nigeria, it is 5pm in India.

Read Also: Tinubu addresses Nigerians on Sunday

Then on leaving India, he made a stop at Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), after a 3 hours 43 minutes flight on September 10 and returned to Abuja on September 12, another 10 hours 30 minutes flight. Note, again, that UAE is three hours ahead of Nigeria.

Then five days after the hectic return from Abu Dhabi, that was September 17, he had been scheduled to jet out to New York, another almost 14 hours of flight, to attend the UNGA and engage in other national businesses. Also note that Abuja is 5 hours ahead of New York. These happened back-to-back within a month. Within fourteen days, he has been in the air, cumulatively, for 39 hours 33 minutes and has traversed extensive time zones to the East and West of the globe, within same period.

It should therefore not surprise anyone when it became obvious that the President decided to go off work to rest for a few days before returning to his desk. Taking time off did not mean that he was entirely out of circulation. Right from after the UNGA outing when he went dark, Baba has responded to a couple of issues from offshore.

For instance, on Sunday, he responded to the unfortunate abduction of some female students of the Federal University Gusau (FUG) in Zamfara State. Reports had indicated that a number of students from the university were kidnapped by suspected terrorists from their hostel in Sabon Gida on Friday, September 22. He responded on Sunday with a marching directive to security forces to secure the victims’ unconditional release and within hours, seven of the students and three construction workers had been rescued by the military. Even offshore, Baba is not letting things fall apart.

Also on the Eid-el-Moulud festival day, the President reached out to Nigerians to make a call for nationalism, emphasising reasons why all citizens need to support government to achieve the desired Nigeria, saying “Nigeria has arrived at an important juncture. While the government is taking all necessary measures to make the country secure and economically viable, we need the full support of the citizenry in the form of patriotism, patience, and prayers. The light is certainly bright at the end of the tunnel”.

However, one thing that the absence of the President during the week and the way the system has smoothly run, notwithstanding, and considering it is a period of an important national event, has proven one thing; Tinubu selected the right set of hands to run the system with him. The way the Vice President, Kashim Shettima, steadied the state-craft’s navigation was a magnificent. All through the week, it was from one state matter to another.

From his Eid-el-Moulud message to Nigerians on Tuesday, in which he called on citizens to work with the Tinubu administration for the good of all, to the various audiences in his office, including the ones with the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Surat Group and MTN Nigeria, also on Tuesday, the Vice President has continued to prove his mettle, leaving no one in doubt.

However, of all the activities involving the “Aso Rock’s Socrates” (a fitting nickname for the philosopher Vice President, who does not deliver speech, even extempore, without accurate quotes from some of the wisest figures of history), his 63rd Independence Anniversary Public Lecture has been tipped as the message of the week.

Just like he called out in his Eid-el-Moulud message, Shettima re-echoed the need for all Nigerians to join the efforts by government to re-order Nigeria’s evolution. To him, Nigeria of every citizen’s dream will only be forged when everyone sees the task as a personal one. To him, the Renewed Hope Agenda of the administration is a well thought-out plan, aimed at getting most Nigerians out of poverty and set the tone for something recognizing an advanced economy, but then this laudable ‘theory’ will only gain life when everyone sees it for what is.

“Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the future of a great nation is not determined by the occurrence of their socioeconomic challenge. The future of every nation rests on the intention, sincerity and innovative ideas of its leaders and their commitment to implementing them.

“This is why President Bola Tinubu eight-point agenda remains an oasis in a scorching sun. We cannot renew the hope of the nation unless we deliver on our promise to drive food security and eradicate poverty.

“We cannot foster economic growth and nurture job creation unless we facilitate access to capital, enhance national security and optimize the business environment for our enterprises. We are going to uphold the rule of law and fight corruption to design the Nigeria of our dream. We can’t achieve any of these unless each citizen remains a strategic partner in pursuit of our ultimate national interests.

“At 63, we recognize that what has sustained us and propelled us forward is our collective belief that overcoming the challenges we have inherited necessitates sacrifices, especially from us, the leaders.

“We are driven by the realization that these sacrifices are not for nought. They are investments in a brighter future, investments that will redeem the future, the fortune of our great generation and guarantee the well being of generations to come.

“Your Excellencies, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, the present administration also recognizes that the sacrifices made by each Nigerian will never be in vain. Such solidarity with the economy revival strategy, from the bustling streets of Lagos to the serene landscapes of Enugu has inspired our focus on diverse sectors, from agriculture to digital technology, from healthcare to education”, the Vice President said.

According to Shettima, the Tinubu administration was not oblivious that there would be hurdles on its way towards achieving its campaign promises for Nigerians, but noted that the government’s faith in achieving success had been built on the realization that Nigerians are never broken by temporary setback.

“We knew from the starting point of this race to serve the people that the track will not be without it holes and ponds. We knew that challenges will arise and obstacles will test our resolve, but as our history has shown, Nigerians are too ambitious to be broken by a temporary setback. We are going to emerge from this phase of our reforms stronger, each of us, with renewed hope.

“As we honor the labours of our heroes past, as we reflect on the values and principles that have bought us this far, as we strive to excel in all that we do, and as we walk together towards a future where opportunity knows no bounds, let’s remember that our most potent weapon is the overriding resolve of the majority to choose unity over chaos and democracy over anarchy”, Shettima said.

The week was dedicated to the celebration of the nation coming of age and it ends today with other activities to be performed by the President. He came in on Friday and he is expected to address the nation in a broadcast and inspect a guard of honour today. This is believed to be his resumption from his brief break. We await more activities as the week starts off.

October 1, 2023
It will be government’s fault if workers go on strike as planned

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

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

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

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

Read Also: Tinubu addresses Nigerians on Sunday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All such intentions will, however, fail.

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

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

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

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

October 1, 2023
Idle servants

The drama that played out last Thursday at the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing in Abuja between the Minister, David Umahi and the workers over the locking of the gates against latecomers is unfortunate.

Umahi who arrived at the office at 9:30 am had reportedly ordered the gates to be locked because most of the staff, including directors had not resumed contrary to the agreed 9:am resumption time.

The normal 8 a.m. resumption time had been moved to 9 a.m. after a meeting by the Minister and Directors of the ministry due to the distance from where many staff live to Abuja and the high cost of transportation.

Notwithstanding the one hour extra time, not more than five per cent of the workers were in the office according to the Minister when he arrived at the office.

In response to being locked out, the workers resorted to protest and also confined the minister to his office, demanding an apology even when the gates were later opened.

It was reported that the protesting workers prevented entry and exit into the building thereby preventing the minister from leaving the office to receive the Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who came to the headquarters on a courtesy visit.

The matter was not resolved until the minister apologised while addressing the workers after a leader of the union expressed the displeasure of the workers arguing that the procedure adopted by the Minister was not in line with the civil service rule.

While the minister could have acted contrary to the civil service regulations for punishing late coming as the union leader claimed, the workers should blame themselves for forcing him to resort to locking them out to gain their attention as the Minister said to justify the decision of the Human Resources department.

Having complained to the directors about the late resumption of the workers and agreed on the 9 a.m. resumption time, the Minister needed to call the workers to order in any way that was possible since there was no indication that the workers were ready to take their jobs seriously.

Read Also: David Umahi: From frying pan to fire?

The directors should have communicated the agreed resumption time to the workers and the union leaders instead of expecting the Minister to reach out to the union executive as the labour leader demanded.

Sadly, the workers had allowed the situation in the ministry to degenerate to the extent that they would come to work at noon and by 3 p.m. when the Minister asked for some files, those in charge would have left.

How is the minister expected to perform his duties when the workers are indisciplined and would want to hide under the civil service rule to get away with idleness?

The lazy attitude of many civil servants to work is well known and there is no justification for those locked out last Thursday to behave as if they did nothing wrong. Resorting to any form of protest as they did amounted to behaving as if they were above the law and could not be called to order.

There is a way that many civil servants generally go about their work as if they don’t have to justify their pay. It doesn’t matter to many civil servants if they do the work they are supposed to do or not since they will usually get paid. Their pay doesn’t depend on their productivity or profit, so they feel free to take as much time as they can off duty without fear of easily getting sacked as in the private sector.

While it is commendable of the Minister to apologise to the workers, the point about being disciplined and punctual for duties should not be lost on the workers and their leaders.

The workers should appreciate the motive of the minister to get their attention to having a better attitude to work and contribute their quota to having a more efficient civil service for the country’s overall development.

If civil servants want more pay as they usually demand, they must show more commitment to discharging their duties and be more business like in the work they do.

October 1, 2023
An evening with Wale Adenuga
- An anniversary combo for compatriots
To the impressive Eko Convention Centre and its grand banquet hall this past Sunday evening for the annual Nigeria Comedy Awards hosted by Wap Television and its boss, a childhood crony and cherished acolyte of the columnist.

   WAP is the acronym for Wale Adenuga Production an octopoidal empire which includes a regular television station, a film school, a drama group and franchised satirical revues. By matrimonial extension, it also boasts of a thriving educational complex which includes both primary and secondary schools.

Comedian, cartoonist, satirist, writer, critic, educationist, acute entrepreneur and aficionado of the arts and harvester of its glorious talents in Nigeria, Wale Adenuga is something of a human blockbuster. But he is averse to and intensely disdainful of publicity and all hints of self-commemoration.

Quiet, retreating and evasive to the point of self-erasure, Adenuga does not welcome social lunchers. He does not grant interviews. He does not talk to the press. Even this write up had to be literally coerced when yours sincerely fired off a warning salvo to the multi-talented merchant of humour that there was no further space for him to hide.

   It elicited a grumpy grunt which cut no ice with yours sincerely. The prim and proper master comedian with the pious and reassuring manner of an elder laity from the Divisional Diocese is something of a massive contradiction. How a man with such a stern and forbidding public visage could dish out such masterpieces of outlandish humour, such comic caricature, such Rabelaisian ribaldry, remains a subject of mystery.

   On this morning of our sixty third anniversary when it is important to wish the nation well and pray for a new beginning with the new administration, it is important to stress that if ever Nigeria is going to get out of its political misery and developmental trauma, we must face squarely the problem of how to harness and harvest the major resource that this country has going for it.

It is neither petroleum resources nor other minerals. It is human resources at its most incredible and outlandish. Nigeria’s capacity to produce talents in the most diverse fields of human endeavor is astonishing and even stunning to say the least. It is, as they say of the Dutch fiasco, an embarrassment of riches and a scandal of nature.

Nature played a spoiling mother to early Africans by providing them with everything they needed without much effort thus turning them into an idle, indolent lot. Our colonial masters capitalized upon this by creaming the riches off while turning us into superstitious over-religious eunuchs at the mercy of spiritual sadists. We will be lucky if the same scenario is not repeated at the level of human riches.

As it was in the beginning, so it is turning out to be at this late phase of industrial capitalism. When Pliny the Second noted that something new always came out of Africa, he was not just referring to the endless supply of oddities and oddballs from Africa that graced and entertained the Roman Imperial court but the retinue of artists, entertainers, writers, philosophers, artisans and military commanders of African extraction who provided crucial services to the Roman empire.

Read Also: Wale Adenuga inducted into Comedy Hall of Fame

Almost two thousand years after the collapse of Rome, the cry of “I want out” pierces the African collective atmosphere just as body bags of drowned migrants litter the North African beaches. Nigerian authorities must summon their reserves of visionary strength and courage to make the home environment more conducive for their restive and restless youth before the blessings of human gifts turn into a national curse once again.

The explosion of talents was very much in evidence in that commodious hall last Sunday as Adenuga, resplendent in native apparel of a snow white hue, together with his beloved wife, welcomed guests and cultural workers of various shades. Only the calm, paternalistic mien of the ace producer prevented the more excitable of the lot from mobbing him. The reason would soon become apparent.

    In keeping with his steely resolve to keep what personally concerns him out of public glare, it was only while reading through his address that Adenuga revealed that the day also coincided with three landmark events in his own life: First, it was his seventy fifth birthday anniversary.

Second, it was also the forty eighth anniversary of his wedding to his beloved beau, Ehiwenma, a no-nonsense matriarch of Edo provenance and course mate of Adenuga at the university, whom he described as his beautiful jewel of inestimable value. Finally, it was the 20th anniversary of his Film institute and the launching of his autobiography.

For a man who has chalked up so many spectacular achievements in a lifetime, Adewale Adenuga remains a model citizen: austere, humble and unassuming. He was born and initially raised in the famous junction town of Gbongan by parents of Ijebu extraction. Gbongan township was a wonderful replication of the early possibility of postcolonial Nigeria.

   Almost every homestead could boast of at least one or two professors. Even the last two sovereigns were notable academics and professors in their own right. It remains an intensely competitive environment where the hunger for learning and western education burns in every household with an incandescent glare. Unless you are comfortable with excommunication at a certain social level, academic failure was not an option.

    It was in this book-besotted milieu that our paths first crossed as young children learning the ropes of western education. We attended the same Primary School. The older Adenuga was arguably the richest business tycoon in the area with interest in real estate and tobacco franchise. That was until his ever expanding business empire as the main distributor of NTC products forced him to relocate to the bigger and more economically viable ambience of Ile-Ife.

But the Adenuga clan left a memorable landmark behind for posterity. Up till this moment, there is a vast enclave on the old outskirts of Gbongan township that goes by the name of the progenitor, a firm, unsmiling man of disobliging visage who could suddenly launch into terse aphorisms in his native Ijebu dialect which cut through tonnage of verbal waffles from the importuning natives.

Wale was as studious and brilliant as they came. His calm impassive exterior often gave way to hilarious jokes and comic sighs among close friends and acolytes. Not many people are aware of this or the fact that the man who would later gain national prominence as the owner of the Ikebe franchise boasts of an impeccable academic pedigree.

    Adenuga caused quite a regional stir by recording the best result in the entire Ibadan district in the 1967 WASCE. From the unfancied Ibadan City Academy, he made Aggregate 8, four A1s and two A2s to trump students from the more famous secondary schools in Ibadan.

A local newspaper trumpeted it with the banner headlines: Adenuga On Top. Many decades later, yours sincerely would get into an argument about this remarkable feat with Adeoye Roluga, an old boy of Government College Ibadan of the same set and later General Manager of Newswatch magazine, who pooh-poohed the idea as a piece of fiction.

A few weeks after, Roluga , who was later to succumb to Covid-19 while on a brief visit to Nigeria from the US, accosted yours sincerely at a public gathering and apologized profusely. He was wrong. From Ibadan City Academy, Adenuga went on to Kings College for his A-Level from where he gained admission to the elite Business Administration Programme of the University of Lagos.

Upon graduation from the university, the conventional expectation was that the young Adenuga would team up with his aging father in the family business as the obvious heir. But he decided to strike out boldly on his own by launching the Ikebe franchise which became an instant national hit. From there on and forty seven years after, Wale Adenuga has never looked back. It was a visionary decision and a moment of divine epiphany.

As recipients of awards in various categories came on the stage last Sunday night to sing his praise and to shower him with encomiums for rescuing them from a life of unworthy and toiling obscurity, Wale Adenuga must have felt a tinge of happiness and inner satisfaction at his decision to become a humour merchant and a fisher of talents in a famished sea bristling with man-eating spiritual predators and other social piranhas.

Stars after stars and budding humour impresarios tumbled out of the shadows to collect their awards and cash gifts. In all, two particular recognitions struck an unforgettable chord in this writer. One was the boy-comedian, a future star to watch out for, who stormed the stage and seized the microphone to give a brilliant impromptu delivery of gratitude full of swank and spunk. He went home with a million naira.

The other was the posthumous recognition of our late kinsman, the unforgettable Gbenga Adeboye of blessed memory, a phenomenally talented humorist. The plaque and cash gift went to his estate through the courtesy of his winsome daughter who gave a moving speech. May Nigeria’s ever busily running tap of talents never run dry. And here is wishing Wale Adenuga many more years of productive services to his beloved fatherland.
October 1, 2023