The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Ask your governor

With increased revenue from the FAAC, state governments should complement the efforts of the Federal Government by paying more attention to the needs of their people

Ask your governor. That would seem the simple message that the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, passed across to many Nigerians who, rather than look toward their state administrations, always look to the centre for virtually everything that is wrong with the country. However, unlike many people who merely say the governors are receiving more money under the Tinubu administration than hitherto, Yilwatda gave specific figures of the quantum leap in the allocations to the states from the Federation Account.

“Governors now receive two to four times more than before. They can focus on bigger projects, but they must also improve the daily lives of the people,” he said even as he urged Nigerians to engage local leaders more than they are doing presently.

The APC chair spoke at a book launch, Vicious Red Circle written by Alex Ugochukwu Oriaku, in Abuja, on Monday. According to him, state governors are getting more than enough and should not have any reason to complain. “We have 24 (that is APC governors) and we are still counting. We will have more. We know that two years ago, what they used to share was about N400 billion per month. But today, the last they shared was N2.2 trillion. No governor in Nigeria today collects less than three times, four times of what they used to collect before. None.

“They can do more for their people. They are focusing now on bigger projects. And to me, this is a turnaround that we need in governors. I would say, talk to your governors. Talk to your local government chairmen. Let them do more. Talk to the APC governors to do more’’.

It could not have been more bluntly said.

No governor has controverted the claim that they now have more cash in their kitty. That was one of the reasons we are not hearing any of them complaining that they cannot pay the new minimum wage of N70,000 per month. As a matter of fact, it is as if some state governors are celebrating money festival (Yoruba people will say ‘won n se odun owo’), as some of them are, even on their own, announcing bigger packages than the official minimum wage. Lagos and Rivers are paying N85,000 each, Bayelsa, Enugu, and Oyo N80,000 each, and Ogun at N77,000. Other states like Delta, Ebonyi, and Kebbi also have minimum wages between N75,000 and N77,000 while Kogi is paying N72,500.

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This was not the situation before the advent of the Tinubu administration. As a matter of fact, at least 14 state governments were, according to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), either unable or struggled to pay the former N30,000 minimum wage that was enacted in 2019. The states were: Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River and Delta. Others were Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Nasarawa, Niger, Sokoto, Taraba and Zamfara states.

Lest we forget, many state governments relied on bailouts from the Federal Government in the Buhari years before they could get out of their financial quagmire.

But all that has changed. Thanks to the Tinubu administration that removed fuel subsidy and also ‘’floated’’ the naira. The two policies have led to availability of more money in the coffers of the Federal Government that the three tiers of government are now sharing. As the APC chair observed, allocations from the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) have often exceeded the N2 trillion per month mark post-May 2023, with record highs over N2.2 trillion. State governments’ collective share has increased substantially, from about N400bn to N700bn+ monthly. Like many other state governments, Abia State government has thus doubled from about N12 billion to N13 billion monthly. Many state governments are said to be paying up their debts as a result of the improved funding.

This is good news.

But, the bad news is that many governors are just not getting their priorities right, as Yilwatda observed. Indeed, some of them are behaving akin to a Yoruba proverb that says the initial money that a child makes he spends to buy bean cake (owo ti omode ba koko ri, akara lo maa fi ra). They simply forgot where they were coming from. May be we can pardon those of them who are first-time governors and have not experienced the rough times. But what of those among them that were returned to office? Should they not have learnt sufficient lesson on how to be prudent with funds?

Under the 1999 constitution, as amended, all tiers of government have their functions. Critical services like primary health and education fall under local governments, while secondary health, education and infrastructure fall under state governments. The Federal Government has responsibilities for national security, tertiary healthcare, the economy, etc.

Unfortunately, while the constitution is clear on these roles, many state governments have hijacked the local governments and indeed pocketed them. President Bola Tinubu tried to extricate the local councils from the apron strings of the state governments, to no avail. Not even a Supreme Court judgment could free them from the clutches of the governors, who in many cases do not want to see autonomous local governments in the first place. And the reason is simple; the governors are not satisfied with their own portion of the national cake. They want more and that more they want to rake in from the local governments.

The result is that the local governments merely exist in name in many states. Their chairmen cannot do anything without the consent of the governors. All the councils get as allocations are mainly to pay salaries. The results are glaring in several parts of the country: bad local roads, inadequate or no drainage, dilapidated primary schools, wastes all over the place, etc.

You may not like the Tinubu government for different reasons, chief of which is that cost of living is high under it. But you cannot deny the fact that it has done some things to alleviate the sufferings of Nigerians. Imagine the number of people that have benefitted from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, (NELFUND) that the administration set up to cater to the needs of indigent students whose parents cannot afford to send their children to higher institutions. The idea is to ensure that no one is denied access to higher education simply on account of parental poverty. I learnt that as of late October, over 624,000 students have benefited from the fund, and over N116.4 billion disbursed since the portal opened in May, 2024.

I always cite the example of one of my seniors in the university who paid glowing tributes to his parents for “gladly embracing poverty to see him through university education”. The loan takes care of the students tuition fees as well as N20,000 monthly stipend would lessen the burden on such parents because it is not easy to gladly embrace poverty. As they say, “iya ki ise omi obe” (suffering is not pepper soup). The NELFUND would definitely make a lot of difference to many parents.

Talk also of the conditional cash transfer in which the Federal Government has launched a conditional cash transfer programme targeting 15 million vulnerable households in Nigeria, to provide N75,000 to each eligible household over a three-month period. Talk also of the loan scheme for income earners to purchase their needs now and pay in installments.

Even before now, the bad faith on the part of some state governments manifested with the palliatives that were distributed during the Buhari era, which some public officials at the state level converted to political pork.

If we can have some of these initiatives complemented by the state governments, “ebi npa mi” (I am hungry) slogan would not be as popular as it is today. Forget the fact that the person who made us adopt it as a slogan is not one of those really hungry! And if he is; his is a different kind of hunger!

Then, talk of grandiose projects that have no bearing to the real needs of the people that some state governments are embarking upon. Take airports, for instance; which, apart from public officials in some states, are of no use to most other people. Yet, we find some governors sinking billions of tax payers’ money into them even when many roads in their states are death traps.

All said, the APC chair could have appropriately diagnosed the problem; to wit; that many state governments are not getting their priorities right, but, I seem to disagree with him on his rhetorical statement asking us (or, who in particular?) to tell him if we want him to tell the governors to do the right thing. Hear him: “If you feel I need to talk to the governors, please tell me. I will call their attention. And if you feel you want to have a nexus within the National Assembly and the government, not just at the national level, even the state governments, you want to have that nexus between them, we have most of the governors.’’

Yilwatda does not need any prompting from any quarters before doing the needful. If he is convinced his assertions are right, then he should just go ahead and tell the governors what they seem not to be doing right. After all, as he noted, his party has a preponderance of the governors; 24 out of 36 and ‘’still counting’’. That is getting close to shellacking!

“We have 24 and we are still counting. We will have more.’’

So, Nigerians, you now have a better idea of what to do when certain things are not working. All eyes do not have to be on Abuja all the time. Your local government chairmen and governors are closer to you. They should be the first set of people to reach in times of trouble. Meet them. Ask them. After all, as they say, all politics is local.

November 2, 2025
The Ese Oruru message

She was 13 years old when she was abducted and abused in 2015. Her abductor, Yunusa Dahiru, alias Yellow, was twice her age, at 26. Until the police reportedly rescued her about six months later in February 2016, after a series of shocking collusion and connivance by state and traditional authorities, not to talk of the initial impotence of the police themselves, Ese Oruru, a Deltan living in Bayelsa State with her parents, seemed lost to the fog of early marriage and misguided religious fervour. No one has adequately explained why a clear case of abduction involving a minor, forced marriage, and abuse could take all of six months to resolve. Happily, and even ecstatically as it would turn out more than 10 years later, Miss Oruru at last graduated last month with a 2:1 in Education Technology from the University of Ilorin, while Mr Dahiru is serving a 26-year jail term. All is well that ends well, isn’t it?

Not exactly. The Miss Oruru story, which her family has tried to shield from public curiosity given the trauma they endured in those heady months in 2015, goes far beyond the valour of the Orurus and the victim’s extraordinary resilience. The story is a scary pointer to what might have been had she not been extricated from servitude in Kano to which Mr Dahiru transported her into the embrace of traditional and political institutions that at first feigned helplessness and waffled over what age constituted consent and accountability. Having now graduated at 23, Miss Oruru has her future ahead of her, especially with a solid educational foundation. How many like her get a second chance? Her dreams and trajectory as a pre-teen might have been skewed a little by her experience, but they were obviously not truncated. She was abducted on August 12, 2015, and her family members were in Kano two days later seeking her freedom. Though they acted fast enough, a retrogressive cultural rampart stood in the way, inexplicably delaying freedom for another six months. It is not unlikely that thousands of similar abductees fail to secure extraction due to weak law enforcement institutions and overbearing traditional and cultural authorities.

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What makes Miss Oruru exceptional is that her recovery was marked by phenomenal progress and stellar academic performance. It is, therefore, legitimate to ask how many million geniuses are lost to unhealthy and retrogressive cultural and religious practices in Nigeria. For instance, of the estimated 12 to 20 million out-of-school children in Nigeria, nearly 80 percent of whom are sucked into the Almajiri system wreaking havoc in the Northeast and Northwest, how many geniuses will never be discovered? But even outside the out-of-school bracket, there are millions who because of poverty or early marriage never get the chance to prove their genius or contribute substantially to Nigeria’s development. That tantalising possibility will always haunt the country and render it a global spectacle, especially given the fact that it harbours the largest population of out-of-school children in the world.

Most states in Nigeria may have already domesticated the Child Rights Act enacted in 2003, but the devil is in the detail. For instance, the age of consent varies among states; so, too, some of the rights under the law, whether it pertains to the right to survival, a name, family life, privacy, dignity, recreation, cultural activities, healthcare, or education. Rather than domesticate the Child Rights Act, Kano State, more than 10 years later, enacted a Child Protection Law in 2023. Though applauded by UNICEF, it remains to be seen to what extent the law will qualitatively improve the lives of children in the state and protect them from the ravages of controversial cultural and religious practices. Zamfara is another state out of a few unenthusiastic about the Child Rights Act. In 2022, one year before Kano, it, however, enacted a social protection law, which contains a provision for child welfare that is clearly not enough.

For Kano, Zamfara, and the few states uncertain about just what rights to grant their children, they are clearly halting between the past and the future. They must come out of their long-term dithering if they are to unleash the ‘devastating’ potentials of their youths. As Miss Oruru has proved by her determination and accomplishment at the university despite a hiatus at a crucial stage in her life, brilliance or any kind of profundity is not the exclusive preserve of any ethnic or religious group. There is of course a limit to how far the federal government can compel any state to change its developmental course; so the states themselves, particularly those still trapped in an unenviable past, must find the vision and political will to drag their people into the future if they are not to remain a national liability. Progress and development are obviously not opposed or inversely related to any religion or culture, as many countries even in religiously conservative countries in the Middle East have amply demonstrated.

November 2, 2025
For PDP, it does not just rain…

Even while it was yet to douse the agitations of the Nyesom Wike camp, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has managed to attract another round of controversy and agitation barely two weeks into its elective national convention in Ibadan on November 15. A chairmanship aspirant, former Jigawa State governor and former Foreign Affairs minister, Sule Lamido, has alleged that he was being squeezed out of the race for the top party job. The party, he claimed, had made its chairmanship nomination and expression of interest forms unavailable. He could head for the courts, he warned. At the bottom of the forms crisis is the claim by the opposition party that party elders had adopted a consensus candidate, former Special Duties minister Kabiru Tanimu Turaki.

Nonsense, growled Mr Lamido; no meeting was held anywhere to adopt anyone. He alleged that the imposition would not stand. The party has, however, remained adamant. Mr Turaki never defected to any party in the past, unlike Mr Lamido who they alleged fraternised with the coalition platform, the African Democratic Congress (ADC). It is not certain whether Mr Lamido will stick to his guns, or what reliefs he would be asking for, or whether he can get a court to look at his complaints favourably. However, this latest controversy comes on the heel of the long-running dispute the party has had with former Rivers governor and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, Mr Wike, who alleges a number of infractions against the PDP, including forgery of official communications with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). His camp is opposed to the conduct of the convention until all disputes are resolved.

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For the PDP, it does not just rain, it pours. They are heading into the convention divided and heavily depleted. They control just eight states and fewer national lawmakers than when they started out in 2023. They have not managed to plug the leaks but have continued to blame others for their woes. Overall, they believe that if the convention is successful and Mr Turaki is affirmed, they could achieve a semblance of order and tranquility with which to showcase their revival and rejuvenation. In short, they hope they can build something on nothing. November 15 is just round the corner. If they pull this rabbit out of their tall hats, they might begin to hope for a miracle in the next polls. If not, the defections and depletions will continue apace, and their hope, not to say their very life, might be doomed.

November 2, 2025
Dangote on my mind (VI)

The news coming out of the Nigerian oil and gas sector in the last few weeks has been uniformly bad and threatening to get worse. The distress in this sector was first seen when the price of cooking gas suddenly went through the roof in the wake of a spiteful strike no less suddenly declared by powerful trade unions within the petroleum industry. Gas supplies to key areas including the Dangote refinery were shut down, in an attempt to cripple the operations of the Dangote refinery. According to the strikers, they were determined to protect the expressed interest of their so-called members who, as they claimed were slaving with little reward to produce the fuel which was to be sold to innocent Nigerians. This was a naked attempt to unionize the work force against the wishes of the company management. When this excuse was seen to be increasingly transparent and untenable, the focus of the strike was shifted to take in some workers who had allegedly been relieved of their jobs for no reason other than that they had chosen to join a union. Whatever the reason for the strike, the result was catastrophic. The operation of the Dangote refinery was crippled, cooking gas prices were doubled, the price of petrol at the pumps went up and queues began to form for the first time in more than a year. Although common sense was made to prevail in the end, a great deal of harm had been done, not the least being the inching up of the cost of petrol. This is especially worrisome because of the knock on effect of this to inflation. Every Naira increase in the price of each litre of petrol sold was sure to tick up the rate of inflation which, must have been terrible news to the managers of the economy.

The cost of petrol is high, punishingly high and the renewed increase in the price of petrol is threatening to wipe out the gains that have been achieved in the fight against inflation, perhaps the greatest threat to the nation’s economy. The other front in our battle for recovery from the malaise plaguing our economy is of course the stability of the value of foreign exchange and this has also been brought into play to the further detriment of the economy. The issue of the value of the Naira vis a vis the American dollar has been a fiercely burning one for all of forty years; since our flighty if not outrightly flaky but dangerously violent government of the day, quite ill advisedly pitched the value of the Naira against that of all convertible currencies. The excuse given for this marked idiocy was that it claimed that it was following what turned out to be the jaundiced advice of the IMF. Following this, we became sheepish clients of the twin economic terrorists otherwise known as the World Bank and the IMF. Quite apart from any other consideration, the coming to life of the Dangote refinery was supposed to ease the pressure on the Naira which had become so distressed that it lacked a discernible heart beat. It had been brought to this sorry pass at least partly because for many years, large sums of foreign exchange had been committed to the importation of vast quantities of petrol in an opaque manner under what is now a discredited fuel subsidy regime. It had become imperative that the Naira be put back together if we were to remain an economic entity. The time for any experimentation with our currency is long past. What has to be done is to closely monitor the use of any available foreign exchange and throwing any of it in the way of fuel importation has to be described as criminally negligent. But this is precisely what a group of Nigerians who proudly described their association as that of fuel importers were defending. Apparently they scout the world for the cheapest available petrol, load the fuel into any available transport enroute Lagos. The fuel is then stored in large depots described as tank farms from where it is distributed all over Nigeria in diesel driven tankers. This has been the tried and tested formula for several decades and has become an addiction. A drug on which the operator had become hopelessly psychologically dependent. Now, they cannot see any way to deal with what ails them and they expect the country to suffer the extreme symptoms of withdrawal with them, a classic aspect of drug addiction behaviour. A drug addict will sell their mother and siblings thrown in for good measure in order to feed their habit. It is left to his significant others to take steps to save themselves.

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To tell the truth, in economic terms, the Nigerian economy can rightly be described as being on life support, a patient that needs the constant care of a carefully assembled team of variously talented and extremely well trained specialists who must quickly respond to all the symptoms which assail their patient. In other words, we are in a state of emergency. This is why it is baffling that the managers of our rescue mission, that is, the government did not respond more robustly to the situation precipitated by the drug users among us. No union should be allowed at this critical point in time to use their immense power to jeopardise the economic well being of Nigeria. More than a year after the Dangote refinery began producing petrol, it is bewildering that the Central Bank is still providing foreign exchange to the tune of more than a billion dollars this year for the importation of fuel. With locally refined petrol available, allowing such vast amounts of what can only be described as scarce foreign exchange to be incinerated on the altar of fuel imports is, to be honest, downright unacceptable. This is more so when for the first time ever in the history of our country, refined petroleum products are being exported from these shores. The time has come for a comprehensive review of what we can afford to spend our foreign exchange on. Dangote can be said to have presented the nation with a facility which can take care of the supply of petrol to run our economy. The best that can be done for the foreign exchange hungry importers of petrol is to phase out the availability of foreign exchange from the Central Bank over a defined period of time, say twelve months. This period should be enough to take care of whatever withdrawal symptoms they may be suffering from. The harsh reality is that the era of fuel importation is now over and those who have grown fat on profit from this arrangement are like dinosaurs whose extinction time has arrived. They have to go. This is in obedience to the iron laws of nature and indeed, economics. It would be counter productive for fuel importers to set themselves up as competitors to Dangote. In the first place, the news from Lekki is that there are plans afoot to double the productive capacity of the Dangote refinery in short order. The other consideration and one which may not be of immediate importance to the fuel importers is that there are at least sixteen different fractions into which Dangote can break his supply of crude oil. They may be frothing at the mouth in respect of petrol but what about the other fifteen fractions? There is no contest.

Nigeria has always been the exporter of her natural resources. This is one of the reasons why our economic development has been slow, abysmally so. We have sold our natural resources for a pittance and have compounded our economic weakness by importing the refined products of those same raw materials at astronomical cost. We now have the opportunity to be a net exporter of refined petroleum products so that we can stop exporting crude oil in favour of the more expensive refined petroleum products. It is ironic that we have been importing refined petroleum products from places which do not produce a drop of crude oil. For example, the Netherlands has an installed capacity for refining 1.2 million barrels a day. A lot of the petrol imported into Nigeria comes from there and surely, the time has come to reverse that trend and we will soon be able to do that. All we need is the will to do so. The export of refined petroleum products from Nigeria must be seen as a trend which we need to extent to the other raw materials for which we are famous; cocoa, cotton, hides and skins as well as various minerals. It is only by doing this that we can begin to build up a solid economy.

November 2, 2025
SNAPSONG 271

When Eyes Are Four

And now when eyes are four

     And the sky is full of stars

We will count the dimples

     On the sacred moments of boundless banters

When the stick has roused the drum to a roar

     In the throbbing edge of gathering crowds

We will shake a leg and slay the silence

     That once ruled a sorority of sighs

When our songs are summoned

     To sing the season

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And wake the wind which braids the leaves

     On the heads of swaying trees

We will count the stanzas

     In the rolling oriki which knew

The ancestors of the ants

     Before the earth was born

Fast, flowing river

     Which never stops bowing

To the rhythm of the rain as

     Trumpet flowers flaunt their delicate petals

And so when eyes are four

     And the sky is full of stars

We will watch green affirmations tickle

     Their way to the Orchard of Grace,

October 26, 2025
Aregbesola on God’s grace

Still fully immersed in an ethical stench of his own making, and sometimes speaking as if the concept of God is alien to him, former Osun State governor and one-time Interior minister, Rauf Aregbesola, has now begun to speak knowingly and affectionately of God. In an interaction with reporters in Ilorin two Saturdays ago after commissioning the secretariat of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), his new party, he denounced the ruling party but conversely anchored the strength of his new party on God’s munificence. Hear him: “If APC is confident of its strength, it won’t be so hyped and charged as to be hounding and hunting the opposition all over the place. How can we interpret what APC is doing all over Nigeria to us? They are harassing and intimidating every one of our members, not just our leaders, but nationwide, be it in Lagos, Kebbi, or Kaduna. If indeed they are confident of the strength they are showcasing, one would expect that they will be so calm; but the reverse is the case; so what does that tell you? They themselves know that they are not popular and the party that will harvest their unpopularity is ADC. Regardless of the grandstanding, by the grace of God, ADC will take over the mantle of leadership in Nigeria and in most of the states.”

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What is missing in his statement is not his misplaced confidence in a supposed ADC victory in the coming polls, but his unusual and unexpected foray into the domain of God. He speaks about God’s grace as the ultimate factor responsible for victory or defeat. That grace, he also presumes, is available to sinners and the dispossessed. But for a man so self-righteous, so implacable, and so adamantly discourteous, surely he should need some penance to attract that grace. Yes, grace is readily available, even to an embittered party and its malignant leaders; but how can they receive grace when they have continued to spurn it?

October 26, 2025
Needless vacillation over pardons

A little over two weeks ago, President Bola Tinubu had, after consulting with the Council of State, granted clemency to some 175 persons convicted for various offences. The pardons immediately attracted huge controversy and ridicule. Shocked, Justice minister and Attorney-General of the Federation Lateef Fagbemi disclosed that the clemency committee chaired by him was not conclusive and its recommendations were subject to review. Days after, as part of his placatory effort, he announced a multi-agency review committee to take another look at the exercise. Some of the pardons, reports suggested, had been opposed by some of the agencies now included in the review exercise. It was also alleged that the list of pardons had been compromised somewhere along the line. These are, however, untenable excuses.

If the clemency list had been as thorough as the committee charged with drawing it up had said, they would repose confidence in their work, and would not wilt so embarrassingly in the face of opposition coming from the anti-crime, anti-drug, and anti-graft agencies. By admitting the need for a review, the clemency committee inadvertently indicates it was derelict in carrying out its assignment. In addition, by immediately reversing itself, especially much after consulting with the Council of State in line with the constitution, the administration shows how deeply allergic to criticisms and blowbacks it has become. The clemency hiccup was, however, not the first reversal in the past few years, and may in all probability not be the last. The problem then is not just that a committee, such as the Fagbemi-led clemency committee, had encountered a policy or bureaucratic mishap, or that the administration has become needlessly allergic to public opinion which is sometimes fickle and misplaced; it speaks both to the sometimes tardy operations in the administration’s clearing house and a lack of steely resolve when it really matters.

The argument that the anti-graft, anti-drug, and anti-crime agencies kicked against some of the pardons is both childish and indefensible. The aim of the prerogative of mercy is not for the president, or a governor as the case may be, to be finicky about the crimes committed by a law breaker but to demonstrate that no matter how serious the crime is, it can be pardoned if the right conditions are met. Furthermore, to suggest that a pardon for a serious crime necessarily vitiates anti-crime efforts is baffling and illogical. It does not. That a drug courier is pardoned does certainly not mean that the efforts of the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) are undermined. The controversy over the pardons is a reflection of how deeply judgemental and unforgiving the Nigerian soul has become. They prefer that only petty criminals should be pardoned. This is dispiriting. Murderers can indeed be pardoned, especially when families of their victims accent, among other things, to their pardon. So, too, drug offenders. Otherwise, the whole exercise would become tokenistic and even nugatory.

The constitutional provision on prerogative of mercy does sensibly not indicate what crimes should qualify for clemency. This does not, however, mean that the administration should not constitute a multi-agency panel to help ensure that the right or best thing is done. But as far as the law stands, the administration has been guided. Chapter 6, Section 175 of the 1999 Constitution provides thus:

(1) The President may –

(a) grant any person concerned with or convicted of any offence created by an Act of the National Assembly a pardon, either free or subject to lawful conditions;

(b) grant to any person a respite, either for an indefinite or for a specified period, of the execution of any punishment imposed on that person for such an offence;

(c) substitute a less severe form of punishment for any punishment imposed on that person for such an offence; or

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(d) remit the whole or any part of any punishment imposed on that person for such an offence or of any penalty or forfeiture otherwise due to the State on account of such an offence.

(2) The powers of the President under subsection (1) of this section shall be exercised by him after consultation with the Council of State.

(3) The President, acting in accordance with the advice of the Council of State, may exercise his powers under subsection (1) of this section in relation to persons concerned with offences against the army, naval or air-force law or convicted or sentenced by a court-martial.

As many analysts have pointed out in recent weeks after the clemency story broke, pardons anywhere are by nature controversial. The October 9 pardons are no less controversial. The Council of State has given its accent to a list it believed the government had drawn up in line with constitutional provisions. In fact, by releasing the list to the public, many families have had their hopes raised. To rejig the list and remove some of the beneficiaries of the pardon is to play ducks and drakes with the feelings of many affected families. It is unfortunate. Should the list be significantly tampered with, it will not underscore the seriousness of the crimes committed by the offenders or the remorse they have shown, or even the appropriateness of their pardons. It will be an indication of how calloused the Nigerian soul has become. It is possible that the list was politicised, or that a few low-level officials allegedly smuggled a few names into it, though this is hard to fathom; but the vacillations do not indicate the resoluteness of the administration nor the supposed great image of the Nigerian.

October 26, 2025
‘They thought I was a spy’: Journalist’s close shave with death’

On the fifth anniversary of #EndSARS, photo-journalist Isaac Jimoh Ayodele reflects on the most terrifying moment of his career. Beaten unconscious and seconds away from being set on fire, Ayodele says only his press ID card — and what he calls divine intervention — saved him from the mob’s fury. He shares his experience on that fateful day with Deputy Political Editor RAYMOND MORDI.

Five years have passed since the #EndSARS protests swept across Nigeria. Still, for The Nation’s photo-journalist Isaac Jimoh Ayodele, the memories of that day in October 2020 remain engraved in his mind — the shouts, the blows, the smell of petrol, and the narrow escape from a mob who were seconds away from burning him alive.

“When I close my eyes, I still hear someone shouting, ‘Bring the pure water bottle!’” he says. “It took me a few seconds to realise they meant petrol, and that I was on the verge of being killed.”

A morning like any other

The morning of October 20, 2020 began like any other. Ayodele, in his sixties, woke before dawn in Mafoluku-Oshodi, the area of Lagos where he lives, in a positive mood.

“I said my morning prayers, went to the kitchen, and made tea,” he recalls. “After the first cup, I called a colleague who works with the Daily Trust newspaper to ask if there was any breaking news. He said, ‘Nothing yet.’”

Then, around noon, he heard three sharp gunshots — the kind that don’t get mistaken for anything else. “I said to myself, yes, it’s happening in my area. I quickly put on my clothes, packed my small camera bag, and got ready to leave.”

His wife and daughter begged him not to go. “They said, ‘Please, don’t go out today.’ Maybe they had a premonition of what was going to take place that fateful day,” Ayodele says softly. “I was irritated by that plea, and I told them, it’s like you don’t know the nature of my job.”

As a photojournalist, the only thing on his mind was capturing the story of the ongoing #EndSARS protest for posterity. He never expected to become part of the story. However, all that changed soon.

At the door, he suddenly remembered the ID card he’d left on the table. “That small card later became my saving grace,” he says.

Into the fire

Outside, he noticed black smoke billowing from the direction of Makinde Police Station, where angry youths were confronting officers. He ran towards the scene.

“The air was thick with suspense and expectation. I realised that bringing out my big camera could attract attention, so I used my phone instead.”

He began taking quick shots of the burning station amidst the shouting youths and the chaos that had overtaken the street. When the tension became unbearable, he moved to an adjoining street and began sending the photos to his newsroom.

“I was about 10 metres away, still uploading pictures, when I heard someone shout (in Yoruba), ‘Spy! Police! He’s one of them!’”

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Before he could react, about a dozen young men descended on him. “They said I was a police officer in plain clothes, and that I was filming for the government. They asked for my phone. I tried to explain, but they had already started hitting me.”

He was kicked to the ground, his cap flying off. “A hard object hit my head, and everything went dark for a while,” he says. “When I opened my eyes, I was on the ground, with people shouting, punching, and stepping on me.”

‘Bring the pure water!’

In the confusion, someone shouted for “pure water.” Ayodele did not comprehend what it was meant for — until the smell hit him.

“That’s when I realised it was petrol,” he says. “They were going to burn me alive.”

At that moment, he forced out a desperate plea in English and Yoruba: “I am a journalist! I am not a policeman!”

A man in the crowd asked for his ID card. With trembling hands, Ayodele fished it out of his pocket. “He looked at it and said, ‘He’s telling the truth. He’s a journalist.’ Then they all shouted, ‘Leave him! Leave him!’”

One of them told him to run away. “As I tried to stand up, he suddenly screamed, ‘Ole! Ole!’ (thief! thief!)! Again I froze,” Ayodele says. “If I had run, others would have chased me, and I may still end up being killed.

“So I just walked away slowly, praying under my breath. I was experiencing an admixture of sadness and joy at that moment. The only thought at the back of my mind was to get away from that environment. Somehow, I was feeling like someone who had just woken up from a bad dream.”

The cap that almost killed him

Safe at home later that evening, Ayodele examined his cap—and discovered that its insignia indeed resembled that of the Nigeria Police Force. “Mistaken identity nearly cost me my life,” he mused.

In the process, he had lost his phone, and his camera was badly damaged. His jaw was swollen, and he could hardly open his mouth. “I tried to drink my leftover tea,” he says with a pained smile, “but I couldn’t. The pain was terrible.”

Funnily enough, even while he was lying on the ground and being beaten, a thought flashed through his mind: who would document his own demise? He remembered his wife’s pleas, his daughter’s instincts, and—he says—divine intervention spared him.

Afraid that he might be recognised on the street, he changed his clothes before heading to the hospital. “Even in pain, I kept thinking that someone might mistake me for a policeman again.”

The day the nation bled

Isaac’s brush with death did not take place in a vacuum. It unfolded within the larger drama of #EndSARS, a youth-led movement against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) — a police unit long accused of torture, extortion, and extrajudicial killings.

Across Lagos — and across the country — the #EndSARS protests that day reached their most violent point. What began as a peaceful protest had spiralled into chaos.

The government had announced SARS’ dissolution a week earlier, but protesters doubted the promise. They demanded not just reform, but justice and accountability for years of abuse.

That night, soldiers reportedly opened fire on demonstrators at Lekki Toll Gate, an event Amnesty International later described as a “massacre”.

By the next morning, parts of Lagos were burning. Mobs turned on perceived enemies — including journalists. For many reporters, photographers, and citizen journalists, that day remains etched as both a professional and personal trauma.

Five years on

Today, Ayodele still carries the scars — not just the physical ones on his head, but also the psychological trauma that haunts him from time to time.

“When I hear loud noises, I still flinch,” he admits. “I don’t wear caps with any logo anymore. I’ve learned that in Nigeria, even a piece of clothing can decide your fate.”

He still believes journalism is a calling worth the risk, but his perspective has changed. “When I cover stories now, I think about my family first,” he says. “My wife’s voice that morning still rings in my head: ‘Don’t go out today’. But duty is duty.”

For him, the fifth anniversary of #EndSARS isn’t only about remembering those killed or injured — it’s about survival, about the fragile line between witness and victim.

“That day showed me how thin the line is between truth-telling and dying for it,” he says quietly. “If not for that ID card — and for God — I wouldn’t be here telling you this story.”

The weight of memory

As Nigeria reflects on #EndSARS five years later, Ayodele’s experience highlights how the chaos of that period consumed even those who attempted to document the story.

His survival feels both miraculous and symbolic — a reminder that behind every photograph and headline were real people risking everything to make sure the world saw what was happening.

He pauses when asked what he took away from that day. After a long silence, he says, “I learned that the truth can put you in danger. But silence can kill faster.”

Then, as if to reassure himself, he adds, “Five years on, I thank God that I am still alive to tell it.”

October 26, 2025
Driver’s licence without tears
- FRSC deserves support in its effort to revolutionise issuance of this vital document
Yes, you heard me right: driver’s licence without tears! That is what the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) says it is bringing to the table to replace the present moribund order. As things are, prospective applicants for driver’s licence literally go through hell to get the document. Perhaps it was deliberately designed to be so cumbersome to allow for the usual corruption in the system. Of course when we talk about corruption on the issuance of driver’s licence, it does not mean all those connected with the processes are corrupt. Just that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is to obtain driver’s licence without falling into the hands of some corrupt officials in the course of the interactions.

That is one of the problems when human contact dominates any particular exercise. At present, obtaining a driver’s licence in the country is a three-step process:

Step 1 involves applicants attending training at an accredited driving school and obtaining a Learner’s Permit if he/she is a first-time applicant. The next stage is to undergo driving test administered by a Vehicle Inspection Officer (VIO). The applicant then receives a Certificate of Proficiency or pass certificate from the VIO upon passing before proceeding to Step 2 which involves applying for and paying the requisite fees online or at a bank, completing the driver’s licence application form, either online at nigeriadriverslicence.org or at a Driver’s Licence Centre (DLC). Applicant then proceeds to submit all required documents and the application form for verification and endorsement by the Board of Internal Revenue (BIR) Officer and VIO at the DLC.

Applicant then goes to Step 3 which is biometric data capture, then collection. This would be done at the FRSC by the officer at the DLC for biometric data capture which includes having the applicant’s photograph, fingerprints, and signature taken. The applicant then receives a temporary driver’s licence, which is usually valid for 60 days , which only frees him from being harassed by policemen, FRSC officials, VIOs, etc. who usually demand such documents on our roads. The wait may take as long as two years to get the original driver’s licence. If it is the three-year type, then you may be lucky to use it for a few months before beginning the process for another one. And, if it is five years, you may use the original for about half its original period before applying for another one.

Anyway, once applicant receives the original card, he/she may be able to activate the digital driver’s license (eNDL) by scanning the QR code on the physical card.

I can hear you say, this is a mouthful’. Actually it is.

Perhaps the only easy aspect of the process is payment for the licence. That is even when there is network to do it.

I can also hear you say, ‘why is it this cumbersome’? This is a question I may not be able to answer. But I know that generally it is hardly easy in some other climes to obtain driver’s licence. An uncle of mine who relocated to the United Kingdom told me the troubles he underwent before he was able to get a driver’s licence.

But, if you ask me: I don’t have any problem with the cumbersome processes if it is all about efficiency, professionalism, safety and honesty. When you license a person to drive, it is not a joking matter. It is about lives, and life, as they say, has no duplicate. If the UK and some other countries make you go through hell to obtain driver’s licence, they know why. They know the person they are giving such licence has all it takes to drive on their roads without causing problem for the system. They make you undergo all kinds of tests,to be sure they are not licensing a killer. Those countries with rigid processes for driver’s licence value the lives of their citizens.

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Interestingly, that was the way it was in Nigeria too before we lost it. I remember when I got my driver’s licence in the ‘80s at Iseyin in Oyo State, back then; I went through all the processes, including the driving in the middle of carefully arranged drums to see how I could maneuver the vehicle under some tight situations. I remember how happy the person who assessed me was seeing me making wevery stage of the process. I was happy with myself, too. I had passed all the other tests, including the Highway Code, road signs and what have you. It was after I had successfully done everything that I tipped the man. I think I even bought beer with which we celebrated it. Whenever I stumble on the booklet that passed for driver’s licence then, I marvel at how we have totally lost it as a country because I remember the rigours that went into my getting that booklet then.

All of these have gone with the wings. You find people who have not seen a Learner’s Permit in their entire life behind the wheels. Even on university campuses, many of the spoilt brats have dispatched their fellow students to untimely graves or maimed others by driving without passing through the rudiments.

Back then, you would see vehicles marked ‘Off Road’, meaning they were not roadworthy and the owner or driver never removed such marks because he knew what awaited him if he was caught. I can’t remember when last I saw any vehicle marked ‘Off Road’, yet there are many such vehicles on many of our roads today, waiting for who next to knock down.

As I said earlier, I don’t have problems if the rigorous processes involving several agencies in the issuance of driver’s licence in the country are all about ensuring the right things are done. But this is not the case. Whether at the ports or wherever, what you find are layers of corruption in those places where you think the multiple agencies are supposed to ensure sanity. Again, as I said, this is usually what obtains when there are too many human interactions in official processes.

It would seem the FRSC now wants to be deaf to the calls of the past; obedient only to those of the present. If the agency walks its talk, then, soon, very soon, it would be driver’s licence ‘sharp, sharp’, with contactless biometric capture system, with the agency leveraging technology.

Hear the corps marshal, Shehu Mohammed: “We have activated plans to overcome the perennial challenges associated with delays in obtaining the driver’s licence and number plates. Our printing facility has been upgraded to print an average of 15,000 driver’s licences daily.

“This production average will be increased to clear the backlog before the second week of November 2025,” Mohammed said.

Mohammed, who spoke at the launching of its 2025 Ember Months Road Safety Campaign aimed at reducing road accidents during the busy festive period in Abuja added that the FRSC was “about to commence the contactless biometric capture with on-spot printing of the licence, which will eliminate temporary licences, thereby signalling the beginning of digitalised one-stop-shop for processing driver’s licence.

“With this development, it is expected that delays and other challenges related to the national driver’s licence will be history.”

The campaign was appropriately tagged “Tech Responsibility for Your Safety: Stop Distracted Driving.” It targets dangerous driving behaviours often linked to increased crashes in the ‘ember’ months, and particularly between December 15 and January 15. The point is that many things combine to contribute to the increased number of road crashes usually witnessed during this period. One of them is the fact that many vehicles that are not roadworthy are on the roads, including articulated vehicles that mere seeing them even people who are not VIO or road safety officials know they ordinarily should not be on the road. We have many drunk drivers behind the wheels who take undue advantage of the festive season to get high on all manner of alcoholic drinks before driving. Then, the urge or greed to make more trips than usual because of the fact that many people travel to celebrate the end of year festivities with their loved ones in the hinterland, and so on. Not to talk of many people who are not qualified to drive on the roads.

Unfortunately they attribute the many road crashes to the works of witches in the village instead of situating them appropriately. Unfortunately, too, those ones do not have the guts to come deny these bogus claims.

But that is not for today. Back to focus.

The corps marshall said “Globally, we have seen how driver’s licence has been obtained. As soon as you come, you get the driver’s licence. What matters is the comprehensive data, the adequate data that will be stored for usage at any given time,” he added.

Mohammed explained that the system would fully integrate existing driving school, VIO, and certification processes, but with a faster and streamlined approach.

“We are almost through with the process. It is no longer going to be the process of putting hands on the biometric. This one is contactless biometric. It doesn’t take time, and also, it captures all the essence required,” he said. According to him, the entire process, from application to licence issuance, will become immediate upon capture.

I can only wish the FRSC well. This is a noble objective but then, the agency has to work with other state agencies in the process. The corps marshal gave the impression that they have perfected their inter-agency collaboration to ensure that the exercise turns out well. These include the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). Cooperation with NIMC ought to be the standard practice here as it is globally; yet, we find all manner of institutions organising their own biometric data storage. Still, these have not stopped abuses that a well synchronised system ought to have prevented.

We look forward to the clearing of the 800,000 backlog of driver’s licences that the FRSC said it was dealing with round the clock and hope it would be able to put that behind it by mid-November as it has promised.

There are many questions to ask; but, at the risk of not wanting to sound pessimistic, I would only want to highlight one: and that is the FRSC’s claim that “Once you reach the point of capture, you get captured and you get your driver’s licence instantly’’, as Mohammed said. But what happens before then? More so as driver’s licence is on the concurrent list as I observed earlier?

All said, I wish the FRSC well on its drive to revolutionise the issuance of driver’s licence. But the government must be ready to come down hard on those who might be perfecting strategies to sabotage the new system. That is the only way it won’t work only for some time and we return to square one shortly after.
October 26, 2025
Honourable ministers

It is clear at this time that two Honourable Ministers are, to use a contemporary term, trending in the news. Their situation is such that I thought I must put Dangote and the Nigerian energy situation on the back burner this week in order to join the ministerial train or if you like, the ministerial band wagon.

In early September, I turned my attention in this column to what I described as a gathering storm. The storm was in the process of gathering steam as a prelude to causing a great deal of havoc to the nation’s university system. ASUU, the union representing Nigerian university lecturers had begun to make some decidedly ominous noises over the refusal of government to implement the provisions of the 2009 agreement which was signed by both government and ASUU representatives as far back as the year of that agreement. The agreement was signed after it had been carefully worked out by representatives of the government and a high powered union delegation. The issues discussed covered staff welfare, resuscitation of the moribund university system through adequate funding as well as issues surrounding university autonomy. For more than twenty years before then, these issues had plagued our university system within which strikes had become endemic and decay on the verge of being taken for granted. It appeared that both parties on either side of the divide were ready to stop bickering in the interest of presenting a viable university system to the nation. A system that was going to guarantee the quality of the products of that system. After that agreement was signed, we all heaved a collective sigh of relief and were prepared to get on with doing the work required to make the system work.

The agreement was signed with great fanfare but, sixteen years later we are yet to see the results of that agreement. For a start, we were sure that the agreement was going to put an end to the perennial strikes of the last twenty years but we have since found out that the lice crawling through our collective hair were still alive and active. As a result, our finger nails are still bright red with blood. All our hopes have been dashed time after time.

Having spent forty-seven of the most productive years of my life within the Nigerian university system, I cannot turn my back on it six years after retirement. As a university lecturer, I just did not go through the motions of being a university employee. My having spent thirty-one years as a professor within the system shows that I was never a passenger within it. My commitment was total and I was always aware that my achievements within it were to be my professional legacy. The inconsistencies with which I had to battle for the best part of my career however did not allow me to fulfill my potential and limited my scope as a lecturer and researcher. This is why I feel personally insulted by the totally unreflective response of the Honourable Minister of Education to the ongoing two week warning strike embarked upon by ASUU, embarked upon to remind the government of her responsibility to the Nigerian university system.

It was no secret that an ASUU strike was in the offing but the nonchalance with which the notice was treated can only be described as shameful and disrespectful. After all, a union of university lecturers should not be dismissed out of hand in the way the minister has done. According to him, his government had done everything in response to the demands of ASUU and there was no earthly reason why they should go on strike. In the first place what is going on at thís time is a two week strike. It is time limited and designed only to sensitise the government and remind her of her responsibility to a critical sector. Rather than be sensitised, the minister has responded with fury. Previous governments for all their irresponsibility in this matter did not confront the lecturers with venom and did not threaten them with the withholding of salaries first of. And in any case, the no work, no pay threat has never been able to send striking lecturers back to work. True, university lecturers have been steadily impoverished by government policies over more than three decades, the threat of stopping their meager salaries can no longer be regarded as a fail safe deterrent. After all, he who is down fears no fall. On several occasions in the past, Vice Chancellors have been instructed to open registers so as to identify those of their staff who were on strike. That measure did not force lecturers back to work. Lecturers have faced down the threat of eviction from government quarters before and maybe it is to the minister’s credit that he has not yet issued the threat of eviction as a means of forcing striking lecturers back to work. In an attempt to break the ranks of ASUU, the last government threw their support behind a renegade splinter group of opportunistic lecturers who had chosen to curry her favour by rejecting the strike option within the university system. This has not broken the ranks of the lecturers. Those government recognised stooges, registered as a competing unit by the last government, even now, claim to be hard at work but the universities remain closed for business. So much for their effectiveness as strike breakers. One cannot but wonder why successive Nigerian governments have chosen to respond, first with indifference and then fury to the legitimate demands of university lecturers.

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And yet the situation within Nigerian universities was radically different from what it is now. Back in 1972 when I graduated from the University of Ife, graduates did not choose to become lecturers. They were chosen. Such was the cynosure of lecturership positions that those chosen to undergo training to become lecturers were regarded as having been made for life. Not only did professors earn the highest salaries within the public service, their allowances and other perquisites of office put them in a class by themselves. In my generation, those of us that had the privilege of overseas study eagerly returned home to serve their respective universities. Those that were given the same opportunity a little over a decade ago have simply absconded and are now happily contributing to the development of universities abroad. They are never coming back home and why should they, when all they can expect is a tongue lashing from an entitled minister from time to time. Everything considered, the glory has departed from our universities and the likelihood of a return is slim.

The other minister recently in the crosshairs of public attention is the Minister of Works, the hard working, self styled Professor of Engineering. So many Nigerians are desirous of being recognised as professors even as real professors are skulking away in their battered ivory towers. The minister was engaged in a heated argument with a journalist who obviously thinks that if the minister was a professor of engineering, he was a professor of interrogative journalism. The sparks created in the course of their public interaction engulfed them both. My interest in this matter concerns why in this country, the Minister of Works has to be an engineer, any kind of engineer and the Minister of Health must be medically qualified. Well, this does not have to be so and is not the case in other parts of the world. Those of us who are sufficiently long in the tooth remember that the Minister of Works in Gowon’s cabinet was a lawyer and the Minister of Health was a History professor. Those gentlemen performed their jobs admirably. The Ministries of Works and Healthare full of engineers and doctors respectively. The minister is a political appointee, put there to supervise the political leanings of the ministry, to see that the workers are ideologically committed to the manifesto of the ruling party. When we see the Minister of Works parading in a hard hat, we just know that he is doing so for the cameras. The serious work on site should be left to the engineers who were employed to carry out engineering works by the ministry. If that was the case, the Minister of Works would have been spared that ordeal of trying to deal with the verbal pyrotechnics which raised his ministerial hackles to an intolerable level.

October 26, 2025