The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • As it was in the beginning

    As it was in the beginning

    It is a millennial embarrassment, but not at all surprising, having somewhat closed eyes to his  legacy,  that  President Buhari is ending the lethargic way  he started out. He had taken like six months to cobble together a Federal Executive Council, and in the proverbial way the Yoruba say the White man fouls the air while quitting office, he has aimed a gratuitous insult on the very apex court by  unilaterally, and illegally, varying its pronouncements.

    Nigerians can only hope that the Supreme Court would never be that laid back to allow this executive seizure of judicial power remain permanent on its long history. What has just happened should, in fact, make Nigerians pray that President Buhari’s oft – repeated promise of leaving a legacy of fair and transparent election is not a hollow one. After all, not ten in a hundred Nigerians could have believed, only a week ago, that he could, in this manner, thrash the Supreme Court by throwing its pronouncement to the garbage heap of history.

    Far worse is the likelihood that being a legal mind, Malami, his Attorney- General and Minister of Justice, may have advised this judicial misadventure.

    Short of that, the encouragement for this may have come from the Mafia to which, for so long, governance in our country would appear to have been transferred, for which reason the First Lady once belly- ached on the BBC in faraway London.

    Not even former Presdent Obasanjo, in refusing to pay Lagos state its seized Local Government funds, after the Supreme court had so ordered , hurt the court, and rendered it so torridly hors de combat, as President Buhari has just done via his unfortunate national address.

    Therefore, if we ordinary Nigerians cannot tell him, the Supreme Court must now help inform President Buhari, in  the best way possible, that he does not own Nigeria and should, therefore,  not attempt a rehash of Louis XIV’s “L’État, c’est moi”, meaning “I am the state”.

    He, no doubt, has enormous powers but none, not one, as some respected silk commented yesterday ,  gives him the right to sit on appeal on any court judgment, least of all, on a Supreme Court decision.

    It is more unfortunate that the premises on which some of his reasons are based are not in accord with logic. I give only two examples: when he says the volume of money retrieved by the CBN has lowered inflation, he either has not heard, or has not been informed, that the inflation rate which was 21.34 in December ’22 is now 21.82.  Equally, when he said that the money so far retrieved will now be available for investment, I think that, out of respect to his person, Emefiele has not yet sold him the lie that the retrieved N500 notes have been burnt, as he has ingloriously been trying to sell to Nigerians.

    Or are the ‘burnt’ N500 notes still available for investment?

    So much for the quality of advice Godwin Emefiele must have been giving President Buhari.

    This brings me to Ladi Williams who, a few months ago, as a guest of Channels TV, asked Nigerians to hold that President Buhari has, indeed, done his best, and that we should now look forward to whoever his successor may be,  for any positive change to happen in Nigeria.

    I therefore go back to my article of 31 July, ’22 titled:”The Tinubu Roadmap to Nigerian Greatness as Panacea to The Nigerian Conundrum. I wrote, therein, as follows:

    The starting point our presidential aspirants should now realise is  the appreciation that disaster looms in Nigeria. It is a nation on crutches. It worsened the other day when bandits, or was it Boko Haram elements, looked President Muhammadu Buhari straight in the eye, figuratively speaking, and  said they will kidnap, not just him, but together with a serving state governor, and bring them straight into the bush where they had then  just finished giving the remaining 43 victims of the Abuja – Kaduna train kidnap they have held for over 100 days, the beating of their lives. What made that worse was that many days after, the equally threatened governor El Rufai of Kaduna state, told Nigerians that the president was still unaware of the gratuitous insult.

    Unfortunately, insecurity is only one of the many demons tearing at the very soul of the country. The economy equally  lies prostrate as Nigeria spends about118 percent of its revenue on debt servicing. The Naira is hardly worth the paper on which it is printed just as tertiary education has been  dead for the past 5 months with nearly all Universities shut down.

     All these may not have been for lack of trying by President Buhari as presidential spokespersons  never cease to tell us but the truth is that his best is simply not good enough.

    While we  concede all the unexpected headwinds – the low oil prices for a considerable length of time, two successive recessions, Covid -19 and the ongoing Russia- Ukraine war, we beg to assert that much more could still have been done and it is safe to say that the government is, actually, now clearly overwhelmed.

    This past week, Ladi Williams, a guest on Channels TV Morning Show, suggested that Nigerians should now realise that at about 80, President Buhari is no longer the young man of the ‘80’s. Therefore, rather than  criticise him, we should commend the bit he has been able to do.

    I copletely agree with him.

    He equally  suggested that Nigerians must now begin to look more to those individuals angling to succeed him in less than a year. So whatever rough edges the president might be leaving behind, we must now begin to critically look at that individual, who would, be most fit for purpose, to rebuild Nigeria.

    This is why I am recalling the article I wrote on these pages over 6 months ago so we would concentrate less on critising the incunbent.

    The article tells about the campaign promises  the APC  presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has presented to Nigerians as his roadmap to  Nigeria’s rebirth, and greatness, if elected president. However, before I enumerate his key promises let me make some comments on two other leading candidates, starting with the redoubtable former Nigerian Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the PDP’s presidential candidate, to be followed by that of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi.

    Thanks to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigerians now know that almost as soon as Atiku got into office as his Vice in 1999,  he became distracted, plotting to replace him as President. This Obasanjo said was because the Marabouts who told Atiku he would be elected governor  but would not  serve as such because he would be nominated to a higher office, also told him he would be president almost without even trying. Obasanjo further said thatthe dislocation this caused Atiku was why he couldn’t  do much in office, except that Nigerians remember that under his direct supervision, national investments worth about $100Billion were sold off  for  about 1.5 B dollars. President Obasanjo described Alhaji Atiku in words that are far beyond me to repeat on these pages  and concluded: “knowing all that I discovered about him, what would have been an unpardonable mistake, and sin against God, would have been to foist him on Nigeria as president” – Obasanjo, My Watch(Part 2).

    If Atiku was not good enough to lead Nigeria in 2007, he certainly cannot be the man Nigeria needs today, 16 years after.

    On his part, Governor Obi, would best be remembered for investing Anambra state’s funds in his family business when he was Governor of Anambra state. There is, in addition, documented evidence of  his ethnic – motivated actions which led to Northern traders having to hurriedly relocate from Anambra to Delta state as they were being killed in numbers, and their houses, and markets, burnt. The Sultan of Sokoto was reported to have intervened to no avail. We need not mention the unreplied allegations of his drug dealing by the respected Igbo Association, IGBO KWENU.

    As the tenure of these two and Tinubu in public office was contemporaneous, it should be interesting to note that this was the same time the APC presidential candidate, as Lagos State governor,  was laying the foundations of a then  rustic, refuse – laden, and  security – challenged Lagos, to turn it  to what today is the fifth largest economy in Africa.

    That was the Lagos President Obasanjo described in 2001, while launching the Global Campaign for Good Urban Governance in Nigeria as follows: “Lagos, with its notoriety, qualifies as an urban jungle which should not be inhabited by any sane person”. The same Obasanjo would go on to seize  the state’s Local Government funds in 2005, an action which Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, said provided ample opportunity for the Tinubu – led Lagos state government “to think like a sovereign state, which enabled it to overcome its financial challenges” , adding that. “the capacity of the state to rethink its predicament at the time resulted in huge increase in its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), which is today in the region of N45 billion”.

    Below is what space constraint will permit of Tinubu’s promise to the nation ahead the 2023 Presidential election:

    *Decentralising the police and creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs simultaneously.

    *Transforming Nigeria into an enviable country, where there will be justice, peace and prosperity for all; a great country,  and a role model for black people worldwide.

    *Make Nigeria a thriving democracy, with a fast-growing industrial base, capable of producing the basic needs of the people as well as exporting these to other countries.

    *Turn Nigeria to a robust economy where prosperity will be shared by all; irrespective of class, region, or religion as well a safe and secure country with abundant food, affordable shelter and quality health care for all.

    *Ensuring a nation founded on justice, peace, and prosperity for all.”

    *He promised to launch a new National Industrial Policy which will focus on special interventions to reinvigorate specific strategic industries.

    *Stimulating jobs will be his top priority as President and  will launch a major public works program with heavy investment in infrastructure,  manufacturing and agriculture.

    *His administration, will build an efficient, fast-growing, and well-diversified emerging economy with a real GDP growth, averaging 12% annually for the next four years, translating into millions of new jobs, especially for millions of  Nigerian youths.

    *Create six new Regional Economic Development Agencies

    (REDA) which will establish sub-regional industrial hubs to exploit each zone’s competitive advantage and optimise their potential for industrial growth.

    *Formulate a new National

    Policy on Agriculture to boost food production. He will also formulate a new National Policy on Agriculture to boost

    food production, just he will establish  new commodity exchange

    boards, in order to

    guarantee minimum pricies for agricultural products like cotton, cocoa, rice, soya beans, corn, palm kernel, and groundnuts.

    *On infrastructure, Ashiwaju promised to “Build A New Nigeria (BANN)” by developing a National Infrastructure plan, which will cover strategic roads, bridges, rail, water, power, seaports, and airports, spanning the length and breadth of the country.

    *His administration will combine government funding, borrowing, public private partnership, private sector financing and concession to initiate a medium and long-term financial model for the BANN initiative.

    *He promises an action-oriented, and immediate, focus on resolving existing challenges of power generation plants, gas purchasing, pricing, transmission, and distribution.  The administration’s critical goal will be to have 15,000 megawatts, distributable to all categories of consumers nationwide, to ensure

    24/7 sustainable supply, all within the next four  years.

    *On the oil and gas sector, Tinubu said there will be no need for a subsidy because the market will be open and transparent. Supply will come from local refineries, and the forces of demand and supply will determine the price of petroleum products. He will establish a National Strategic Reserve for Petroleum Products to stabilize supply during unexpected shortages or surplus periods. This will eliminate any form

    of product shortages and prevent wild swings in prices.

    *25 per cent of the nation’s budget will go to Education, and he will continue the free school feeding programme of the present  APC government , feeding

    “millions of primary school children across the country. On tertiary education, his administration will eradicate strikes by encouraging the institutions to source for funds through grants and corporate

    sponsorships, with all the institutions granted financial  autonomy as well as establish student loans for tertiary education students.

    *He will increase funding for health care to 10 per cent. The National Health Insurance Scheme will be relaunched to grant health insurance cover to most Nigerians.

    Since this article was published on Sunday, 31 July, ’22, the candidate has been everywhere in the country, expatiating on them, especially as they relate to each state, professional and, or trade group  everywhere he visited on his unmatched campaign tours.  

    And as the candidate never ceases to say: hope is here.

  • Avoidable Naira swap crisis

    Avoidable Naira swap crisis

    When I shared a post on my Facebook timeline last Wednesday, it was meant to express my frustrations and that of many other Nigerians, especially those who don’t live in the cities and are finding it more difficult to cope with the challenges of getting Naira to spend.

    In my post, I stated that the currency crisis we are experiencing was avoidable. “Avoidable Naira problem. Did we have to redesign our currency and withdraw the old one when the CBN does not have the capacity to meet the demand for new notes? My people call it Afowofa (self-inflicted problem)”

    Instead of accusing anyone of being responsible for the problem, I choose to note the inability of the institution responsible for providing the currency, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to meet the demands that have resulted in Nigerians buying our currency and not the foreign ones at very explorative rates.

    A colleague, for whatever reason, was so angry that he accused me of blaming the Governor of the CBN Godwin Emefiele (though I didn’t mention his name) instead of President Muhammad Buhari.

    “How you can ascribe what is happening with the Naira scarcity and absolve Buhari is something I did not expect to hear from you. That Emefiele can single-handedly print new Naira notes, hoard them, inflict this hardship on Nigeria and disobey the Supreme Court no matter how absurd the ruling might be is an unbelievable assertion. I cannot understand what all of you are up to with this kind of thinking,” he stated in a shocking response that made me wonder what was responsible for his unnecessary attack on my person.

    Even when I bottled my anger and simply asked “How did I absolve Buhari? I didn’t even mention Emefiele,” he still had a pun-intended response.

    “Alright. You only mentioned CBN.  Maybe, I mistakenly inferred that Emefiele has something to do with CBN. My unreserved apologies.”

    I have no doubt that he had a good point about the CBN Governor not acting without the approval of the President, but he didn’t have to make it seem Emefiele was simply doing the President’s bidding alone on the matter. The President can be blamed for approving and supporting the ill-timed policy, but who came up with the idea in the first place and who has been defending it with all kinds of explanations that do not make any sense to the average Nigerian, who based on the CBN directive deposited their old notes and can’t get the new one to spend?

    Who should be blamed for not envisaging the shortfall we are experiencing due to the alleged roles of banks and some influential persons mopping up what CBN claimed to have supplied? Why did the CBN underestimate the hitches that have come up with the Naira swap and are now trading blame with banks?

    Nigerians are not interested in the long story about the avoidable crisis which the government and the CBN forced on them, they want the money they have deposited in banks.

    I deliberately did not mention Emefiele’s name in my post because individuals who head any institution are not supposed to be bigger than their agencies. They are supposed to take decisions after careful deliberations on policies they want to implement.

    Their policies will have several implications on the citizens, like the currency swap is not supposed to be the brainwave of just one person, but a carefully thought out one with how to implement it by the top management.

    President Buhari has owned up to approving the currency redesign in his broadcast, but who or which institution sold the idea to him?

    What was he told about the preparations for the implementation? Who is assuring him, typically, that all is well and the situation is under control when some Nigerians have to stay overnight in banks to collect sometimes as low as N3000 from the ATM when they are lucky to find one dispensing cash?

    There is so much tension in the country over the scarcity of the naira and even other normal banking transactions have been disrupted when necessary steps should have been taken to ensure a seamless swap of the currency within a reasonable time.

    Long after leaving office, Buhari’s tenure will not be forgotten for his deeds and misdeeds, the names of officials who aided the shoddy implementation of policies that put Nigerians through unnecessary hassles, as the naira swap, will also be top in the book of remembrance.

  • Nothing has changed

    Nothing has changed

    • Nigerians remain cashless nine days after Council of State meeting, and three days after presidential address

    Still on our wobbling and fumbling Naira redesign tragedy. I was somewhat fascinated by what thecable.ng quoted Femi Adesina, special adviser, media and publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, as what former President Olusegun Obasanjo said during the Council of State meeting on the matter on February 10.  Chief Obasanjo’s position is worthy of attention because the Buhari administration has always taken on the former president whenever he expressed his usual candid opinion on some of the government’s policies.

    One thing you cannot take away from Obasanjo is the fact that he does things the way they seem to him. He has had cause to criticise the Buhari government several times, like any rational human being. Whereas where we were as a country before the currency redesign made that imperative, our situation today, barely three months to the exit of the administration, makes it even more so. That there is no love lost between Obasanjo and the Buhari government is public knowledge.

    But the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Buhari government conveniently forgot that the same Obasanjo openly tore his membership card of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) when he was fed up with the stench that became the defining characteristic of the then Goodluck Jonathan administration. Lest we forget, PDP is not just Obasanjo’s political party, it was the party that fetched him the presidency in 1999. At the time the man tore his membership card of such a party in the open, it was sweet music in the ears of the APC-in-the-waiting government then. But the Buhari government seems not to reckon with the wise saying that a man who tramples on his own clothes would not mind tearing someone else’s (eni to te aso ara e mole, o le ya teni eleni). If it ever did, it would not have had the guts to criticise Obasanjo whenever he says the present government is not doing well. And is it?

    It is the same way that the government took on Transparency International in our current corruption rating. As this paper said in an editorial on this aspect, such attacks should not be the right mindset. It is true the government has succeeded in jailing some politically exposed persons and what have you, the point remains that a lot still needs to be done on anti-corruption. If the war had succeeded, banks would not be messing up the currency redesign, at least that is the claim by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele.

    Against this background of the Buhari government/Obasanjo cold relations, therefore, whatever made the government to single out Obasanjo’s comment from the lot must be worth interrogating, especially if the headline actually reflected the story: “Femi Adesina: Obasanjo commends Buhari on Naira redesign, says ‘resistance to change is normal’. Adesina did not cast the headline. I guess those who did must have done that for attention-getting purposes. And I must confess I am one of those that the headline compelled to read the story. Has Baba been bought over? I must equally confess that after reading the story and some of the quotes, I was not disappointed. Baba still dey kampe!

    “Change was necessary from time to time, and resistance to change is normal”, Adesina reportedly said, in Obasanjo’s words. This is true. As a matter of fact, Adesina said Obasanjo cited the raising of feeding fee in the universities in his time as military dictator in the 1970s, leading to violent protests in the country as an example. Although I have always disagreed with this decision, I leave my reservation on that to another day.

    For me, the most important thing, that is, what I see as takeaway from Obasanjo on the matter of Naira redesign at the council’s meeting was “The Naira change is good, but implementation is the issue. If there’s inadequate supply, let’s have more. If there are unscrupulous people sabotaging the policy, let’s deal with them.”

    That is Obasanjo for you.

    It could not have been better said. And this is what many of us who are not politicians are saying. As a matter of fact, this was my position in my very first article on this matter. I have no problem with the government aspiring to stop voter-inducement. I have no problem with the government redesigning currency if it is convinced it would reduce kidnapping or lead to strengthening of our currency. But I have a problem with the implementation of what seemed a policy that was not well thought-out, hence the various problems the ordinary Nigerian has been going through since its implementation began.

    Unfortunately, it seems the government is only interested in listening to itself by ramming down the policy in spite of the huge cost to the economy and the country at large.

    As a matter of fact, the desperation to continue on this seemingly wicked route is making more people to begin to believe that the policy was designed to achieve some ulterior political motives rather than the reasons the government put forward for introducing it. If for instance, you say you want to stop politicians from buying votes, is it across board or a selective matter? Even for me, the selective nature of the policy is becoming apparent. What I may not tell for sure now is whether President Buhari is part of the plot or he is just working on the ostensible benefits of the redesign as sold to him by the CBN and the cabal in his government. Again, if the intention is also about checking the influence of money in politics, I do not think it is working because of the mammoth crowds at political campaigns, especially those of the major parties. I guess the government believes such crowds can only be procured. In that case, where did the parties get the money to procure such crowds, in view of the noose-tightening on the banks and the economy generally?

    If there are no other motives behind the ones advertised, the government should have gone beyond what it has done to assuage the pains of Nigerians. What we have been going through in the past few weeks of the redesign is worse than what we suffered during the Coronavirus pandemic. At least COVID-19 was a global experience which seemed to be beyond human comprehension until man was able to get the vaccine to combat it. What makes the Emefiele experience worse is the fact that it makes it impossible for Nigerians to access their bank accounts. Since my secondary school days, I had been taught in the Economics class that money confers liquidity on its owner. As in most things typically Nigerian, that popular belief was demystified by Emefiele. We have a situation where money has failed woefully in this regard. Both the hardworking and the indolent in Nigeria are now suffering the same fate. Not for one week, not two, not three. Nigerians who never begged their entire lives, no matter what, suddenly became beggars overninght.

    And in the midst of the untold sufferings, the government is asking people to bear with it without any concrete solution in sight. Today, Nigerians are still refugees in the banks where they have their hard-earned money. So, of what use was the meeting of the Council of State, if nine days after their resolution, things have largely remained the same? Nigerians are still awaiting Emefiele’s elusive cash; even the N200 notes that the president magnanimously approved are nowhere to be found. Emefiele says it is temporary pain. In Nigeria, no pain is temporary. It is only enjoyment that is temporary. If many public policies brought enjoyment to Nigerians, then there must have been a mistake somewhere.

    At any rate, can Emefiele face those who have lost their loved ones during this avoidable crisis and tell them that their loss is temporary? Would that sermon have made sense to Emefiele and his co-travellers (who have been so long in government that they don’t know what those outside are going through), if they were the ones that lost their sons or daughters or other loved ones, either directly from the bullets of security men unleashed to protect the evil agenda, or indirectly through the pangs of hunger or inability to access own money for emergency medical attention?

    Yet, it doesn’t seem to me that the government is in a hurry to make cash available to Nigerians. Otherwise, banks would have opened on Saturday and yesterday as they did when they were collecting people’s cash. Perhaps there is no cash to dispense because these days, you don’t know when government is saying the ruth and when it is lying.

    Emefiele said bankers that he superintends are the ones frustrating his policy. How many bank chief executives are facing the music? Holding the small fry alone is not enough. But that is the problem with Nigeria. Instead of facing those frustrating enjoyment of subsidy by Nigerians, government believes in punishing the ordinary people for its incompetence and lack of political will to deal with the thieves. But this luck should not be overstretched so it does not become ill-luck. What is on ground now is worse than police brutality that caused EndSARS  in 2020.

    It is for the same spirit of either incompetence or lack of capacity to do the rightful that the government is now  blaming politicians for the protests that have been caused by the elusive cash. Does the government expect people who have their money trapped in banks to simply fold their arms at home and wait for death? Does it not border on sadism to be flogging someone without expecting that person to cry? As far as Nigerians who are the direct beasts of burden of this inhuman policy are concerned, the government would do better by ordering the CBN to ask the banks to serve whosoever comes for their personal money again Gamalin 20 or Sniper, so they could drink and die, instead of constituting public nuisance to the government by pouring to the streets when hunger strikes. At least that would put an everlasting end to their misery.

    And, in case it is true that there are some people in government who have other motives beyond the general elections and think they had perfected their plans, they should not lose sight of the fact that God has His own ways of destroying the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent. But those who are now pricking Nigerians with pins should first try it on themselves.

    Permit me to end this piece with the prayer or wish I had been avoiding since the crisis started: those responsible for all the plagues (I mean ALL, as in ALL) that have been visited on ordinary Nigerians in the name of this policy would also at one point or the other experience the plagues. The only saving grace is if they actually did what they are doing to make Nigeria better.

    I don’t need to tell you to shout a loud ‘Amen’ because I can hear the thunderous ‘Amen’ even from afar.

  • Presidential Poll: Pointblank!

    Presidential Poll: Pointblank!

    Constitutionally, in a presidential poll, winning a state or losing it is not the major contention. There are two prerequisites aftermath of the election to be declared a President-Elect. Firstly, the candidate, a bona fide flag bearer of a registered political party, must score the highest total votes cast in all the polling units of the country. Secondly, he must garner at least 25% of votes cast in not less than 24 out of 36 states of Nigeria … Imagine this scenario shared by an analyst: “A win in just one state out of 10 may actually cover and compensate for a loss in 9 states. How? For a candidate to be declared a winner, he must concentrate on states and districts where he could achieve great margins of victory referred to in political circles as landslides. In essence, Candidate A may win in just 10 states and be declared winner at the end of the day while candidate B who won albeit with narrow margins in 26 states, will eventually lose. If Candidate A eventually garners more than 25% of votes in over 28 states, he becomes the winner!”

    It is commonly said that a day may be too long in politics! In essence, as the days beckon to the poll of Saturday, 25th February 2023, anything is still possible. The presidential poll is less than a week by the time this publication will be in the public domain. There are lots of undercurrents of political scheming and horse trading between politicians of all political parties, especially the major ones. It is both interesting and intriguing that among these major parties, namely the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Party (APC), there are seeming incidents of inter and intra party conflicts that could marginally counter successful outcomes at the imminent poll if not checkmated! How faring or prepared are the other two seemingly major parties – the Labour Party (LP) and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP)? Talking and tinkering on spread and structure, both the LP and NNPP are not politically strong in many states and districts of the country. Presently, within Nigeria’s context, and in a presidential poll, spread and structure are very big issues: these cannot be discountenanced. There is no need to be emotional and sentimental about these regarding actual political dealings at the grassroots nearing the day, and even on the day of the poll. For instance, a party that could not boast of a registered agent in almost 70% of the polling units of the country, should stop day dreaming of winning the presidential election. It has not happened in any presidential election in Nigeria, and will not even happen in this present digital age in which most followers are so vehement and vociferous on social media but unfortunately neglect their civic responsibility on election day! If the emphasis has been on altruistic service, sacrifice and strategizing, especially months before the election, the gains of the LP on social media would have been converted to more meaningful enhancement of spread and structure. However, most of the followers were harping on their social media tantrums to whip up sentiments for their principal with the tinkering that more followers would side with their perceptions. Unfortunately, things do not work that way politically at the grassroots. As for the NNPP, the presence is more felt in Kano and possibly some few states in the north. Practically, the voice of NNPP is silenced in most south west, south east and south south states. In essence, the presidential poll will be a straight two horse race between the main opposition party, PDP, and the ruling party, APC.

    Presidential Pendulum: Deciding Factors

    Constitutionally, in a presidential poll, winning a state or losing it is not the major contention. There are two prerequisites aftermath of the election to be declared a President-Elect. Firstly, the candidate, a bona fide flag bearer of a registered political party, must score the highest total votes cast in all the polling units of the country. Secondly, he must garner at least 25% of votes cast in not less than 24 out of 36 states of Nigeria. In order for any candidate to satisfy these requirements and be declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), one core, crucial and cogent issue, is margin of victory. Simultaneously, the issue of garnering at least 25% of votes cast in at least 24 states out of the 36 states of the country comes next. Imagine this scenario shared by  an  analyst: “A win in just one state out of 10 may actually cover and compensate for a loss in 9 states. How? For a candidate to be declared a winner, he must concentrate on states and districts where he could achieve great margins of victory referred to in political circles as landslides. In essence, Candidate A may win in just 10 states and be declared winner at the end of the day while candidate B who won albeit with narrow margins in 26 states, will eventually lose. If Candidate A eventually garners more than 25% of votes in over 28 states, he becomes the winner!” I concur with this stand and stake of the analyst. Consequently, it is vital and imperative for any candidate that desires to win to concentrate on the margins and spread. As succinctly and saliently stated in the introduction of this article, the jostling for the presidency is strictly speaking a two horse race between the candidates of the APC and PDP, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar respectively.

    Pinpointing Presidential Preference

    Who wins the 25th February 2023 presidential poll?

    There are already lots of permutations, prophecies, predictions and/or postulations regarding where the presidential pendulum would swing. However, it is good to state at the outset that, 2023 elections would be decided more on preferential or primordial interests than other factors that many would think will produce the winning edge. Definitely, there is already a thin line when one looks at the political party’s basis. Moreover, regional raison d’etre to vote for a particular candidate is giving way to rational decision based on interests whilst religious lines are getting blurred due to some emerging realities, courtesy of grassroots’ politicians. This columnist is of the perception that more than any other factors, primordial, patrimonial and /or  partisan interests will give the winner an edge. These interests will be directed and dictated by political lords looming large over states and districts within Nigeria.

    For instance, in the south west ern states (Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti, Oyo and Ondo) , there is hardly any state that Tinubu will not win; same for Peter Obi in the south east ern states (Enugu, Imo, Anambra, Ebonyi and Abia) . However, in the north east, it is likely to be battle royal between the APC and PDP: this is where the Shettima’s factor comes in. Senator Kashim Shettima is the vice-presidential candidate of the ruling APC and he is from Borno State. Definitely, Borno, Gombe and Yobe will be largely won by APC while Adamawa, Bauchi and Taraba will go to PDP with possible narrow margins. Looking at the north central, it is likely Kogi, Kwara, Niger and Nasarawa states will be won with some margins by ruling APC while Benue and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) will be narrowly won by the PDP. Plateau may be a battle ground between LP, PDP and APC. In the southeastern states, it is posited that LP’s candidate ,  Peter Obi, would hold sway whilst APC’s Tinubu will win at least 25% in Enugu, Imo, and Abia: courtesy of political lords dictating pace in these parts of the country. In the same vein, the south southern states will be between LP, PDP and APC; PDP may win slightly in Edo and Delta. Surprisingly, APC may win such states as Cross River, Rivers and Bayelsa with slight margins. The explanation for this is that the PDP’s structure in Cross River and Rivers states is aligning with APC’s winning courtesy of Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State whilst Bayelsa has shifted from being a PDP stronghold. Finally, the north western states of Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara, the APC will hold sway in virtually all the states. Nevertheless, the margin of winning will be seemingly slight in Kano and Sokoto. Simply and squarely stated: the votes of Kano State will be shared between APC and NNPP (the flag bearer of the party, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, comes from here), whilst Sokoto’s PDP that should supposedly hold sway is in tatters with a tingle of defections occurring almost on weekly basis to the rival main opposition in the state, the APC. The man in the saddle in the state, Governor Aminu Tambuwal, has not been able to stem the gale of defections and disaffection with his party, the PDP, in Sokoto State.

    Conclusively, it is the surmise and submission of this columnist that as things stand today within the political context of Nigeria, and with less than one week to the presidential poll, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is poised, posited or postulated to win with majority votes cast in all the 36 states and FCT whilst also satisfying the constitutional condition of garnering a minimum of 25% votes cast in not less than 24 states. It is amazing to virtually most observers and analysts that despite his rumoured ill health, Tinubu’s campaigns have revved up whilst that of his opponents have been downscaled! Regardless of the twin sadistic milieu occasioned by the fuel and Naira-redesign conundrum, with the apparent clandestine and mischievous intentions of the fifth columnists within the corridors of power, as succinctly and saliently stated by the Presidential Campaign Committee (PCC) of the APC, these irredentists, obsessed with the apparent objective of causing possible anarchy in the land that will surreptitiously lead to calling off the polls, have missed the target. It is a truism that most Nigerians desire that the polls go on as scheduled. Head or tail, Tinubu, the seeming stormy petrel of Nigeria’s political landscape is still the enigmatic man to beat!! Followers are flowing and following along with keen interest. Hence, courageous and exemplary followers who are registered voters must troop out on Saturday 25th February, 2023 to vote, and  so  make their voices vehement and vociferous! Enough of being noisy on social media;  it is high time to showcase  those  seeming online outbursts by voting on election day as responsible and sensible citizens!!

    Ekundayo, Ph.D. – can be reached via +2348030598267 (WhatsApp only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com

  • On the Afenifere debacle

    On the Afenifere debacle

    The above would have been a depressing catalogue of Yoruba comprehensive failure in the postcolonial Hades of Nigeria. But it is a profound irony that the argument eventually turns on itself. All the failings and weaknesses of the Yoruba people also happen to be the source of their strengths and successes in contemporary Nigeria.

    It is due to these failings and weaknesses that the scion of the Igbo ethnic group and the Yoruba greatest political rival for power would describe Obafemi Awolowo as the greatest Prime minister Nigeria never had. It is also not by accident that the frontrunner and the man to beat in the current race for the Nigerian presidency is also of Yoruba extraction.

    Thirdly, the moderate success that modernity and modernization has had in the South West of the nation is due to the liberal and accommodating nature of the Yoruba people. This is what has made the old region a magnetic hub for those absconding from the harsh economic and political brutalities of their catchment area and a Mecca for those in quest of cultural and sociological rehabilitation.

    Finally, in the unremitting harshness and bitter desiccations of the postcolonial coliseum that is Nigeria, the South West is still the most livable and most civilized segment of the nation. This is at a point when the other rival regions have virtually dissolved in chaos and commotion as a result of internal contradictions.

    Contrary to the postulations of later-day mischief-makers motivated solely by hatred and vendetta, the original Afenifere credo does not mean that one should love one’s neighbor more than oneself. The ethical thrust of the Afenifere maxim inheres in the equitable delineation of spheres of authority and jurisdiction. If this were not so, the original Action Group would have meekly surrendered the old Western region to Zik’s poaching and predatory antics.

    If your neighbors want to indulge in the futilities of unitarist dominion in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nation, he should by all means go ahead but he should not by any means attempt to corral or overrun your own region in the process. Two Yoruba proverbs explain what is going on.

    One has it that even the farmstead belonging to a father and his son must have boundaries. The other holds that if you find yourself and your child engulfed by flames, you must first try to rid yourself of the tongs of fire before you would be in a position to save your child.

    It is useful to recall that before the NCNC was subject to wholesale ethnicisation upon the death of its old supremo, Herbert Macaulay, and the ascension of Nnamdi Azikiwe as its leader, it was predominantly the party of the Yoruba coastal aristocracy comprising of Saro elites, Brazilian émigrés and the indigenous moneyed and propertied class. But by the time Zik finished with it, it had become the pre-eminent vehicle for Igbo political aspiration.

    This was the momentum that carried Zik to the old Agodi Gate thinking that the premiership of the Yoruba west was a done deal. The flamboyant master-propagandist did not betray any sense of outrage at this frank anomaly. It all seemed perfectly normal. But he failed to reckon with the fact that the Yoruba political elite know how to fight best when they have their back to the wall.

    As state-oriented people of empire, who have themselves thrown up one of the most remarkable imperium in pre-colonial Africa, the Yoruba know when to rock the boat and when not to stir things up. This can never be equated with timidity or cowardice. It is called state valorization. But it did not stop them from cocking a snook at the state when it overstepped its bound.

    No one knows how to fight their corner better than the people. For a long time during a crisis, there may be evidence of a moral atrophy or paralysis of the will. Empty verbal grandstanding or futile sabre rattling may be the order of the day. But when a consensus emerges often through the recondite means of aggregating the mutually hostile outlook and warring notions, Yoruba always manage to throw up leaders who show grit and determination.

    It is the leonine valour of an Herbert Macaulay. It is the grit and determination shown by an Obafemi Awolowo as he slogged his way through futility and heroic failure. It is the grit and determination shown by an MKO Abiola as he marched through aborted triumph and heroic martyrdom. And it is the grit and determination currently shown by Bola Ahmed Tinubu as his political blitzkrieg rolls relentlessly towards the coveted prize. Not many political purists would have given the latter duo a fighting chance.

    The ways of history are truly mysterious. Nobody gave Bola Tinubu much of a chance when the gladiators’ arena opened. It was seen by many as a bridge too far. But Tinubu has shown much courage and heroic indomitability in the way he has demolished opponents of mythical power. He has picked his way through the desert of a thousand vipers like a gifted snake charmer until nothing appears to be standing between him and the Golden Gate. It is the stuff of the greatest fiction.

    Unless something else is the matter, the former Lagos state Governor has demonstrated enough guts, conviction and steely resolve under withering fire to be admitted to the Nigerian Hall of Fame of exceptional politicians. Based on the events of the past few months, only the most biased and jaundiced would deny that Tinubu by his courage, character and cujones is an authentic member of the Yoruba pantheon of mythological heroes, those avatars who choose to dare gravity and court martyrdom.

    Let us now round up the observations. In the postcolonial coliseum, it is the emergent contradictions and new realities that throw up the type of leader most suitable for the moment and the mode of engagement. You cannot prescribe the ways and means of old heroes and their fighting strategy for new situations. This is what makes old revered savants look so helpless and pathetic under new light.

    It is the passage of time and unfolding realities that have made the peremptory order by a section of the ancient Yoruba leadership asking their political wards to refrain from participating in the presidential election to now appear in its startling and grievous magnitude. It is a flawed and fissured policy shot through with ideological and strategic errors.

    To start with, the order betrays an aggravating lack of fidelity and faith to what it is trying to copy.  Consociational bonding and pacting among the political elites of a fractured polity is usually preceded by widespread consultations and intense negotiations among all the elites and not by sectional grandstanding and one-upmanship. The Afenifere grandees compounded the initial error of judgment by showing open hostility to some of the contestants.

    Second, asking people to refrain from contesting under a severely flawed 1999 constitution which they themselves have openly condemned and contemned is like asking to be accorded priority of service in a restaurant you have dismissed as a public health hazard. More seriously, it is akin to tying up the hands of your own political wards behind their back in the context of a free for all fight.

    One can then imagine what would be the fate of Nigerian politics if Bola Tinubu had declined to contest the presidential election or if he had ducked out of a confrontation with the feudal limpets in APC in the same way and manner Peter Obi bolted from the apparatchiks of power in PDP. It is still morning on creation day. Tinubu may just be the lightning rod for a cause greater than himself. Those who refuse to profit from a dialectical reading of history are condemned to suffer the horror of its consequences.

  • Headwinds on the homeward stretch

    Headwinds on the homeward stretch

    As the nation finally wings its way towards the most momentous election in its post-independence history, one thing is now certain. This is not going to be election as a carnival. The mood of the nation is too tense and foul for that. There are times when a carnival-like gaiety takes over the electoral fortunes of a nation, usually as a precursor to great revolutionary changes in the structure and texture of the society. There is no such indication at the moment.

    As it is, there is no great ideological contest going on. The ruling elite have settled for liberal democracy, warts and all. The eponymous Nigerian masses and their former patrons in the intellectual sub-class are too inchoate and incoherent; too weak, too enfeebled, too disoriented and too structurally divided to mount any meaningful challenge to the dominant order. This, it seems, is not the time for any fancy stuff.

    The only beef among the various factions of the political elite appears to be the management or rather the mismanagement of modernity. Even at that, only one or two of the candidates appear to be adverting their mind to the fundamental crisis of modernity in a country hobbled by conflicting and countervailing modes of economic, political and spiritual production.

    Yet everywhere you turn in Nigeria, the mismanagement of modernity stares one in the face whether as seen in the casual and cavalier override of the supremacy of the Supreme Court, the inability of the Central Bank to submit itself to the rule of law, the economic onslaught on the socially disadvantaged and the endemic lack of capacity-building in the leading parties which has resulted in their inability to cohere and coalesce into organic political formations.

    At a time when other countries are taking developmental strides towards a new type of human society, it is a pity that we are still mired in a developmental stasis as we struggle to leave behind us the pre-modern epoch and its mindboggling incapacitations.

    The queues that surfaced this past week, of hard-pressed Nigerians hunting for their own currency like Stone Age people foraging for food is a sad reminder of how easy it is for human civilization to suffer a catastrophic reverse. The mindset that loathes modernization and its consequences is the greatest enemy of the nation-state paradigm in Nigeria.

    As the nation approaches its rendezvous with history, there is a seismic undercurrent which may not be apparent to the casual observer but which is nevertheless suggestive of a tectonic shift of attitude and perception among the Nigerian populace. First is the increasing preponderance and involvement of Nigerian youth in the struggle for power. This is a reflection of a shift in the demographic balance of voting power. Youth is a stuff that will no longer endure.

    One may of course regret the ungentlemanly and boorish conduct, the resort to foul and violent language particularly on the internet, the unethical deployment of fake news which has virtually compromised the efficacy of the legitimate channels of communication and the resort to fraudulent manipulation of public opinion through fabricated polls prediction. But when you look at it closely, these are all byproducts of the crisis of modernity. You cannot cherry pick your way through a crisis.

    Two issues keep cropping up in elite discussions, particularly among the concerned elite of Yoruba extraction. These issues reared their head once again in correspondence this past week with two avid readers of this column. They are both distinguished Nigerians, of different genders. The first position illustrates from an acute perspective what can be called the afenifere debacle in the postcolonial dystopia of Nigeria.

    The second is a lament about the de-civilization of Nigeria in the light of ongoing attempts by some state institutions to deny Nigerians the right to assert and validate their humanity. We give full hearing to the first position before rounding up with our own commentary.

  • Presidential poll: Palladium’s endorsement

    Presidential poll: Palladium’s endorsement

    Whether the leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) confess it or not, the ruling party will be going into the February presidential election divided. On the one hand is the conservative old guard, men and women still trapped in the sectarian and irredentist politics of reaction harking back to the immediate past. And on the other hand are the radical, less stereotypical and progressive Young Turks. The party has caught a whiff of the speculations about the divisions, but they are trying their best to paper over the cracks. Until the elections are over, no one will be sure how successfully the divisions within the party have been mended. But meanwhile, doubts will continue to be entertained about the involvement and enthusiasm of both President Muhammadu Buhari and party chairman Abdullahi Adamu in the campaign, for few can tell whether they are as committed to the cause of winning the presidential poll as they have professed.

    Hopefully the APC will win the February 25 poll, if the candidate can mitigate the reservations of their disaffected leaders still grumbling over the party’s presidential pick. Should the party win, it will invariably strengthen the resolve of the progressive wing of the party. And if that dominant wing takes office, the party will veer more concretely towards the ideological mooring of their illustrious founding and enthrone a more realistic tenor of progressivism upon the country. That radical and inclusive wing is more ideological in its progressivism than the insular old guard is conservative in its reactionary politics. If, as expected, the APC wins to the credit of its radical, less ossified wing, and should they govern seamlessly for four years, they are likely to establish a solid structure for their party and execute ideological politics uncommon in these parts.

    Until last month when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) hid details and deliberately botched the execution of its naira redesign policy, the political momentum was on the side of the APC. Apart from enjoying the benefits of incumbency, and despite the failings and incoherence of the Buhari administration, the APC received more bounce and vibrancy in ratings than the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its flip-flopping, staid and aging presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar. Not only was the PDP’s campaign pervaded by dissension and inconsistencies, its candidate was also not as energetic, ideological and innovative as the APC’s. They were making heavy weather of their campaign, and the tide seemed to turn against them. They fantasised about winning, cashing in on the economic and social chaos nearly eight years of APC rule had thrown up, but at bottom they were realistically unsure of anything. A few crazy weeks of CBN display of gross incompetence, of course with the seeming connivance of the presidency, however, took the previously forlorn PDP to new heights of rejuvenation. They will hope that the new bounce will be sustained and driven by the counterproductive naira policies imprudently enacted by the ruling party just weeks to the election.

    The Labour Party’s candidate Peter Obi has enjoyed some concentrated attention in a few cities far disproportionate to any idea he has propounded or implemented. He is not ideological, and can’t care less whether anyone thinks he is or not. He has anchored his campaign on homiletical speeches and sermons, just enough to dazzle the Nigerian church and anyone else angry at and uncomfortable with the influence of the threatened and vulnerable so-called ‘owners of Nigeria’. He knows he cannot win, and those close to him, including his successors in Anambra State where he was governor, also know that his performance in office was less than stellar. But he is probably playing a spoiler role designed to stalemate the poll, produce a run-off, and eventually engender the victory of the PDP. But politics is not as straightforward as arithmetic, where two plus two equals four. His chances may be a little better than Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), but winning the February 25 poll is to him as chimerical as Aesop’s fables.

    That leaves the APC candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Before the CBN boondoggle was let loose upon the country, virtually every analyst, including those who loathe his candidacy, had resigned themselves to his victory and his presidency. But by October, it had seemed that even the president, despite his protestations of loyalty to the party and its candidates, was apathetic to the Tinubu aspiration and, worse, even more disinterested in the entire APC re-election project. That apathy, not to talk of the subterranean moves and machinations of some party leaders and a few denizens of Aso Villa, made it difficult to project the chances of the APC candidate. By January, and partly because Asiwaju Tinubu sensibly and courageously blazed the trail by taking issue with the naira redesign execution, the downward spiral triggered by the self-destructive policies and conspiracies controversially attributed to Aso Villa had been smothered. The APC projection is that the party will win the presidency, but perhaps by the skin of its teeth. Two main reasons account for this optimism. One is the scientific and energetic presidential campaign being run by the APC Campaign Council. The second is the quality of the candidate himself. No other party since the beginning of the Fourth Republic has run a more scientific campaign than the APC in engagement with voters, in understanding and addressing issues, and in campaigning around the country. The candidate himself, Asiwaju Tinubu, is the first candidate since the Second Republic to possess a sound grasp of economic issues, to understand how a modern economy runs, and whose auditing expertise gives him an instinctive understanding of how Nigeria’s financial labyrinth is configured.

    It is interesting that analysts and commentators have focused almost exclusively on the APC candidate, emphasising his goofs, questioning his health despite driving himself hardest among the candidates, and exaggerating his flaws. Some of the commentators are brilliant essayists who, however, lack a deep understanding of the dynamics of leadership and the characteristics of great leaders. They seem to miss the point that focusing exclusively and negatively on the APC candidate indirectly paves the way for the far less competent and qualified Messrs Atiku and Obi. The Nigerian church is even guiltier; for by repudiating Asiwaju Tinubu and the Muslim-Muslim ticket, and by throwing in their lot with Mr Obi who cannot win, they are invariably paving the way for Alhaji Atiku, another Fulani northerner. By accident rather than by design, they are, therefore, indirectly encouraging and entrenching a northern and even Muslim hegemony. Worse, neither Alhaji Atiku nor Mr Obi has the depth of understanding of modern and complex economic and management issues, let alone possesses the credential of the APC candidate in fighting for democracy, resisting dictatorship, and innovating at the highest level of governance. The PDP candidate’s record as vice president is appalling, controversial and riven with such excesses that it will be shortsighted to embrace his unmoored politics. And for Mr Obi, the simple summary of his leadership capacity is that he left no blueprint for the Anambra he governed for eight years, nor mentored anyone that has gone on to achieve national acclaim, nor did he turn the state into a destination of first choice like Lagos.

    In 2015, this column endorsed Candidate Buhari for the presidency, predicting he would win, though it warned that he was incapable of entrenching democracy or respecting the rule of law. In the end, President Buhari also proved himself a tinkerer at managing the economy, as the naira redesign policy has proved to the country’s despondency. In 2019, the column declined to endorse President Buhari for his controversial and unimaginative first term or Candidate Atiku for his gross lack of fidelity to governance ethic and total lack of innovativeness, but acknowledged that the former would win. For this presidential election, this column has no hesitation in endorsing Asiwaju Tinubu for the presidency. He will win, not by a run-off, but perhaps not by a huge margin, despite President Buhari running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

    Nature rewards the faithful and diligent. Of the four leading candidates, Asiwaju Tinubu is the most fervid and profound supporter and defender of democracy and the rule of law. He has an unmatched national record in innovative management as governor of Lagos State, what with revenue reforms, institution building, structurally re-engineering of the state into a megacity, including of course conceiving Eko Atlantic City and a host of futuristic multi-billion dollar projects that have turned the state into a national migration magnet. And he remains undisputedly a gifted administrator, mentor of men, and enthusiastic bridge builder in Nigeria and a few West African countries. None of the other candidates can hold a candle to him, for his insight, boldness and depth, virtues that have made the country’s power elite fear that his presidency would be assertive and impervious to manipulation. Despite misgivings, he is much stronger than his sometimes unsteady gait indicates, and is probably the most accomplished strategist and consensus builder alive today. He was never an orator, and had had to pick his words even in his younger days. He won’t be an orator today, let alone tomorrow, and may continue to pick his words in public speaking; but this instinctive and intuitive moderniser and manager of men will communicate his thoughts efficiently and summon the uncommon assertiveness only forward-looking ideologues and administrators par excellence are capable of. He will make a far better president than any of his opponents and deserves the chance to rule. Palladium endorses him for the presidency.

    CBN, naira swap and INEC…

    WORRIED that the strictures put on the new naira notes by the bungling Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) could jeopardise the next elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last week met with the authorities of the apex bank to see how the cash needs of the electoral body could be met. Straightaway, the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, offhandedly promised that whatever INEC’s cash needs were would be met. INEC did not exaggerate its needs; it only indirectly called the logic of the CBN to question. In short, the CBN has singled out INEC’s needs for amelioration. But the police will be asked to secure the polling units; don’t they need cash? Don’t soldiers fighting insurgents and bandits, not to say their families, need cash, in their billions? Would other paramilitary agencies involved in policing the elections not also need cash? How many agencies will the CBN single out for special special attention? And how long before the government and the CBN realise that they have approached the naira redesign policy with unremitting incompetence and malevolence?

    Just one inane policy, and the country is in an uproar. Yet, the government and the CBN have remained adamant, sticking to measures that are clearly not working, and that are destroying businesses and pauperising the people. It has taken the Supreme Court to attempt to restore some sanity to the financial sector and the entire society, particularly in the face of a dithering, secretive and conspiratorial CBN. For a misplaced policy that needed prompt administrative redress by the executive branch, it has also taking the National Council of State one meeting to gently coax a lethargic federal government to do what is right. It is truly bewildering how the ruling party is shooting itself in the foot.

    Sad to see erudite Justice Omolaye-Ajileye retire

    It is not often that this column singles out anyone for recognition. For 18 years, not more than three laudatory pieces have been published on this page, with hardly a judge listed in that exclusive number. Justice Alaba Omolaye-Ajileye, who retires this week as a judge of the High Court of Kogi State after attaining retirement age, must now be numbered among the few for his erudition, progressivism, courage under fire, and immense contribution to the judiciary in Nigeria. Widely regarded as one of Nigeria’s leading experts in electronically generated evidence, especially at a time when his expertise is in high demand given the technological advances in the voting process, it is one of the mysteries of the judiciary that judges like him are compelled by administrative order to take their highly sought-after expertise elsewhere.

    Justice Omolaye-Ajileye is author of the well-regarded book, Electronic Evidence, which has been revised and reprinted four times, and author of over 70 articles and workshop papers on wide-ranging legal issues. A graduate of the prestigious University of Lagos, he also holds a Master of Science in Criminal Justice with Specialisation in Terrorism, Mediation and Peace, and a PhD in Legal Studies. It is not surprising that he is in high demand in lecture circuits in Nigeria and abroad. Nor is it surprising that he comes highly recommended among legal experts for his brilliance and courage in adjudication of controversial cases.

    Last June, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, wondered why judges like Omolaye-Ajileye had not been appointed to appellate courts. Delivering a lecture in Lagos at the annual Alao Aka-Bashorun memorial lecture organised by the Ikeja branch of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Chief Olanipekun said: “…It is my submission that our High Courts still parade a crop of very brilliant, capable, able, intelligent, experienced, industrious, cerebral, highly distinguished personnel, who are fit and proper for direct appointment to the Supreme Court. A case in point is the very experienced and IT savvy Chief Judge of Borno State, Hon. Justice Kashim Zannah, who, today, sits on the board of several international bodies in the field of law and Justice and who, to my mind, does not need to go through the Court of Appeal before eminently taking a position or seat on the Supreme Court Bench. His case, like some others, should not be treated like that of ‘a prophet without honour in his home town.’ Another case in point is that of Hon. Justice Alaba Omolaye-Ajileye, a scholar, ebullient jurist, prolific author and writer, and one of the leading authorities on electronically generated evidence in Nigeria today, who has repeatedly applied for appointment to the Court of Appeal Bench, but who, for the sundry peculiar Nigerian factors, has not been found ‘fit’ to mount the Court of Appeal Bench. Yet, he is sought after as a resource person, either by the NJI, the NBA, and even the NJC on topical and recondite subjects relating to electronically generated evidence in Nigeria.”

    In addition to his learning and clarity of language and thought, Justice Omolaye-Ajileye is also uncommonly courageous. Out of many signal and defining cases, just one example will suffice due to space constraint. In Hon. Justice Umaru Eri & Anor v. Kogi State House of Assembly & 3 Ors, the Chief Judge of Kogi State was unconstitutionally dismissed from office against an order of Justice Ajileye restraining them from doing so. Justice Ajileye frowned at the State House of Assembly for disobeying his order, leading him to thunder: “When issues involving disobedience to court orders arise, it has to be appreciated that they are matters that transcend the claims and interests of the parties before the court. They even go beyond being just an affront to the judge who made the order. Something more fundamental is involved. We are here talking about a potent destabilizing factor of the social equilibrium. They are issues that frontally attack and challenge the whole concept of judicial powers vested in the courts under the Constitution and a calculated act of subversion of peace, order, and good government. Indeed, disobedience to court orders is a big threat to democracy.”

    Nigeria’s appellate courts are the poorer for not numbering such a bold, philosophical and erudite jurist in their ranks, especially at a time technological advances have put inordinate strain on legal interpretations.

  • Asiwaju’s Apparent Angst: Abeokuta, Again?

    Asiwaju’s Apparent Angst: Abeokuta, Again?

    “Yours sincerely was on TVC News Breakfast programme within the week on the review of my new book on Tinubu’s Trajectory to the throne published by Amazon. One of the anchors was inquisitive about what inspired me about Tinubu that necessitated writing a 293-paged treatise on him. I succinctly stated that it was his sagacious strategic approach to leadership. There are six skill sets of s sagacious strategic leader according to scholars in the field of strategic leadership. These are evident in his leadership right from his days as top corporate executive to serving as a two-term Lagos Governor. I will mention these skill sets briefly now but revisit them in this column not far from now. Listing them, these are: Anticipate, Challenge, Interpret, Decide, Align and Learn.”

    Going down the historical lane in this edition, certain inquiries were made about Abeokuta. Abeokuta means “under the rock.” The most famous landmark in the capital city of Ogun State, Abeokuta, is Olumo Rock. Sodeke and Lisabi were ancient Egba war leaders who strategically wrested the Egba people (as the people of Abeokuta were called) from the servitude of the Oyo Empire. What is the meaning of Olumo? According to Ayomide Akinbode writing in Historyville (www.thehistoryville.com/abeokuta-history/), “Olumo means built by the Lord. However, historians maintained that the meaning of Olumo is “Oluwa fi’mo” meaning: “God put an end to our hostility against our enemies and their sufferings.” In addition, the Britannica has an added account: “Sodeke (Shodeke), a hunter and leader of the Egba refugees who fled from the disintegrating Oyo empire, founded about 1830 a principality at Abeokuta in what is now the north-central part of the state” (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sodeke). The Egba people exploited the Olumo fortress against the backlash from the Oyo warriors. In essence, the Egbas courageously but strategically outwitted the dreaded Oyo warriors at Abeokuta, thus taking their independence by force albeit sagaciously. Olumo provided a seeming refuge from the invading Oyo army.  

    What is strategy? “The word strategy is from the original Greek word, strategos. This is a military terminology associated with the general’s plan for organizing forces in order to defeat an adversary in battle … in other words, strategy can be described as a laid-out plan to reach a mutual goal. This laid-out plan is arrived at after careful consideration and deliberation requiring rigorous thinking process with the main outcome of solving envisaged problems.” (Ekundayo, J. M. O (2022)., in “TINUBU: TRAJECTORY TO THE THRONE”, published by Amazon.com, p. 12). In the treatise tracking Tinubu’s trajectory to the throne, this columnist, wearing the cap of a researcher and scholar in followership studies, succinctly and saliently perceived his leadership style, as a strategic leader: in colour, content and context. Prior to arriving at this perception, yours sincerely conscientiously and consciously tracked the leadership reflexes of the enigmatic Tinubu right from his days as a top corporate executive, activist, distinguished senator of the Federal Republic and Governor of Lagos State. At this juncture, it is contextual to pontificate the link between strategy, in organizations and polities, vis-à-vis change and innovation. More on this later in this article.

    Abeokuta’s Angst: Arrowed Antagonists

    Shortly before the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election at the Eagle’s Square, Abuja, Asiwaju Tinubu was at the ancient city of Abeokuta. He lamented against the awkward disposition to his aspiration from influential quarters in the ruling party who seemingly and surreptitiously stood against his emergence. Tinubu was unsparing in his remarks declaring openly, inter alia, that he had been supporting others to fulfil their ambitions or aspirations. He candidly declared: it is my turn (emi lokan)! The opposition twisted this out of context to paint Tinubu as seeking for a sense of entitlement whereas he was referring to certain political permutation and arrangement within his party. Tinubu, being a known democrat, would not advocate any sense of entitlement outside an open ballot. The Abeokuta incident ruffled feathers of some top party members especially in the seat of power in Abuja. However, the APC Governors of northern extraction, led by the vociferous Governor Nasir El Rufai, stood like the proverbial Olumo Rock behind Tinubu’s aspiration by openly declaring that indeed after eight years of the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari, the power should rotate to the southern part of Nigeria. This was the original position of the southern governors that was defied by the main opposition party, the People Democratic Party (PDP). In the latter, the internecine imbroglio is raging by the day with the angst of the G5 Governors becoming implacable less than two weeks to the presidential poll. Thankfully, President Buhari rose up to the occasion by ensuring a level playing field at the APC presidential primary by not anointing, covertly or overtly, any presidential aspirant. In the final outcome, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu emerged as the APC presidential flag bearer.

    Tinubu was at it again! The APC rally at Abeokuta was in the news. The day was Wednesday 25th January 2023. Venue was the historic MKO Abiola International Stadium. It was titanic Tinubu tinkering, as a sagacious strategist, loudly to the hearing of all that cared for the wellness of Nigeria that the twin evil of fuel scarcity and currency sway was targeted to stop his ambition but that he was undaunted and unyielding. He therefore charged his supporters nationwide to stop at nothing in ensuring they cast their votes at the February 25th poll. The main opposition charged again at him with the presidential candidate of the party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, surprisingly supporting the CBN unpopular policy. However, sensing the angry populace backlash, he recanted his earlier stand and stake. It is remarkable to state that few days after Tinubu courageously made the remarks in Abeokuta, there was heightened hardship in getting cash to spend and fuel to power Nigerians’ vehicles. The commercial banks were still issuing out old notes within few days to the initial 31st January 2023 deadline! In fact, about forty-eight hours to the expiration of the deadline, there was seemingly no new notes being given out even as the old notes became scarce as well necessitating the extension of the deadline to 10th February 2023. The angst of the populace has resulted in protests in certain cities of the country. However, to the main opposition party, PDP, the angst of Tinubu is unfounded as his party is in power and should therefore be able to address the issues. Unknown to the opposition, Asiwaju, as his title truly depicts, as a strategist could see far beyond the visible. He was directing his verbal volleys at the fifth columnists within his party who apparently are planning clandestinely to scuttle his bright chances at the poll. These people ostensibly referred to as the ubiquitous cabal, seemingly known to Tinubu, are ready to gift the presidency to the main opposition, the PDP. The Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El Rufai, has promised to unmask this notorious group at the appropriate time. It will be interesting and intriguing knowing them. However, in retrospect, where was the cabal of the Umaru Yar-Adua era? In the dustbin of history! This too, will soon pass, according to a great thinker!!  As this columnist is about to hit the press with this article, unfortunately commercial banks in Lagos, fearing unleashing of customers’ wrath, have shut their doors to any transaction. Sadly, automated teller machines (ATM) have stopped dispensing in most of the banks. Regrettably, the online platforms of many banks have stopped functioning or at most, working partially! Where do we go from here as a country? Why in this season when elections are knocking at the door? Has Asiwaju, as a foresighted and farsighted strategic leader, not read the handwriting on the wall prior to this time? Is it not stated in Yoruba common parlance: “ti omode ba gegi ninu igbo, awon agba lo mo ibi to ma wo si” (meaning: when the children are chopping trees within the forest, it is the elders that know where the falling tree will land).

     Saliently Strategizing

    Surmising, in form of summary or synopsis, from this write up, why is Abeokuta chosen for these two verbal volleys at the fifth columnists who are seemingly holding the soul of the ruling APC by the jugular? Could it be traced to the historical foundation of the strategic warfare patterns of Sodeke and Lisabi, the Egba founding fathers? Moreover, analysts could also ascribe this to the antecedents of the late Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Aare Moshood Kasimawo Osuolale Abiola (ala MKO). MKO Abiola was not known politically to be ambivalent or ambiguous; in his lifetime, he was vociferous and often laced his expressions with rich Yoruba proverbs to make his stand and stake clear to all not caring whose ox was gored in the process. Yours sincerely was on TVC News Breakfast programme within the week on the review of my new book on Tinubu’s Trajectory to the throne published by Amazon. One of the anchors was inquisitive about what inspired me about Tinubu that necessitated writing a 293-paged treatise on him. I succinctly stated that it was his sagacious strategic approach to leadership. There are six skill sets of s sagacious strategic leader according to scholars in the field of strategic leadership. These are evident in his leadership right from his days as top corporate executive to serving as a two-term Lagos Governor. I will mention these skill sets briefly now but revisit them in this column not far from now. Listing them, these are: Anticipate, Challenge, Interpret, Decide, Align and Learn. Summarily, Tinubu was able before the presidential primary election of APC to discreetly discern by anticipating; he wasted no time in challenging the ugly trend which eventually nailed the enemies within; he already interpreted, ahead of time, the outcome whether positive or otherwise; he also knew as a strategist that indecision could put his well laid-out plan in disarray; thereafter, he aligned the outcome to the big picture – his aspiration! Ultimately, what are the “lessons learnt” in the whole process? This is the whole gamut in actionizing strategic leadership. Going by the outcome of Tinubu’s first mission to Abeokuta eight months ago, that literally reset things appropriately in the ruling APC thus paving the way for a level playing field that ensured his emergence as the flag bearer, could this second mission kowtow the line of the first one for the seeming stormy petrel of Nigeria’s political landscape? The day, 25th February 2023 will definitely declare it!

    •Ekundayo, Ph.D. –  can be reached via +2348030598267 (WhatsApp only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com

  • Emefiele’s peculiar mess

    Emefiele’s peculiar mess

    Our CBN governor would have been rendered jobless in saner climes over his botched currency redesign

    Like someone being goaded by Satan himself, Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had obstinately carried on with his so-called Naira redesign, even when the blind could see that the policy had failed, the deaf could hear it and even as the failure was perceivable to the dead. It is only Satan and his incarnates that would watch with relish as citizens groan under the weight of the so-called redesign without blinking an eyelid, the way Emefiele and his ilk were carrying on with the exercise until the Supreme Court’s intervention on Wednesday. The apex court halted the Federal Government and CBN’s move to phase out the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes on February 10. The CBN had insisted that February 10 was sacrosanct, in spite of the glaring shortage of the redesigned currency and against the advice of the International Monetary Fund that it should extend it. The CBN had earlier extended the expiry date from the initial January 31 deadline.

    But something is still baffling me. Why all this confusion, provocation and activism on the part of an outgoing government, and only about three weeks to general elections? They started with fuel scarcity about two months ago. They want to conduct census before leaving in May. The are now after our jugular: Cash: Kudi. Ego. Owo (apekanu ko). Haba! Is government coming to an end after them?

    If Emefiele could pretend not to see the wailings of Nigerians on the streets and in the banks as a result of the policy, Nigerians expected a soothing balm from President Muhammadu Buhari. For such an action requiring solution as urgently as yesterday, the president asked for seven days. Meanwhile, people were collapsing in banks after waiting in vain to collect their hard-earned money. Policemen were unleashed on those protesting the pangs of hunger that the policy imposed on them. Some people stripped naked in frustration in the bank. Payment of school fees, bus fares, etc, had to wait for seven days? Even those with emergency medical situations had to wait for seven days before getting cash to pay their hospital bills?

    Perhaps unknown to him, Emefiele has shot his baby in the foot the way he has introduced cashless economy to those who otherwise might have been sitting on the fence, pondering whether to embrace the policy or continue to keep their money under their pillows. If cashless means going through hell to get one’s own money out of bank vaults, is it not better to keep it right under one’s nose, where it can confer liquidity on its owner whenever the owner needs it to? Emefiele must be a miracle worker to expect that the few redesigned new notes that he printed would be sufficient in an economy from which he had mopped up a whopping N1.9trn as against the projected N2.7trillion at the expiration of the deadline on February 10.

    In sane countries, the CBN governor should be on the unemployment queue by now. That is if he is not being prosecuted. He has sufficiently embarrassed himself and the government. But he is still holding on to a job he has serially failed to do well because he is doing the bidding of some of the powerful elements that surround President Buhari.

    Be that as it may, a government that wanted an escape route from its self-inflicted dilemma without losing much face would have taken advantage of the window opened by the Supreme Court ruling. But no. Its attorney-general, Abubakar Malami, and his apologists, rather than address the (real) substantive issue which is the hunger and starvation thrown up by the inhuman policy, engaged in legal sophistry. They said the Supreme Court should not have been the court of first instance in such a matter; that the CBN was not joined in the suit and so, the ruling cannot be binding on it, and such bunkum.

    What was lacking in government reasoning, maturity, was what the apex court deployed in determining the injunction. I have always said Malami as Nigeria’s attorney-general is wearing over-sized shoes. I have had cause to lament on this page that this is the man sitting on the seat once occupied by eminent lawyers like Taslim Elias, Kanu Agabi, Bola Ige, Bola Ajibola, etc., some of them recognised internationally. Malami is at best a local champion.

    The point is that the justices at the Supreme Court were aware that danger loomed the way things were going with the Naira redesign. What they saw sitting down Malami could not have seen even if he had climbed an Iroko tree. The justices know that it is only in an atmosphere of peace that they can still be talking about rule of law. Where was Malami during the 2020 EndSARS protest? Where was Emefiele then? Could either of them have come out to introduce themselves in their official capacities during the riots? Even now, can either of them walk on the streets without heavily armed escorts?

    These are individuals who are so far from the people that they cannot feel the people’s  pulse. They have enjoyed too much government largesse to be in tune with reality. How would they have felt if they were the ones that were being pushed around in the efforts to withdraw personal money that they worked for? Does a newborn baby that is hungry understand the word patience or redesign? Should someone who has money in the bank and has need for urgent surgery die because of currency redesign? If a government official has failed in the pursuit of a policy, the ideal thing to do is to throw in the towel or return to the drawing board, instead of banging his head against the wall and punishing innocent citizens for his ill-conceived policy.  Would Emefiele and Malami have had kind words for the government that fiddled while Rome burnt, leading to the deaths of their loved ones as a result of this sadistic policy?

    I commend Nigerians all over the country for their patience in the face of the extreme provocation. I also commend Nigeria’s Council of State for the subtle manner it has told the government that the Naira redesign has failed. It is wickedness of the highest order for people like Emefiele and his fellow evil travellers who would not feed their dogs with N20,000, prescribing same as withdrawal limits for Nigerians who worked hard to get their money. Even the N20,000, they could not get. They called it Naira swap; whereas it was government’s forceful seizure of Nigerians’ money. The last time I checked, to swap means to exchange. Where did any exchange take place? As we say in my place, “Orisa boo le gba mi, fi mi sile bo se ba mi” (a deity that cannot save one should at least leave one in the state that it met him). Emefiele took people’s old notes but never released his redesigned notes in return.

    It would have been better for him to have exited the stage honourably after his first term. But God has a purpose for everything. If he had left then when the ovation was loudest, we might have been tempted to see him as a good and competent fellow. We now know better. His political ambition and sense of servitude have so beclouded his sense of professional judgement and notion of integrity. For the first time in the country’s history, we find paid protesters coming to the streets to support a CBN boss’s political ambition and now his senseless and inhuman Naira redesign policy. We never had it so bad.

    The man, Emefiele comes across to me as someone who covets power. The Independent National Electoral Commission just cried to him over money for elections and he assured its chairman they would have it. I am sure he would not mind if the National Security Adviser who is asking for money for the troops also comes begging for money. He would graciously oblige him. Is that part of his job as CBN governor? Is it not better for him to make money available to all instead of making himself look like a tin god and an indispensable over a problem he created in the first place?

    Emefiele would rather please those he regarded as his masters (because it is now clear that President Buhari is not his sole employer), even if Nigerians are being picked on the streets in body bags as a result of his cruel policy. The man so understands the feudal game that he has continued to enjoy the support of the evil cabal in the government despite the fact that he has not run the CBN well.

    When Emefiele came on board as CBN governor in June 2014, the exchange rate was about N165.15 to the U.S. Dollar. Today, it hovers around N756.00. A bag of rice was selling for about N10,000 then, today it is about N37,000. We can go on and on – the cost of vehicles, building materials, etc. have all shot through the roof. Emefiele kept pouring money into a bottomless pit through his Anchor Borrowers Scheme at a time farmers were being kidnapped or killed on the farms as a result of insecurity that the government initially did not want to handle with the desired iron fist, because it did not know whether to deal with those behind it as terrorists or mere bandits.

    So, tell me, where has Emefiele performed superlatively to even deserve his retention after his first term? Is it not shameful that banks that he has been superintending in about nine years are the very ones he is now accusing of hoarding the limited money he redesigned? If he had dealt with those who made it impossible for ordinary Nigerians to get brand new notes in the banks as was the case in years past, bankers would be scared stiff and think twice before hoarding the new currency. For them, the fear of Emefiele would have been the beginning of wisdom.

    The truth is; many of those who wrote the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN)-like  script that is playing out now have their selfish reasons. They have been living in government what my Yoruba people refer to as ‘aye fa mi lete kin tuto’ (pull my lips and let me spit). Now that it is dawning on them that their days in government and power are numbered, they want a pliable president who can cover their whiffs of scandals. They therefore need all manner of subterfuge, including if you miss the ball, don’t miss the leg that they have desperately resorted to.

    All said, even if President Buhari would still not sack him, Emefiele should know by now that the policy cannot continue as he and his cohorts envisaged. So, it is better for him to retrace his steps or face thorough humiliation. We did not know that his idea of our going cashless is to take the little cash we have from us, and send us home empty-handed.

    As Godwin Emefiele and Co. settle down to eat their humble pie, they should ruminate over the scriptural dictum that  the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. I’m sure they got the message.

    Finally, Governor el-Rufai has given us what I would have loved to prescribe: he has asked people in his state to continue spending the old Naira notes irrespective of what the Federal Government says. Legal tender is what people accept among themselves as legal tender. It is not some phantom money that exists only in the imagination of those who want to decree into existence something that does not exist.

  • Fed Govt’s naira redesign subterfuge

    Fed Govt’s naira redesign subterfuge

    A day after 14 political parties presumptuously grouped under the Forum of Chairmen of Nigerian Political Parties and Candidates secured an injunction from a High Court in Abuja to bar the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from extending the deadline of the naira swap policy, the federal government, speaking through Information minister Lai Mohammed last Tuesday, groaned that the order would ‘hamstring’ it from giving succor to Nigerians struggling to get the new notes. The minister was being melodramatic. Describing the court case as a ‘curious action’ by the 14 amorphous and faceless parties, the minister accused them of ‘preferring to make Nigerians suffer on the altar of political gamesmanship’. In short, Mr Mohammed has placed the blame of the government’s indifference to the plight of the people on the 14 parties. Meanwhile, as the outcome of the National Council of State meeting established last week, the CBN finally acknowledged that it printed insufficient notes, even though the government had mischievously pitched the people against the banks. This is negligence at the highest level. Did the Federal Executive Council not have these disturbing facts at their disposal?

    On the surface, the minister’s position on the High Court injunction could be interpreted as painting the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as a caring government unfortunately distracted by a ‘curious’ legal case instigated by the unrepresentative opposition parties. But in reality, Mr Mohammed could not conceal the joy of latching on to the High Court injunction to stand firm on its February 10 naira swap deadline. Said the minister: “How else can one explain the fact that these unscrupulous (he calls them unscrupulous) opposition parties do not want any action that could reduce the pains being experienced by Nigerians?” The minister was unequivocal in obeying the court order, but only pretended to be pained by the outcome of the court action.

    However, on Wednesday, the case instituted by Zamfara, Kogi and Kaduna States at the Supreme Court against the February 10 naira swap terminal date put the government’s nose out of joint. The apex court gave an order against the federal government from sticking to the controversial deadline. A February 15 date was set for hearing, implying that the old and new notes could continue to co-exist for many more days. If the government was sincere, the minister or any other person assigned to address the press on the matter should have enthusiastically embraced the Supreme Court order. Instead, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, bad-temperedly stormed the Supreme Court to register the government’s displeasure and to ask for the suit to be dismissed. The CBN was not joined in the case, he growled. And it was not a constitutional case between states and the federal government, he also whined.

    It was immediately and depressingly clear that the 14 political parties were instigated by people or interests close to the government, and that the government had become so desensitised to the sufferings of the people that it did not mind bringing the whole edifice down on everybody’s head. Much worse, it also became abundantly clear that the badly mishandled naira swap policy was intended to do what the fuel supply paralysis could not accomplish in months: stymie the momentum of the APC campaigns, subvert the ruling party’s return to the State House in Abuja, and cause massive disaffection among the populace, including not minding whether the elections hold or not. In late January, when the unpleasant policies of fuel shortage and naira swap converged, it become clear to many APC leaders and candidates that the ruling party was engaged in brutal in-fighting and self-annihilation.  

    Even more damning is the fact that no one, except the extremely gullible, was in doubt that the APC was sabotaging itself, while the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate Atiku Abubakar kept discretely silent on the sidelines, waiting for the crown to fall on their laps. Nearly all the APC state governments and national leaders knew immediately that a few men in the corridors of power were behind the turmoil in the country, a turbulence instigated and designed by vengeful, shadowy and irredentist individuals to destroy the APC at all levels. They couldn’t care less. Mr Malami, who is a significant part of the damaging intraparty plot, is masterminding the administration’s legal response before the apex court. He hopes to succeed. That the apex court order saved the country from peril meant nothing to him and his fellow conspirators. Will they succeed? The cards are stacked against them. The CBN Act is clear enough, even to the most dimwitted apex bank officials. In promoting and executing the naira swap policy, as the Ondo State governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, recently pointed out, the CBN governor and his officials have serially trampled on the law and abused the rights of Nigerians. And in fixing the January 31 and February 10 deadlines, the apex bank also ignored and demolished the laws guiding the operation of the CBN.

    How the insurrectionists and plotters hope to get the Supreme Court to validate the illegalities perpetrated by the conspirators is hard to imagine. Mr Malami and the federal government are unlikely to get what they want. The survival of the country will be uppermost in the minds of the jurists who will hear the case on Wednesday. Even much more, the interest of the law will weigh heavily on their minds. The CBN governor and Mr Malami are among the vengeful cohort spurning Nigerian democracy. They may have secured the approval or the connivance of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, but in the end, it will take nothing less than subliminal interpretation and application of the law as well as the overriding interest of the country to stop them dead in their tracks.

    Yakubu Dogara unravels slowly, surely

    FORMER Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara was one of the misguided arrowheads, together with the temperamental former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir David Lawal, of the anti-All Progressives Congress (APC) Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket. Soon after, however, their fierce campaign began to fray at the edges when the two Christian gentlemen parted ways, one to the Labour Party (LP), and the other to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). While they cohabitated, they were nevertheless unable to galvanise enough support to sustain their cause. It was a matter of time before the financial exigencies of politics drives a wedge between them.

    But while Mr Lawal has become fairly reticent and undistinguished in the ethnically constricted political party of his berthing, Mr Dogara has retained a little vibrancy partly because of the larger party he defected to. Yet, nothing has attenuated the misguidedness of their politics, the appalling stridency of their campaigns against the APC, and the awful dissonance of their logic and ethics. The more talkative Mr Dogara has for instance continued to make many verbal mistakes. Hear him campaigning in the Christian-dominated Southern Kaduna as he tries to sell the PDP’s Fulani candidate as against the APC ticket: “To those saying why should a Muslim succeed another Muslim? I will say to them, the truth is what every Christian is called to. If we must say the truth, Goodluck Jonathan is a Christian and Olusegun Obasanjo is a Christian.  Obasanjo ruled for eight years and Jonathan ruled for six years. So, if we sum the two together, we — I say we because I am a Christian — have ruled this country for 14 years. (Muhammadu) Buhari has ruled for eight years and (Umaru) Yar’Adua ruled for two years; making a total of 10 years. So, we can only be justified by allowing Muslims to have a balance of four years. Also, the two Christian presidents are from the south, so the North has a balance of four years.”

    Ignore his poor political arithmetic. Instead concentrate on his sophistry as he tries to sell his Muslim candidate and justify his defection to the PDP. He speaks glibly of Christians being called to the truth. But in the past few months he has neither spoken the truth as Christians know it nor behaved in accordance with the mercy, compassion and love his faith enjoins him. He is free to berth anywhere and feather his financial or political nest; but he is not free to lie and dissimulate in the defence of the faith he falsely ascribes to himself.