With effect from June 1, commercial motorcyclists popularly known as ‘okada’ will no longer be allowed to operate in six local government and local council development areas of Lagos State. It was obvious that it would one day get to this. It seemed the riders have now stolen so much for the owner to notice. They have no regard for anyone. They want to operate without being checked. They ride against traffic. It is abomination for them to obey traffic lights. Many of them, I am sure have never seen a copy of the Highway Code, not to talk of understand its contents. Above all, they are quick to organise and pounce on other road users at any given time whenever they have issues with them. It is immaterial whether they are right or wrong. As a matter of fact, they are always right. Even if they are wrong, they are right. They vent their spleen on anyone at sight. It is as if it is other road users that are responsible for whatever they consider to be their miserable plight. As if others too do not have their own grievances against our wobbling system.

For the ‘okada’ riders, the day of reckoning came on May 12 in the Admiralty area of Lekki, Lagos, when some of them descended on David Sunday, a sound engineer. Actually, it was Sunday’s colleagues, Frank, a saxophonist, and Philip, a keyboardist, who boarded an ‘okada’ to the venue where Sunday was setting up for a show, that had an issue with the rider over N100. The argument degenerated into a fight and other ‘okada’ riders joined the fray in support of their colleague. The ensuing melee alerted Sunday who rushed to the scene and the riders pounced on him, gave him a thorough beating until he fell down, motionless. He was then doused with petrol and set ablaze.

Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed that “The incident was over N100. So, it degenerated into a fight and the motorcyclists ganged up against the person that was killed and burnt. On the day the incident happened, we arrested four persons that were positively identified by people living in the area.”

This would look like a scene from a movie; but it was for real. As a matter of fact, even those people living in the area would still be wondering whether what they saw was for real. Sunday and his friends too would be imagining whether they were dreaming when Sunday was being brutalized. But that is the way many  ‘okada’ riders behave in Lagos. They have become law unto themselves. They consider an attack against one of them as an attack on all and they unite to assault whoever is having issues with their colleague. But setting someone with whom you have a minor argument ablaze would seem an imported culture to Lagos and a new low.

Indeed, anybody who read the story or watched the video recording of the mob action against Sunday and his colleagues (that were later rushed to hospital over injuries they sustained during the fight) would agree that this new low was definitely one too many. It must not be allowed to become the new norm in cosmopolitan Lagos. It seemed the Lagos State government felt that much, too.

Hence, barely six days after the gruesome murder, precisely on May 18, the state government responded by placing a fresh ban on ‘okada’, this time on the six LGAs and LCDAs, namely: Ikeja, Surulere, Eti-Osa, Lagos Mainland, Lagos Island and Apapa. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu who announced the ban said  “After a critical review of our restriction on ‘okada’ activities in the first six LGAs where we restricted them on February 1, 2020, we have seen that the menace has not abated. We are now directing a total ban on ‘okada’ activities across the highways and bridges within these six local government and their local council development areas, effective from June 1, 2022.”

Perhaps the state government is just doing what should have been done before: a phased ban on the activities of these hoodlums masquerading as commercial motorcyclists. Sanwo-Olu added: “This is a phased ban we are embarking on this period, and we expect that within the short while when this ban will be enforced, ‘okada’ riders in other places where their activities are yet to be banned can find something else to do.” For me, the most painful thing about these criminals is that most of them came to Lagos from far-flung places where their state governments have abandoned governance, making their people to leave in droves in search of greener pastures in Lagos. There is no problem with this. But at least they should learn to comport themselves in a civilised manner even if they are doing a not-too-civilised vocation. As a matter of fact, many of them came from places where their state governments have banned ‘okada’; they did not protest there. They did not ask their governments why they should not be sending people to untimely graves or render them invalid through the careless manner they ride their motorcycles. They just looked for the next available means of getting to Lagos where they hope to continue their business dangerously without consideration for other road users.

I always mention the experience with a governor of a south-south state that a colleague and myself went to interview some years ago when writing about ‘okada’ riders. In the course of the interview, the governor told us how he just woke up one day and decided that enough was enough with the riders in the state capital. All he did was to give them a deadline which expired on December 31 of that year, within what could be considered a short notice. The order was unambiguous: he said he did not want to see any ‘okada’ in the state capital from January 1 of the following year. He said he himself was not sure the ban would be effective but that on the January 1 that the order took effect, he decided to drive round the city himself. No escort, no driver. Just himself, his aide de camp and may be one or two of his children. He was surprised that the clampdown was effective; the ‘okada’ riders simply evaporated into thin air. And that was it. Easy does it!

By the following week, the operators in the state capital simply migrated to a neighbouring southeastern state where they also became their usual menace. Several other states, including northern states, have also banned ‘okada’ for security reasons and heaven did not fall. All these people simply shifted base to Lagos and again, soon became a nuisance to Lagosians.

It was in order to curtail their excesses that the Babatunde Raji Fashola administration in Lagos decided to restrict their operations to certain parts of the state. In line with common sense, they were not to be seen on highways and expressways in the state. But because it is their usual mannerism to be lawless, they soon abused the state government’s magnanimity, plying places they were not supposed to ply, thus leading to a showdown with the no-nonsense Fashola administration which strengthened the state’s road traffic law to contain their menace and also whip other recalcitrant motorists into line on Lagos roads. By and large, that administration was able to contain the excesses of the ‘okada’ riders through an unrelenting enforcement of the traffic laws, and at least sanity prevailed. The heat turned on them in Lagos made many of them to shift base from Lagos to neighbouring Ogun State.

However, all the gains of that era were eroded by the time the Akinwunmi Ambode government that succeeded Fashola took over. Because of that government’s permissiveness, obviously for political gains, ‘okada’ riders returned to Lagos roads with full force. Not that they completely disappeared at any time before; but they were at least conscious of the zero-tolerance the Fashola administration had for their excesses.

It was this mess that the incumbent Sanwo-Olu government which also succeeded the Ambode government inherited in 2019. The government had made some attempts to remove the ‘okada’ riders from areas where they were not supposed to ply, to no avail. Enforcement of the law has been somewhat ineffectual. As a matter of fact, the riders became more daring in breaking all known laws. They hijacked the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor meant only for BRT buses. On the ever-busy Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway and other highways, they ride against traffic so as to make it difficult for task force men to arrest them, putting their lives and those of their passengers and other road users in danger. It got to a point when Lagosians were asking aloud if the state government had capitulated to the ‘okada’ operators. The answer to that question, which seems a capital no, came on May 18 with the fresh ban in the six LGAs.

It is only unfortunate that it took someone’s life for that tough stance to come. But it is still better late than never. No government properly so-called would close its eyes and allow a band of lawless individuals seize power from it the way ‘okada’ riders want to do in Lagos as in other places where they are being barely tolerated. They were on the verge of making the state a jungle where brutality and disregard for the sanctity of human lives reign supreme. If not, how can human beings, with blood flowing in their veins, beat another human being to a pulp over N100 and thereafter set the person ablaze? Those who did that are brutes in human skin and they should be so treated, irrespective of where they came from. They are not fit to live in any decent society.

The Lagos State government should not take this matter lightly. The point must be well made that no one has a right to take another person’s life, not to talk of setting the person ablaze. What point are such criminals trying to make? The other day, some people descended on a lady in Sokoto over what they called blasphemy and not only killed her but also set her ablaze. It’s high time the governments concerned took drastic measures against such murderers because that is what they are, before setting people ablaze also becomes a new normal in the country. Ignorance is no excuse in law.

At any rate, nobody needs anyone to tell him or her that it is bad to kill a fellow human being for whatever reason. That is why we have government and the law. An aggrieved person should go to court rather than dispense jungle justice unilaterally.

Even if we must admit that failure of governance over the years at all levels gave birth to ‘okada’, that cannot be a reason to let hoodlums set new low standards for us. They must never be allowed to entrench jungle justice as a way of life for us. While we agree that some places are better blessed than others, there is no doubt that the country would be a far better place for all if most other Nigerians insist on good governance in their own states rather than fleeing to Lagos to insist on having what they could not force their home governments to do.

Meanwhile, however, the Lagos State government should expedite action on its multi-modal transportation programmes. It is a sure way to drastically reduce ‘okada’ presence in the state. There is no civilised country where ‘okada’ is celebrated as a commercial means of transportation. It should not be celebrated as indispensable in Lagos.

All said, there must be justice for Sunday. It is only by visiting those who commit such grievous crimes with the appropriate punishment that the appropriate lesson can be taught and learnt, that no one has the right to visit jungle justice on another. This ban must not go the way of previous ones. It must be systematically enforced.

Last week alone, at least two personalities in the country were arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over suspected frauds involving about N127billion. This, by whatever standard is a lot of money, and to think that such is suspected to have been stolen or misappropriated by just two persons is mind-boggling. But such is the case of frauds in the country. Our big people no longer find it fashionable to steal in millions. The fad now is stealing, not just in billions, but staggering billions, such that one begins to wonder whether stealing is going out of fashion; hence the need to quickly mop up whatever is available before it is exhausted. Or whether they would need whatever they stole for their upkeep in the life hereafter.

No one could have missed the news: ‘’EFCC arrests Accountant-General over N80bn suspected fraud’’. It was not palatable news, especially coming on a Monday, when many people were still wondering what ministers who had attended their valedictory session with the president after obtaining party nomination forms for various offices were still doing on their seats. But, talking about palatable news, when last did we hear one from Nigeria? Indeed, it would seem the question of whether anything good can still come out of Nigeria is perhaps more apt than something good coming from Nazareth. Just that those of us who are Christians have to keep hope alive.

Wilson Uwujaren, EFCC’s spokesman, claimed that: “Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Monday, May 16, 2022, arrested serving Accountant -General of the Federation, Mr Ahmed Idris, in connection with diversion of funds and money laundering activities to the tune of N80 billion. The commission’s verified intelligence showed that the AGF raked off the funds through bogus consultancies and other illegal activities using proxies, family members and close associates. The funds were laundered through real estate investments in Kano and Abuja.’’ The accountant-general worsened his case with his alleged failure to honour invitations by the commission.

The second person in the EFCC net is the former Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Nsima Ekere. We were yet to fully digest the alleged N80billion fraud by the accountant-general when that of Ekere also broke. According to Channels Television, Ekere was arrested over alleged diversion of about N47 billion through registered contractors of the agency. Ekere is not just the former NDDC boss; he was also the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s Akwa Ibom State  candidate for the 2019 governorship election. In case we have forgotten, the NDDC has not been significantly different from its predecessors: it is also a cesspit of corruption.

Read Also: From grace to grass… AGF Idris’ alleged N80bn fraud

Remember, in July 2020, the acting Managing Director of the commission, Prof Kemebradikumo Pondei, collapsed at the Conference Room 231 of the House, during a House of Representatives Committee hearing, while he was being grilled by lawmakers investigating mismanagement of funds to the tune of N81.5 billion in the NDDC. The incident led to a brief suspension of the hearing as the acting managing director was rushed out of the hall. In the NDDC, people talk of billions!

It is good that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, has promptly suspended, Mr. Idris, to allow unfettered investigations into the alleged fraud.

Although the two cases are still in the realm of allegations, and, in the eye of our judicial system, an accused is adjudged innocent until he or she is pronounced guilty by a competent court of law, the fact is that the amounts in question are too staggering to ignore. That such fraudulent activities are still possible more than seven years into the eight-year tenure of an administration that rode into power on the change mantra and zero tolerance for corruption, is indication that the anti-corruption war has achieved far less than proportionate returns. And the reason for this is simple: whatever the administration gains with the right hand, it throws away with the left. Public servants and politically exposed persons would have learnt big lessons if the war has had any serious bite in the system.

Even if we agree that what the government deems to be corruption is stealing, as in brazing pilfering of national resources, particularly money, that aspect of the success of the war has been tainted by the presidential pardon granted former Governors Joshua Dariye of Plateau State and Jolly Nyame of Taraba State, who were convicted for stealing resources belonging to their state governments and were only a few years into their jail terms when the pardon came. Apparently, it did not occur to President Buhari that that pardon in itself was an act of corruption. Or, maybe he just could not care. Whichever, it is pertinent to point out that no one can win corruption war with this kind of system. Political thieves can only determine to steal enough, knowing full well that after a few years into their jail terms, they would be left off the hook to steal again, if given the opportunity.

We may be tempted to argue that, at least, the suspects and the thieves are being arrested and perhaps being prosecuted these days more than ever before. This may be true. But then, that is only for those that have been discovered. We do not know how many billions have been stolen undetected, and which may never be discovered because of the imperfections in the system. This is where the problem lies. Unfortunately, every kobo that is stolen has implications for provision of good roads, education, healthcare, housing, taxes, etc.  So, the goal should not necessarily be about catching thieves after the act. It should be about strengthening the processes such that humongous stealing would be nigh impossible if not eliminated.

Without prejudice to whether the two men are guilty or not, we need to look seriously into our system which allows people such unfettered access to our purse and enable those in charge to bolt away with huge sums of money before we shut the barn door. Something is definitely wrong with our accounting processes. There is no system that is theft-proof though; but in many other places, hardly could public funds be stolen so brazenly because of the control measures in place. Even when such frauds occur, it does not take long for the system to detect and ensure that offenders are promptly punished.

It would appear that there is such massive stealing, especially at the centre, because the place is awash with so much idle cash which the system does not have a strong mechanism to track. This is one point that many of those clamouring for federalism hardly remember to advance to buttress their point. Those who are stealing the funds are very much aware of this and are taking full advantage of it. We often hear of ministries or other public agencies that should render their accounts annually not having those accounts audited for years. This is not just about incompetence on the part of the government auditors (even if the possibility of this is there), but more about inadequate personnel, funds and modern tools to facilitate the process of checks and balances. Whether this is deliberate or just part of our ways as a people I do not know. The lopsided revenue formula that put so much money at the centre was bequeathed to us by the military in their bid to impose a unitary system that is not working on us. We have got to the stage where the central government has to shed weight financially. It is carrying responsibilities, some of which are supposed to be carried by the states and local governments. This is the excuse for its retaining a lion’s share of the country’s revenue.

It is disheartening stories such as these that strengthen the hands of people like the university lecturers who are asking for better deal from the government, as well as asking the government to make the citadels of learning more conducive. If there is insufficient cash in its hands, or barely enough cash, the government would be able to keep track of its income and expenditure profiles and even ensure that we get value for every kobo spent.

We can say the cases of Idris and Ekere are yet to be proved in court, but what of the several others who had been caught with various staggering sums stolen from the nation’s coffers? Just a fraction of public funds in private hands would go a long way in making life more meaningful in our universities. Indeed, our lives would no longer be the same as Nigerians if some of these amounts are spent to better our lot.

• Asking Honourable Ministers who didn’t act honourably to do the honourable is good for the polity

President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration seemed to have woken up from slumber with last Wednesday’s presidential directive to cabinet members who have political ambition to resign, latest tomorrow. The President dropped the bombshell at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting. For some of the ministers, that definitely was the last FEC meeting they would attend while even for others, they may never have access to the seat of power again. Such is the transient nature of power. Yet, this is a fact of life that is lost on most of our political leaders who behave, once appointed, as if they were indigenes of the seats of power.

Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, who disclosed the president’s directive at the end of the meeting said the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, was not affected by the order because he is an elected member of the cabinet. He added that he did not have the mandate to comment on the fate of non-cabinet members like the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, who had all the while been hiding behind one finger, until he instituted a court action against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), over his anticipated disqualification from a race he had said everything about even without opening his mouth.

Mohammed, however, disclosed the names of the cabinet members who had paid for, and collected nomination forms. These are: Ministers of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi; Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio; Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige; Science, Technology and Innovation, Ogbonnaya Onu, as well as Ministers of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, and Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, who have all joined the presidential race on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Others are the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, who is vying for the Kebbi State governorship seat; Minister of State for Mines and Steel, Uche Ogar, who is running for the governorship position in Abia State, and the Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, who declared her ambition to contest for a senatorial seat in Plateau State. Of the lot, only Nwajiuba did what a man does: he resigned well ahead of the presidential directive, citing conflict of interest and the need to concentrate on his political campaign. Talk of honour. The others wanted to eat their cake and at the same time, have it. Tayo Alasoadura, Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs also resigned following the president’s directive.

This newspaper put President Buhari’s mood at the FEC meeting succinctly: “Speaking calmly, the President did not mince words. He showed a bit of anger. What followed was pin-drop silence before Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Boss Mustapha rounded off the meeting.” For once, we saw a president who had been ruling taciturnly, (a thing exploited by many of his ministers and others to behave like tin gods, with the lack of synergy in government becoming so glaring), getting visibly angry. Everybody was doing as he or she pleased. This has made many observers ask at several critical junctures: “so, where is the president in all of these”? “It’s not their (ministers’) fault; it’s the president we have to blame.” These were Nigerians’ comments even when the debate on the impropriety or otherwise of the ministers’ decision to stay put, contrary to common sense and fairness, raged.

But the presidential directive eventually came like thunderbolt. It jolted not only Nigerians who were wondering where the president kept this kind of sweet wine these past seven years, serving them sour wine instead; but the ministers as well. Indeed, before now, not a few Nigerians had felt most of these cabinet members really got the original of whatever spell they had cast on the president, making him to still be keeping them in spite of their incompetence and cluelessness that have been so visible to the blind and audible even to the deaf, leading to the sorry state that the country has been largely, especially under this administration.

As a matter of fact, one of them, Ngige, was so thrown off balance after the announcement that he could not believe the honeymoon was over. He reportedly told Vanguard that he was not in a hurry to resign and that he would have to consult with the president and his constituents before resigning. “I have no reaction for now because the president said if anyone wants clarifications, the person should meet him. So I have to consult him and consult my constituents, Anambra State because I am holding the office for the government and my constituents”, he said. His reaction reminded me of one of my bosses at the then Kingsway Stores on Marina, Lagos, where I worked briefly after my school cert. The woman, one Mrs Dina, was such a funny fellow that there was never a dull moment with her. One of her popular jokes then was to tell anyone who ran afoul of the company’s rules and regulations that Kingsway “a koko le e lo, ki won to fi’we da e duro” (meaning Kingsway would first send you away before following it up with your sack letter).

I had wanted to advise the Minister Ngige to honourably drop his resignation letter so that Mrs. Dina’s expensive joke would not be invoked on him, when I learnt the President had hosted all the cabinet members concerned to a valedictory meeting on Friday. It should be obvious to the minister by now that the time of consultations is over. Moreover, it is in times of distress like this that our political leaders remember their constituents. As my people say, “b’aja ba f’ori ko’mi, a m’ona ile olowo e” (when a dog runs into trouble, he knows the way to its owner’s house). It is now that they are no longer in office that many of them will know how little they are. Many of them cannot even return to those constituents without police protection.

But then, most of these ministers in Buhari’s cabinet must count themselves lucky. Many other presidents would have fired them a long time ago. But Nigeria it is that has paid for the Buhari permissiveness that has kept many of them thus far. As a matter of fact, Ngige would have been rendered jobless the day he said we have enough doctors and that their exodus to other countries was a blessing to Nigeria. The same way Sylva would have been made to join the unemployment queues the day he said Nigerians should be happy the country was importing fuel from Niger Republic and not from some far countries. With a Minister of State for Petroleum with this mindset, what further proof do we need for why our refineries are not working? Please don’t remind me that the president is the principal manager of this vital sector. That is a different kettle of fish, altogether. How does importing fuel from wherever help our economy when we are a major crude oil producer?

For these careless statements alone, in saner climes, both Ngige and Sylva would have been checked out of the cabinet since.

Or, is it the all-powerful Malami that we want to talk about? The cat with nine lives and the president’s begotten son? The one we all thought to be invincible and beyond reproach? Despite the many sins he had allegedly committed, he still sat pretty in office, dishing the government personal or parochial opinions as legal positions. But what do you expect when a toddler wears the shoes meant for adults? His predecessors of yore must be wondering what an eaglet lawyer is doing on a seat meant for legal luminaries!

And Emefiele, the one who oversaw policies that saw our currency fell from the worst scenario of N198 to a dollar when he took over in 2015 to its present ridiculous and unprecedented rate of over N550 to one dollar. Is that what commends him for promotion to office of president? Emefiele, from what we now know is more politician than our professional politicians. This, apparently, was what had sustained him for long, not his professional handling of the apex bank’s affairs.

The refusal of President Buhari’s ministers interested in contesting elections to resign was probably the height of the impunity, shenanigans and corruption that define the government. It was so bad that they turned the highest office in the land to a wall clock joke, with many of them wanting to succeed their boss. There is no harm in this; except that governance suffers while these people exalt the wild goose chase they are after beyond the ministerial appointments already in their kitty. This shows that the ministers did not know or chose not to care that their government was barely being tolerated due to non-performance. What are they going to offer at the presidential level when they already failed as ministers?

This matter should not end with the officials’ resignation; their tenures should be probed. A friend usually cracks a joke that a man who ate stockfish without picking his teeth would most likely not pay his debt (eni to je panla ti ko ta’yin; to ba je gbese, ko ni san). We need to be sure that people like these without a moral compass have not tampered with our purse violently. By their action, the affected persons have proved to be the typical Nigerian politician that they are: all they see is their political ambition, nothing else. Even if the law permits their indulgence, what of the morality of it? What of the unfair advantage that such political offices confer on the public officials?

That reminds me; how do those of them who paid the N100million nomination fee want to convince the rest of us that it was not our money they used to get the form? Many Nigerians have also said that they thought N100million was a lot of money until the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) started selling its presidential nomination form for that amount. Also, as some people have argued on several platforms, the official salary of even the president in four years is about N120million. How then can someone buy ordinary form for that position with N100million? How many annual salaries of  a professor would that pay?

Meanwhile, university lecturers are on strike and government is saying it has no money to meet their demands. Meanwhile, our legislators who are asking the rest of us to patronise made-in-Nigeria products cruise about in the best of imported exotic cars that their counterparts in countries where those vehicles are produced can never use, not even in their dreams. Meanwhile, we are asking those countries that we are heavily indebted to for debt forgiveness. Even if they are ‘compound fools’, it is unlikely they would want to continue picking the bills of our unproductive conspicuous consumption. What are our politicians producing and selling that they have such money to literally set ablaze?

In spite of everything, it is still gratifying that the scales seem to have finally fallen from the eyes of President Buhari such that he could clearly see the true colours of some of his cabinet members. He could see them for the opportunists and sycophants that they are. He could see the lack or absence of moral compass in their actions.

Whatever the President’s motive, this singular action is likely to have some positive effect on his administration in the remaining part of its lame duck period, as not a few public officials would henceforth think twice before acting.

But can President Buhari sustain this, or is the action only a flash in the pan? The answer is not just in the wombs of time, especially with the president’s own legendary inadequacies, but in his choice of replacements for the former ministers. This is a golden opportunity for the administration to redeem its image. If governors ensured their aides with political ambition resign, nothing should make those at the federal level sacrosanct. If it means amending the constitution, so be it.