The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • 2024: Annus horribilis

    2024: Annus horribilis

    From beginning to end, it was a horrible year. The skies were unroofed as nonstop natural calamities destroyed human and animal life, agricultural crops, private homes and public infrastructure, paralyzed communication and transport, and disrupted supply chains. Schools, business and government offices closed down, airline and shipping services ground to a halt, and hunger and starvation spread as cities and towns went underwater and lost electric power for days. As soon as the weather cleared, and rescue and relief operations could proceed, various diseases broke out in many communities.

    As the threats from nature waned, they were replaced by man-made problems. The series of natural super typhoons left the Philippine “area of responsibility,” but a political super typhoon of incalculable severity struck in their place”

    That was Francisco S. Tatad, writing in the MANILA TIMES of 1 January, 2025 about what the outgoing year, 2024 was for Phillipinos.

    He was not alone.

    Concerning the British crown and the selfsame 2024, Ben Jureidini, a digital journalist with TATLER wrote, inter alia:

    “From health crises to family feuds, this year has been stormy for the House of Windsor.

    From two cancer diagnoses to a feud of Shakespearean proportion, the royal family may well be glad to see the back of 2024. The Firm was rocked by the news that both King Charles and Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, had been diagnosed with cancer early in the year, and the last ten months have been tinged with anxiety over the major health concerns at the heart of the monarchy.

    Incidentally, the term “Annus Horribilis” was first coined by the Matriarch herself, the much loved, now departed, Queen Elizabeth II, in 1992 to describe a year of unmitigated disaster for the British royal family.

    The year 2024 will be etched in the collective memory of humanity as a period of unrelenting turmoil, a time when the very foundations of global stability, economic prosperity, and social cohesion were shaken to their core. It was a year marked by unprecedented challenges, catastrophic events, and profound transformations that left an indelible mark on the world.

    One of the defining features of 2024, especially in the West and Asia, was the increasing climate crisis which the in-coming U.S President Donald Trump claims is a fluke despite its torrid negative global  consequences.

    Read Also; Tinubu pledges completion of Eastern rail line

    The situation in the Sahel and Lake Chad region, close by, “is increasingly dire, as the compounding effects of insecurity, conflict, displacement, and climate change take a severe toll on vulnerable populations,” said Hassane Hamadou, NRC’s Central and West Africa regional director. “Our immediate priority is to ensure affected people across the region receive essential support such as shelter, food, and hygiene supplies. Longer-term solutions including the improvement of existing infrastructures must be coordinated with local governments to build resilience against future disasters.”

    Huge floods  equally ravaged several parts of Nigeria with human and economic consequences.

    Among the consequences of climate change, globally, are rising temperatures, more frequent natural disasters, and extreme weather flunctuations that have become the new normal.

    Others  include coastal cities being inundated by rising sea levels, droughts and heatwaves that ravaged entire regions, and unprecedented storms that left millions homeless and without access to basic necessities.

    Equally severe are the economic consequences of the  crisis.

    Global supply chains were disrupted, trade severely impacted, and  industries  forced to adapt or end production outrightly.This has resulted in economic instability leading to massive  job losses,  and a growing sense of desperation among the most vulnerable.

    No meaningful discourse of the horrors of the outgone year can fail to give the pride of place to the horrendous Israeli – Gaza war whose debauchery far outweighs the Russian -Ukranian slugfest, if only because the former is literally one- sided with Israel being  helped to the hilt with constant supplies of weaponry, arms and ammunition which far outweighs whatever assistance Iran could give the Palestinians, either in sophistication or quantity.

    Because Hamas, it was, which started their foolish invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel has found more than justifiable reasons to attack and severely pound Gaza far beyond all reasonableness: killing thousands of mostly women and helpless children, even those on admission in hospitals.

    The Gaza–Israel conflict is a localized part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict which began way back in 1948, when about 200,000 Palestinians who fled, or were expelled, from their homes settled in the Gaza Strip as refugees.

    Since then, Israel has been involved in about 15 wars with groups in the Gaza Strip but none has been half as horrible as the current one since Israel sees it as a once, and for all, solution to the Palestinian question, preferring annihilation, if not extermination, to the more popular two state solution supported by most members of the United Nations.

    Israel has killed no less than 41,000 Palestinians to date, higher than the death toll of all other wars in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict combined, and with millions turned into refugees, with no surety of food, or access to drinking water. For the refugees, mostly innocent people, it has been hell on earth.

    No year could have been more horrible.

    Back here at home in Nigeria, 2024 was no less terrible, as it left its pangs which were felt literally by all strata of the society, even though not in equal measure.

    So bad was it that on 1 August, 2024 thousands rose in solidarity with Labour, with youths, activists, even Almajiris, pouring onto the streets to protest against economic hardship, rising food costs with food inflation hovering above 33 per cent, as well as demanding a cut in  electricity and petrol prices. That was not all.

    They equally called for good governance, justice and constitutional reforms.

    Happily, after an uncoordinated initial reaction, the government found its bearing, got to grips, and took charge comprehensively.

    Things have since improved, somewhat, with state governments beginning to take charge of their share of responsibilities in resolving the escalating food crisis, as well as  other existential challenges facing the country.

    Such is the situation now, that a group, The ThisDay & ARISE Group, which is habitually adversarial to the Tinubu government, could not help pronouncing President Tinubu as its Man of The Year, with ThisDay writing:

    “… it is difficult to argue that Tinubu did not earn his stripes as the most consequential Nigerian of 2024.

    “Overall, the President of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has by every note, caution, indication and inaction, earned the THISDAY Man of the Year, because of his doggedness,  resilience and his ability to take tough decisions even against the grain.”

    The group deserves nothing but our commendation when one realises the daily jeremiads of Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, Tinubu’s two co-contestants in the 2023 Presidential election.

    Happy New Year to all my highly regarded readers as I pray that 2025 will be a far better year for us all than the preceeding one.

  • The rise, rise and rise of capitalism (I)

    The rise, rise and rise of capitalism (I)

    Although the consensus is that the Industrial revolution is said to have taken place in 1759, the events that led to it began at least two centuries or even more before. It is therefore more of an evolution because the processes associated with it’s grounding went on for a long time before and after that date. It can even be said that it is still going on for good or ill as the case may be.

    What separated capitalism from all that came before it is the use of machines which have become increasingly sophisticated. Before the coming of capitalism, man had succeeded in many parts of the world in creating many wonderful artefacts  which were traded round the world. These goods were produced by master craftsmen who had learnt the secrets of production over many years. These goods were perfectly fit for purpose but could not be produced in sufficiently large quantities to be made available to a large portion of any group of people. We may now think of the dazzling civilisations of Egypt, Sumeria, Babylon, Greece, Rome and others around the world. Museums are full of the wonderful things produced  by these civilisations and we cannot but marvel at them. What we forget as we marvel at these priceless artefacts is that the vast majority of those who lived in those civilisations had little or no access to those wonderful things as only those at the very top had the wherewithal to purchase those products of human ingenuity and dexterity, some of which were brought over vast distances often under difficult and or dangerous circumstances. For example the silk produced in China came to Europe through the famous Silk Road in small quantities at such a price that only the very rich could afford to buy them. The same could be said of the spices, gun powder, cotton materials and other such things which added spice to the lives of the rulers and the movers and shakers. The vast number of the members of the vast under class were strictly excluded from partaking in these riches. They lived, suffered and in time, died unsung, leaving nothing to those coming in their wake.

    The first revolution that put man on the path of development was the agricultural revolution. This is what made it possible for surpluses of food  material to be built. This is what made it possible for the class of dedicated artisans to emerge and produce materials which were designed not just to support life but enhance it through the production and utilisation of luxury items. The continued appreciation of items of sheer luxury is shown by the riches which even now, accrues to the purveyors of luxury items.

    Before we had these surpluses virtually everyone was a farmer and nothing else. In many parts of the world the agricultural revolution led to the formulation of laws which supported the growth of agriculture and human civilisation. In this period of time, life jogged on, changing only a little over the centuries. This was until human linear projection was violently shot into another orbit precisely on the twelfth of October  1492  when a small band of Europeans  led by the Italian, Christopher Columbus in three small ships blundered into an island in the group of islands we now call the Bahamas. By doing so, they changed the trajectory of human history for ever.

    It is pertinent to ask why Columbus was blundering around in that part of the world at that particular point in time. The answer is that he was looking for a way to get to India by sailing west. A few decades before, in 1453 to be exact, Constantinople, capital of the Eastern portion of what remained of the once mighty Roman empire fell at last to the Ottoman Turks who at that time had the most powerful army in that region. The capture of Constantinople was said by the Muslims to have brought the Crusades which had begun more than four centuries before to a close, at least for that era. The Turks were Muslims and were determined to prevent Christians from getting to Jerusalem, the piece of real estate that was fiercely contested by the two groups over close to four torrid centuries. In capturing Constantinople, the Muslims now had an unassailable position and could do whatever they wanted. And what they wanted at that point in time was to block  access to Jerusalem with the added bonus of cutting off access to the trade routes to the East. They duly did so thereby barring European access to all the luxurious items which the Europeans had become more or less addicted to. To go back to the subject of the Crusades. It can be said that another leg of the Crusades was brought to an end when the British captured Jerusalem to knock the Ottoman Empire out of World War I on Christmas day 1917. The aftermath of that capture is still being felt in the Middle East where the Israeli state created when in fulfilment of the Balfour declaration, part of Palestine was turned into a Jewish state with tragic consequences for Muslim Palestinians. An example of history being an unending process, albeit with numerous twists and turns.

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    After centuries of learning to sail on the rather tranquil inland sea which is the Mediterranean sea, the Europeans were at that time ready to tackle the unknown that the Atlantic ocean represented and could cast their eyes on sailing west.

    Before that time there was no compelling reason to sail west from Europe and nobody bothered to do so. But, because the overland route to the east was closed, some crazy Europeans started thinking that since the earth had been unequivocally determined to be round, it was at least theoretically  possible to get to the East by sailing west. Yes, whilst this thinking was on the face of it correct, their ignorance of just how big the earth was made sailing west to get to India a mad cap idea. Now we know that a vast continent, the largest ocean in the world and half the width of Asia separated Europe from India by sailing west, the possibility of reaching India by sailing west was incredibly stupid and never likely to happen. In this case, ignorance was certainly bliss. Columbus did not get to India even though he tenaciously held on to the belief, to the end of his life that he did but all he did was to show to the world that another world existed, the New World that was going to be ruthlessly exploited for the next five and a half centuries right down to the present. Without the opportunity that this exploitation presented to the world, it is most unlikely that there would have been an Industrial revolution, at least not in 1759.

    As soon as Columbus set foot on the New World, he set the tone for what was in store for the inhabitants of that region by stealing needed food supplies from them and kidnapping those of them who had ventured onto his ships. Those captives were described as Indians because Columbus was sure that he had indeed reached India, were taken back with their captors to Spain to begin a trend which survived for four hundred years. Unknown to everyone at the time this marked the beginning of the trans-Atlantic slave trade even though the direction was going to be overwhelmingly east to west.

    The Columbus expedition was a commercial enterprise from which a profit was not just expected but demanded. The crowned heads of the houses of Castile and Aragon whose recent amalgamation had brought about the joint kingdom of Spain had reluctantly commissioned the voyage of discovery which was to enrich the new kingdom. Subsequent voyages undertaken by various conquistadors showed that the newly discovered lands had excellent potential for exploitation. The explorers immediately set about mining the newly discovered lands of their treasures in a way that had never been seen in human history. This is because all the indigenous people inhabiting the newly discovered lands were turned into slaves in situ. The Spaniards were convinced that there was a great deal of gold and other precious minerals to be dug up from the soil of their newly discovered territories and wasted no time in tearing up the soil in their quest for gold. But first, they destroyed civilisations which were at least at par with anything that existed in Europe at the time. They achieved this objective with their far superior weaponry and their use of horses which their opponents had no knowledge of nor any experience with. But their most destructive weapons were the diseases they brought with them on their bodies. Many population studies have been conducted to try to put a figure to the number of people who lived in pre-Columbian America but estimates have varied so wildly that it is difficult to quote any of the numbers available with any degree of confidence. What is clear however is that the population of that area was reduced by as much as ninety percent. This made it possible for the Europeans to claim that the land was empty of people when they arrived to colonise it in the largest wave of migration known to human history.

    There is overwhelming evidence that before the coming of the Europeans to the Americas, the indigenous peoples had not only domesticated a wide variety of food plants but had developed the agronomic techniques to grow them extensively. Thus the whole world owes the global access to tobacco, cassava, cocoa, potato, squash, several varieties of corn, tomato, peppers and other plants which were brought over to the Old World and grown widely as commercial crops. Many of these crops are now the mainstay of food production in many parts of Africa including Nigeria where cassava has become a staple and cocoa a very significant cash crop even if we  don’t partake of the pleasures of consuming chocolate. A quick look at the above list will confirm the debt owed to the New World in terms of the food we eat and cultivate for sale in this part of the world today. The importance of this phenomenon goes far beyond food availability. Even though this is very important, the importance in the context of this article is that these crops played a vital role in triggering or at least catalysing the agricultural revolution which has been recognised as being a prerequisite to the Industrial revolution of 1759.

    • To be continued.: It’s time for a rethink
  • Tinubu’s truism through his first Presidential Media Chat

    Tinubu’s truism through his first Presidential Media Chat

    Last week was the last complete week of the year 2024 and it did not just pass without snatching its peculiar spot in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s efforts at setting Nigeria straight. Although he had to halt his official activities towards the end of the previous week following the tragic incidences of stampede in different parts of the country; Ibadan in Oyo State, Abuja and Anambra State, he started the week on Monday by speaking to Nigerians through his administration’s first ever media chat.

    The presidential media chat, which set seven fiery journalists, including Dr Reuben Abati of Arise News, Maupe Ogun-Yusuf of Channels Television, Ruth Olurounbi of Bloomberg, Nnamdi Odikpo of NTA, Umar Farouk of Voice of America (VON) and Azubuike Ishikwene of Leadership Newspapers and Babajide Kola-Otitoju of TVC, on the President to extract his opinions and views on many issues we are dealing with as a nation, inadvertently achieved a familiarization with the President. That encounter has been described with all sorts of adjectives, mostly positive, and it is helping many to re-evaluate their perceptions about the man whose real personality and agenda have not really been grasped by many of his fellow citizens because of the tendency of some other citizens to replace reality with negative fictions.

    The 55-minute interview was an opportunity for the President to put a number of very serious national issues to rest, speak from the heart and allow Nigerians a sneak-peek into why he does what he does and why he takes decisions nobody ever thought was necessary.

    President Tinubu spoke about a lot of issues his questioners wanted him to lay bare and he did so apolitically. Like 2Baba (2Face) will say it, President Tinubu “nor use any sugar cover am”. He said it as he feels it.

    Of the many issues treated, his reaction on the question of his journey of reforms has the strongest meaning for me. Since he resumed office on May 29, 2023, President Tinubu has not hidden his propensity for changing things to how they obtain globally, at least with semblance of similar things in places where the concepts of the state and governance have merited their meanings. It has been one issue or the other militating against the reforms, even those that the natural opposition elements know are fait accompli. But in his reactions to questions dealing with his reforms, which have not been shy of biting hard, Mr. President was categorical; they are necessary, as in it was either the reforms or the way down the drain of insolvency.

    He picked one of the very first two reforms of his administration, announced when he was being inaugurated; the removal of petrol subsidy as an example. Nigeria was on a slide down the slope of economic doom and nobody seemed to be ready to stop the slide, as we were already bankrupting what ought to be our final line of defence; our budget was surviving on oil sold forward, massive borrowing, ways and means, and any other thread we could hang on to, not to finally crash.

    “Reforms are necessary for long-term growth. For years, we spent our future’s resources on subsidies and unsustainable programmes. Removing the fuel subsidy was a critical decision. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary to prevent financial disaster for future generations. We must manage our resources within our means and focus on investments that ensure prosperity. Yes, it’s painful, but it’s like labour pains, a necessary step for the birth of something better. I’m confident that our current policies are laying the foundation for a brighter future”, he said.

    Categorically on fuel subsidy, the President said “We were deceiving ourselves. The reforms were necessary to address this. I could see the impact smuggling was having on our economy—it had to stop. Why should we have expenses that aren’t supported by revenue?

    “We need to teach better management through our programmes and focus on managing our resources responsibly. We cannot continue giving away subsidized fuel while neighbouring countries benefit at our expense, like Father Christmas. I have no regret about removing the subsidy—it was necessary. We cannot spend the investments of future generations today.

    We must cut our coat according to our size and manage what we have. Poor management has been our problem.

    “Without pulling the handbrake, we were heading down a slippery slope toward financial disaster, not just for our children, but also for our grandchildren. Where is their inheritance? Where is the pathway to prosperity?”, he said.

    Another of his talking points that resonated really strongly with me was his position on the Tax Reform Bills, which are currently being considered by the National Assembly. The bills, four in number, are aimed at reforming the way the tax administration and allotment are conducted, making life easier for the citizenry, especially the most disadvantaged among us. However, this is one effort that has faced one of the stiffest oppositions in Nigeria’s history.

    Although the President explained what his intentions were when he was inaugurating the Taiwo Oyedele-led Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, but an opposition, categorically from the north of the country, has been most unrelenting to the tax reform. Starting with the meeting of northern stakeholder on October 29, and followed two days later with the muzzling of the National Economic Council (NEC) by northern governor, the bills have faced unexpected opposition.

    As a matter of fact, reports have it that the National Assembly might be experiencing a stalemate on the bills as the north/south dichotomy still playing out. However, driven by the vision of having a tax system that serves Nigeria and takes the people on the lower rung of the ladder into cognizance, the President, during his media chat, said the bills have come to stay. Anyone who feels uncomfortable with any part should take such concern to the Nation Assembly, subject their ideas to debates and let the more popular ideas carry the day.

    “The tax reform is here to stay. The reform is pro-poor and it is to widen the tax net, so we can have more people paying. The hallmark of a good leader is the ability to do what you have to do at the time it ought to be done. Tax matters are subjects of debates and negotiations. I don’t mind cutting edges. I will”, he said.

    He did not leave the topic that we have always expressed concerns about in public administration and in the lives of virtually all Nigerians unattended. Corruption was raised as a topic by his questioners and he definitely had an unusual answer to that question. No doubt we have a corruption challenge, but solving that problem requires the right and appropriate antidote. Tinubu said he will not make the usual fuss about the problem because it is more about applying the right solution, than the noise that has accompanied our approach all along.

    In his play book, the first question to answer would be why people are attracted to corrupt practices? A man without a pressing need, to which he has no particular answer or anyone offering him a way out, will not think of cutting corners or take gratifications to bend rules. To him, people go rogue because the system has failed, over the years, to reward their sweat commensurately, to be able to meet their needs. It is just natural for humans to want to live up to their task and not be deemed irresponsible.

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    So even if he has not put his fight against corruption up for advertisement, which only works for other purposes than stopping the anomaly, he has not stopped fighting that cause since he assumed office, albeit in an unusual way; by ensuring that circumstances and tendencies that give people the reason to want to be corrupt, in whichever way corruption manifests itself, are dealt with and finally obliterated. For instance, in his opinion, if the pressures of meeting domestic needs, sending children school, sorting out household and other responsibilities are alleviated by the public system, the tendency to be corrupt or seek undue favours will reduce.

    So without announcing his administration’s various innovations, including Consumer Credit Corporation (CREDICORP), the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), the new minimum wage, the tax reform bills and other introductions of his administration as part of his strategy to fight and weed out the menace of corruption in Nigeria, Tinubu is strategically bailing out the old system that give that room for our most vicious crisis.

    “Corruption, in its entire ramifications, is bad. But first of all, we must pay enough attention to the forces. Why are people corrupt? – The lack of social amenities, needs in some areas, lack of funding for their children’s education. There are so many anti-corruption mechanisms that you can put in place that will help people not to be corrupt. Pay them good and living wages. I have moved from N35,000 to N70,000. To me, that’s anti-corruption and if I can earn more revenue, we will do more. I’m giving more money to the states and local government areas. I’ve been transparent with my earnings (through the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee FAAC), and every month there is a publication as to what the country is making.

    “Our Student Loan is part of anti-corruption. No parents should lament on how to go about their children’s university education. Today, NELFUND is working for a larger population – more than 60 per cent.

    “At the University of Maiduguri, somebody called and said that ‘a little contribution from my daughter in the university has helped me to start business’. That’s part of the tuition fee allowances. We are helping one another, the society is moving out of illiteracy to literacy. I enjoyed the debate on how many and what type of courses are being offered in the universities these days to improve science, knowledge and technology. We just continue to work at it and I’m sure we are not taking our eyes off those serious matters”, he explained.

    The President did other things, besides his media chat during the week. For instance, since it was the week of Christmas, he used the opportunity to assure Nigerians of what they should expect, especially as the rewords and harvests of the hard labour of the past few months are already bearing fruits, saying Nigeria is on the path of “restoration and progress” and on Friday, attended the Jumat service in Lekki.

    This week, which parts fall in 2024 (from 29 to 31) and 2025 (1 to 4), definitely have their own features to showcase from the President. What those features will be will have to be discovered next week, or should I say next year?  

  • The Wike-Fubara rodomontade

    The Wike-Fubara rodomontade

    AS 2024 ends, it’s expected that the immediate past Governor of Rivers State who is the incumbent Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, and the current Governor of the State, Siminalayi Fubara, who is Wike’s erstwhile most-favoured mentee, would be doing political stocktaking. It’s believed that money, or its euphemism, “party structure”, is what has put asunder the marriage made in heaven. And the schism is marked by ‘rodomontade’ which, alternatively, is called ‘braggadocio’, ‘grandstanding’, or simply, defined by Oxford Reference as “boastful or inflated talk or behaviour”.

    There was a golden opportunity to resolve the feud between the erstwhile political soulmates in December 2023. At the time, some stakeholders from Rivers State entreated President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to intervene between the contending parties. And he did, and some seemingly consensual terms of settlement were established at an Abuja meeting with the President on 18 December, 2023. However, once the parties in conflict returned to Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, some other stakeholders began to stridently condemn the terms of agreement as being skewed in favour of Wike. They even said that the terms of agreement were unconstitutional.

    So, despite his avowal of the value of the President’s intervention, Governor Fubara did not implement the most critical terms in any substantial way. This led to the hardening of the positions of the feuding parties. One of the terms of the President’s attempt to broker peace was that the Governor should re-present the state’s N800 billion 2024 budget to the full Rivers State House of Assembly to repair the oddity of having presented it to just 4 members (loyal to the Governor) out of the 32-member House (including the 25 members loyal to Wike). Incidentally, this same scorned recommendation was one of the rulings given in the 10 October, 2024 judgement of the Court of Appeal on the Rivers State problem.

    Right from the beginning of the crisis, both political gladiators had been pressing rodomontade amply into service. In response to the demands of traditional and community leaders who paid him a solidarity visit on 16 July, 2024, Fubara boasted: “We appreciate what God has used people to also do in our lives, but we are not going to rule this state on our knees. We will go standing this way I am standing. … So, I will continue to stand tall.” Furthermore, to show that he was not dispirited by Wike’s boasts and threats that the Governor would not be allowed to have a second term, Fubara said lightheartedly to the leaders: “I’ve gone through your requests. If we take all these requests, it will be my first four years [full programme].” He was implying, here, that he had gone past threats and boasts, and was already anticipating assuredly his second term election victory.

    In relation to Fubara’s posturing, in a 13 September, 2024 interview with Channels Television’s Seun Okinbaloye, Wike boasted: “I will never support Fubara in my political life again. … It’s not about me. People laboured to put up a structure. People laboured where you [Fubara] … wouldn’t have even taken the fiftieth position [among candidates for the governorship nomination]. … I sacrificed to talk to the Ogonis. I sacrificed to talk to several people: ‘Let us go this way. Let’s see how things are.’ He turned it that I’m asking for 20 billion, 100 billion. … He turned up lies against me. … In every political family, you run election under people, and … we must have to keep our political structure.”

    Moreover, Fubara was at his boastful best, in the early hours of Friday, 4 October, 2024, when he visited the headquarters of the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) in Port Harcourt and commented on the court order for the police not to provide security cover for the then-forthcoming 5 October, 2024 local government elections in the state. He said: “We came here this morning when we heard that the, according to what they call themselves, Nigerian police, are coming to take over the premises of Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission and I have to come myself to find out why would such a thing happen. From what I heard, that one … is it … DC (Operation) brought them here to withdraw the policemen that are already here protecting this place so that new officers will take over the place, but I have to say this on a very strong note. We have seen enough nonsense from this institution.”

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    Fubara continued: “Everybody is aware of the Court judgement. … Did the ruling specify anywhere that election should not hold? He said don’t give voters register. What are we doing with it? Okay, police, don’t provide security. … Is this the same thing as blocking the election? … I don’t know the relationship between Inspector General of Police and one person who claims he has so much power in the state. … We don’t need your security. We will provide our own security. …Go away with your security, but this election must hold. If you like, whatever it is you want to do, do it. The election result will be declared. People will be sworn in.”

    Fubara castigated the IGP further: “You’re not ashamed of yourself. You call yourself Inspector-General of Police. … If I go back and I hear any problem, I will come back here. This is my property and you don’t have any power whatsoever to bar me from entering it.  Just try it, then that part of your history as a wicked and fraudulent police will include shooting Fubara. … Well, let me say it to all Rivers indigenes, everyone residing in Rivers State, election will hold. Anything that wants to happen, let it happen.”

    On 5 October, 2024, the election held without police support as Fubara had boasted that it will, but certain things did happen after, contrary to his boast. After the elections, probably to stop the allegation that the security forces had been compromised, the police authorities ordered the withdrawal of the police personnel who had, very much earlier, been deployed to the different local government headquarters to protect the facilities. Almost instantly, the headquarters began to be subjected to arson attack, in turn.

    This unsettled the Governor, and it was a more conciliatory Fubara who received the new Commissioner of Police to the state on 25 October, 2024. He said: “I can say that we are receiving you with open hands. That is the truth. We don’t have any option. … The worst of police is better than the best of criminals. So, we need to embrace you whichever way, because you are our friend. … Today, I want us to start a new relationship. Please, bygone is bygone. Please, let’s work as one… You’re the CP, you’re representing the IG. You can pass on my message to him. Please pass my goodwill message to him that we thank him for standing firm in believing in the cause of democracy; that we will continue to support him in whichever way we can to make him succeed.”

    As both Wike and Fubara, along with their respective supporters, continue to engage in euphoric rodomontade, they continue to record personal and communal losses. Especially noteworthy in this regard is the following Fubara expression of regret, in an interview with Channels Television’s Seun Okinbaloye, on 7 October, 2024, resulting from the arson following the local government elections of 5 October, 2024: “With all the problem we’re having, the wonderful jobs I’m doing in this state are not seen, because of the crisis.  … [T]he whole thing everybody is hearing is one crisis or another. … I need peace in the state. I don’t feel happy hearing every time Rivers State is in the news for bad reasons. It’s not good.”

    All the same, in response to the allegation that he had been weak in his handling of the security situation in Rivers State, Fubara boasted, in the same interview: “I can assure you I have all it takes. I have the guts. You’ve seen it in a few things. I can do a lot. But in all, I also try to control what I do, so that if I’m asked anywhere why is this action taken, I can defend my action.”

    Moreover, in a YouTube video of the opening of the 2024/2025 Rivers State Legal Year and Re-Dedication Service at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul’s, Anglican Communion, in Port Harcourt on 17 October, 2024, Fubara said: “I’m here today, to assure you that even if [it will be with] my last breath, I will defend the justice in this state. I know the journey has not been easy, because of all the troubles. The good works we are doing, the enemy is overshadowing it with bad news. … About this time last year, the story was different, but today, we are smiling, because we have what, even if you put all of them together, they don’t have. We have God, and when God is in your business, no matter what level of gang up, there is no way you can be defeated.”

    Incidentally, the Wike-Fubara crisis has extended beyond Rivers State. For example, the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum, Governor Bala Muhammed of Bauchi State, declared as follows: “The PDP Governors’ Forum 2024 fourth meeting held here in Jalingo, Taraba State, on Friday, August 23rd, 2024. … The PDP Governors’ Forum restates its stand and firm support for the Rivers State Governor … allowing His Excellency Governor Siminalayi Fubara to take his rightful leadership position of the party in the state.” In response, on 31 August, 2024, Wike said: “Let me assure all of you, not while we live will anybody take away the structure of the PDP from us. But let me tell people, I hear some governors who say they will take over the structure and give back to somebody. I pity those governors, because I will put fire in their states. When God has given you peace, you say you don’t want peace – anything you see, you take.”

    Creative boasts may generate applause, but also have the overriding tendency to aggravate crisis. So, while Wike and Fubara were savouring their rodomontades, and their adulations by their respective cheerleaders, the gyre of the Rivers State crisis was widening and the wound was festering. It is therefore incumbent on the mutually-abused elders of the Wike-Fubara divide to give all it takes to stem the tide of the retrogressive developments in the state, recognising that, as a Yoruba proverb puts it, “Ìjà ò d’olà; orúko níí so’ni.” (‘Quarrelling doesn’t bring fortune; it merely gives bad names.’)

    Wishing you a prosperous New Year 2025!

  • Nigeria: How we got here

    Nigeria: How we got here

    The declaration by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that he has no regrets for the sudden removal of fuel subsidy without any cushioning measures to mitigate the resultant crippling effect on the productive sector, high cost of living and associated hardship which is now driving citizens to extreme poverty and early death also confirms APC’s disconnection from the primary purpose of government which is the welfare and security of the citizens.

    “It is instructive that President Tinubu in the chat admitted that Nigerians are bearing the brunt of the failure and inability of the APC administration under his watch to effectively police and secure our nation’s borders as to prevent the smuggling of petroleum products to neighbouring countries” – PDP’s  Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, commenting on the President’s Media chat adjudged by most as

    Reading through the above and, indeed, temporarily unmindful of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi’s forever lie- suffused, and convoluted, critique of the Tinubu administration, I was still easily reminded of my article of the above title, first published 26 May, 2024.

    When this duo of Nigeria’s most troubled politicians – they are currently thinking of  working together again in 2027 – criticise President Tinubu for not waiting to , as Ologunagba put it, put in place:”any cushioning measures to mitigate the resultant crippling effect on the productive sector, high cost of living and associated hardship”, as they do almost on a daily basis, they are merely lying through their teeth because, neither of them could have forgotten the promise to make subsidy removal their very first action in office, nor could Obi and his obidients deny that they were only waiting to immediately throw  their extremely partisan ally,  the Joe Ajaero – led NLC into the fray, had the President attempted any negotiation ahead of the removal.

    That, therefore, was a masterstroke by the president and

    it should beat any keen observer hollow, how the Nigerian political opposition continues, ad nauseam, to get their reading of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu completely wrong; each time  falling prey to his superior stratagems.

    Looking back now you won’t believe that Atiku actually had the opportunity to learn, first hand, from the master strategist during the ACN days.

    I digress.

    Back then to my article of  26 May, 2024  titled as above.

    With food inflation hovering at around 40 per cent, a threat of increase in the pump price of petrol, as well as an unremitting insecurity, there’s more than enough reason to critically examine how we got to this terrible juncture in Nigeria.

    There’s this popular Yoruba proverb about a disabled who, when  told how unsteady the load on his head was, tld the interlocutor to better look at his legs. There has been a deluge of criticism of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu government, especially by political opposition titans, the likes of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Mr Peter Obi, both dishonestly attributing everything wrong in Nigeria to the present government  even when they both know that, truth be told, Nigeria did not get to this sorry pass  between May 29, 2023 and today.

    Any objective appraisal of the  Tinubu government must, therefore, take into cognisance how  President Muhammadu Buhari (2015 – 2023), and though of the same political party, completely wrecked Nigeria, taking her back, economically, no less than 30 years. That, in essence,  means that whoever became President on May 29, 2023 could only have done very little to ameliorate our extant circumstances.

    We must, therefore, outrightly dismiss the shibboleth that sees Tinubu as being the source of our current multi- sectoral problems simply because, as these do nothings claim, he removed fuel subsidy too quickly as if there was even, any longer, a budgetary provision for it beyond June, 2023 according to a statement  by President Buhari’s Finance Minister,  Zainab Ahmed on 7 October, ’22.

    Although they now, opportunistically, claim that they would have waited ages to end it, all presidential candidates of the major political parties promised to make fuel subsidy removal their very first action in office.

    Long story cut short, President Buhari, by his failure to have a firm grip on his government, especially on his key  aides, the likes of Attorney – General

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    Abubakar Malami, who completely took over control of the EFCC, Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika, who sold Nigeria cheap, claiming to be  setting up a National Carrier and, of course, Godwin Emefiele the Central Bank governor, who so completely epitomised  Buhari’s laizerfaire,  Sheik-like approach to governance.

    Emefiele made it his bounden duty to  ensure  that Nigerians went through agonising  anguish, queuing up for hours in banks trying to access their own money which he had earlier cleverly ‘confiscated’, claiming that the CBN was going to redesign the national currency.

    So completely did Emefiele overawed President Buhari that the latter kept giving   his own interpretation of a Supreme court decision on the Naira re- design case after some state governors, belonging to the President’s own political party, had become so pissed off at his lilly livered actions on the issue they headed to the apex court for a quick constitutional resolution.

    For President Buhari, his position on the matter was a literal abdication of his official duties, indicating how powerful Emefiele had become, serving the financial interests of members of the Villa cabal.

    And, of course, his own as later events would show.

    On my part, all I could do was record all the sordid happenings for posterity.

    I did that in the article below, published Sunday, 19 March, 2023 drawing very close attention to the Presidential aide who went toe to toe with President Buhari on the furious journey to Golgotha, taking Nigeria down with them.

    Titled: ‘Godwin Emefiele: Not Until I Have Been Disgraced’, it read as follows, with slight editing for space-

    I was privileged to have been both a student, and later, staff of the University of Ife, Ile – Ife, when Olawale Gladstone Emmanuel Rotimi Esq, best known as Ola Rotimi (13 April 1938 – 18 August 2000), one of Nigeria’s leading playwrights, and theatre directors dominated, and popularised theatre at the Source ( Ile – Ife, that is.)

    In one of his many plays, the Tortoise, a slow, ugly and very crafty character, was seen preparing to go on a journey and was asked if he must, and when he would return.

    Without the slightest hint of shame, he retorted:”Not until I am disgraced”.

    As Lasisi Olagunju would put it later, “the Tortoise is that character who fights on both sides, plunging the world around him into needless wars and anguish. Seeing himself as a charmer who cannot fail, he was without any moderation in consumption or in his assumptions.”

    Emefiele, like the Tortoise, never cared a hoot; not for Nigeria nor for Nigerians.

    He has been in and out of one court or the other since he got booted out of office.

    The Tortoise story is, therefore, analogous to his  harebrained currency re- design and swap policy which, not surprisingly, failed spectacularly, turning millions of Nigerians to worse than beggars.

    In all this, it is President Mohammadu Buhari I pity the most. This column eulogised him highly during his first two years in office but I soon took all that back.

    However, the way things are now I, completely out of pity, earnestly wish he had left office even a day before Emefiele, and his co- conspirators, inflicted this currency deluge on Nigerians.

    Who exactly did Garba Shehu think he was deceiving when he issued his meaningless story about President Buhari not directing Emefiele and Malami to flout the Supreme Court judgment on the currency case?

    Nigerians know that President Buhari is not hard of hearing but can we also say that he never one day saw, even on television, the thousands of Nigerians milling around empty ATMS, from morning till  night, eager to withdraw their own money, even if as little as N5000? Neither Buhari nor Enefiele was bothered that those children of perdition, those God forsaken Boko Haram elements and their sundry cousins, could have decided to vent their own anger on these hapless Nigerians, many of who hadn’t eaten for days, nor knew where the next meal would come from.

    As I wrote earlier, I sincerely wish, for purposes of historical reckoning, that President Buhari had finished his tenure a day earlier than this Emefielian ‘mala fide’ because, truth be told, President Buhari was in the process of regaining something of his old aura amongst Nigerians. But as things now stand, generalised hunger, anger and utter delusion have wiped off all that possibility.

    Talk of his huge infrastructural achievements now and Nigerians are more likely to point to the unprecedented national debt, mention the railways, and you are likely to have Nigerians tell you they dare not risk their lives on a kidnapper- infested rail line.

    Nigerians have just been witnesses to the most inefficient duo of an arrogant Attorney – General and and an equally arrogant and tactless CBN governor who actually wanted to become the nation’s president.

    Only last week the defence in the P/ID 11B dollar arbitration case in London, raised serious issues of incompetence against the Attorney- General just as It will now take a new Attorney – General to let Nigerians know what, and what have been sold, and for how much, of the humongous EFCC’s legal seizures.

    The least said about Emefiele the better.

    Having been  serving  his ‘real bosses’ at the corridors of power far better than he served Nigeria, they were even prepared to make him President over us, so he could cook more of his failed ‘rice pyramids’ which evaporated as soon as his presidential dream collapsed.

    Under him, the CBN had multi – dollar exchange rates over which

    not even the World Bank or the IMF could restrain him.

    For instance, the IMF’s Staff Concluding Statement on the 2022 Article IV Mission to Nigeria reiterated its past recommendations towards moving towards a unified and market-clearing exchange rate by dismantling the various exchange rate windows at the CBN, accompanied by clarity on exchange rate policy and supportive fiscal and monetary policies. That in the medium term, the CBN should step back from its role as main FX intermediator, limiting interventions to smoothing market volatility and to allow deposit money banks determine FX buy-sell rates, in collaboration with it.  They noted that an end to his crooked forex policy would help increase  revenue and thus solve a major Nigerian fiscal challenge.

    But all these meant nothing to the arrogant CBN governor.

     Rather he left the country struggling for forex inflow, whilst  selling the limited volume it had at dubious rates.

    Indeed as at the time the two leading world financial institutions were advising him, he was acquiring over a hundred vehicles for his chimeric presidential election campaign.

    Like in the case of the A-G, the incoming administration must make it a point of duty to let Nigerians know who exactly Emefiele is.

    For now, he has received his comeuppance, having been thrown under the bus from his  olympian heights.

    Indeed, if he knows what is good for him, he should give public service a long berth.

    It is safe to say that while President Buhari looked askance, Godwin Emefiele took Nigeria down together  with himself.

    It will be President Tinubu’s bounden duty to retrieve her from that dungeon.

    That won’t be easy but I believe he can do it.

  • RANDOM SNAPS

    RANDOM SNAPS

    What can get worse

         Can also get better

    The ladder which takes us down the hill

         Has rungs right enough for our upward climb

    If you are a lover of shadows

         Don’t look for them in the darkest night

    If you live your life before the mirror

         You may end up in love with an absent idol

    Silence

         Is not the absence of

    Sound

         But its unheard alternative

    The Peace they promise

         Lives in the House of War

    They who send carpet bombs at breakfast time

         And ‘humanitarian’ bread at the close of day

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    Our obvious vulnerabilities are

         Sometimes sources of our hidden strength

    The long-expected angel

         Sometimes arrives with a monster’s mask

    Are we heading for that bend

         In the road

    Where wrong is right    

         And right is wrong?

  • First presidential media chat

    First presidential media chat

    After resisting for more than 18 months the call to hold a presidential media chat, President Bola Tinubu finally relented days to Christmas. None of the interviewers asked why he had not held a chat for so many months, and he proffered no unsolicited explanation; but the anchor, Reuben Abati, had volunteered the information that the president was not armed beforehand with the questions posed by the eight-member panel. Whether armed beforehand or not, the president shocked the panelists and most Nigerians by his composure, his self-assuredness, the candour of his answers, and his understanding of the subjects discussed. He sometimes omitted to answer parts of the often double-barrelled, or even triple-barrelled, questions, and needed to be prodded to address what he omitted, but he had full grasp of the subjects, was single-minded on controversial economic issues, and was unabashed and determined.

    The president’s strength was his grasp of the subject matters in discourse, not whether he possessed the oratorical powers that often impress and mesmerise audiences. He sometimes paused, and the interviewer wondered whether he had completed answering the questions, but he resumed soon enough and tried his best to exhaust the subject. Beyond the questions posed to him, which he answered with considerable sanguinity, he also answered many other questions not verbalised, such as whether he was sentient of his surroundings. The bitter presidential campaigns of 2023, which however really began in 2022, had led many to question whether he was not already in his dotage. To catalyse public fears, opponents composed poems and musical scores to alienate him from a wavering electorate before the polls. But last Monday, he dealt with every question firmly and knowledgeably, and with even temperament, lacing many of his answers with earthy and uncomplicated humour. There was no overreach, no grandstanding, and no attempt to impress, causing some highly-placed Nigerian leaders to question his democratic credentials.

    Did he answer every question to the satisfaction of everyone? Impossible. The president is not a practiced polemicist or a rhetorician of the first order in the class of Plato, Aristotle or Cicero, men who could spot the fallacy of undistributed middle from one kilometer away, and for whom syllogism was sinew over their bones. He was curt in his response to the tax reform bills, but sighed at the end that he was open to reaching some accommodation. He was not sure critics of the bills had digested its elements, not to talk of arguing its many parts with the adeptness expected of political leaders. Yet, he would not mind placating the bills’ opponents, he said. How he will mollify the rage and security and electoral threats of those, like Bauchi governor Bala Mohammed and Borno’s Babagana Zulum, who have regionalised the VAT component of the bill will, however, test his wits to no end. And when he declared peremptorily that the reforms would stay, it was red rag to a bull, the northern bull.

    On price control, he said tersely that he was unalterably opposed. He said he was aware of runaway price increases, but the tenor of his answer to the question of food inflation seemed to give the impression he was inured to the pains and sufferings of the masses. Yet, his answer, for an economist and numbers man such as he is, was both inescapable and appropriate. He was almost didactic on the fuel subsidy removal and forex harmonisation issues. He argued that these measures could not be done in phases, contrary to his interviewer’s suggestion. It didn’t make sense, and the problem would not only be complicated but become calcified. Interestingly, he then proceeded from being didactic to being philosophical, for, as he put it, Nigerians were deceiving themselves and wasting resources defending the naira and miring the entire process in what he described as a cesspit of corruption. Both issues amounted, in his opinion, to spending the future of Nigerian children. If he knew it, he didn’t say so, but Nigerians resent pain, and would not mind kicking the nuisance down the road for future generations to grapple with. He also didn’t say it as provocatively, but he seemed to suggest that nothing is as dispiriting and painful as a prolonged surgery.

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    Critics have suggested that his views on cabinet size vis-à-vis the 2012 Steve Oronsaye Report that recommended the rationalisation of ministries and agencies showed his detachment from reality. Fortunately for him, none of his interviewers contextualised his position on the subject quiet as inelegantly. He, therefore, got away with his blithe response that he was going to retain his cabinet size, for he needed them to do the work of safeguarding the interests and welfare of more than 200m people. His answer is a tough sell, but, well, that’s the president’s perception of how he wants to get things done. Where his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, regaled his audiences with bucolic humour, President Tinubu was more difficult to stereotype. In addressing the question of whether Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister Nyesom Wike had not become a liability to the Tinubu administration going by the rambunctious manner he was carrying out his tasks, the president decried the public penchant for lawlessness and contempt for regulations, and concluded, gesturing, that he doffed his hat to the former Rivers governor. The response would of course cause trepidation in the FCT, which had hoped to get the president to clip the wing of the boisterous minister, and in the Rivers State Government House which is engaged in a deathly struggle with the former governor.

    Overall, despite longstanding misgivings in some quarters about President Tinubu’s capacity to lead, the media chat has dispelled such notions and done him a world of good. He looked fit, even feisty and eager to contend with every shade of argument on the Nigerian condition, particularly the economy and politics. It is not often easy to have a president with a comprehensive grasp of national affairs especially at the strategic and ideational levels, but President Tinubu has after 18 months appeared to have settled snugly into the job. He probably knows that both he and the country are not out of the woods yet, and that even when salvation eventually dawns there is a limit to how euphoric he must get, having suggested privately that he seemed to be a tool in the hands of God for this moment. It is, however, not known whether his team prepared him for this chat, considering that his answers had no trappings of stock responses but were almost all extemporaneous. But buoyed by his television performance, it should ginger him up for far more detailed appreciation of national issues and far more knowledgeable responses. He will probably take the hints.

    Perhaps it made more sense, in retrospect, that he let himself to settle into the job and be apprised of the difficult and intractable national issues he would be contending with before he ventured into the open to offer his reflections and panaceas to a discerning and exceedingly discriminating nation. His naira policy, subsidy removal, and occasional but embarrassing reversal of appointments had led many Nigerians to wonder whether he was actually prepared for the presidency as his Lagos governorship mystique suggested. Some of his calculations might be flawed, but he was smart and sensible enough to know that in the first two years of his presidency he needed to enunciate and execute most of the volcanic measures required to retool the economy and realign the nation. Most of his measures are unpopular, and have caused tremors many Nigerians find quite unbearable. But in the months ahead, and before the politics of reelection begin to heighten, the pains should have subsided, and the wounds begin to heal. It is probably the best approach, instead of the drawn-out or phased remedies that cause pain to linger thereby stoking lasting anger well into the election period.

    Sometime after this first media chat, the president and his team may need to do a post-mortem. Let them view the video all over again, particularly the unedited version, to see what corrections need to be administered, and what other positives need to be reinforced. His composure and humour in the version aired last Monday were remarkable and reassuring. But who knows, next time, whether he will not be called upon to give a long and exhaustingly extemporaneous interview that would test the texture of his composure and reveal the elastic limit of his humour. His team will hope that on that hypothetical day, when his patience and policies will be tested to the limit, nothing about him would seem choreographed or artificial. In their review of the broadcast, the president’s team must also help him understand how not to make superfluous comments, serious or humorous, until the microphones have been switched off. He was lucky last Monday that he said nothing incriminating when he bantered with the anchor, Reuben Abati, before the microphones were disconnected.

  • Hysteria over French military base

    Hysteria over French military base

    The hysteria over the siting of a French military base in Nigeria has strangely not abated weeks after the rumour gained traction, particularly in the northern part of Nigeria. The story didn’t make any sense, but someone originated and disseminated it in the hope it would imbue the rumour with political colouration as well as probably weaponising it. There is of course no truth to the story, and government officials have strenuously refuted the story and provided evidence of its falsity. No one could hide white Frenchmen in the Sahel, or bivouac them in nondescript accommodations along Nigeria-Nigerien borders. But Northern Nigerian elites who could send scouts to confirm the presence or planned deployment of French soldiers in Nigeria were uninterested in taking such steps. They know what they are doing.

    Astonished that some Nigerian elites could be both ignorant and gullible, Niger Republic junta leader Gen. Abdourahame Tchiani added embellishments of his own. He probably understands that some Nigerians are eager to believe the worst of their leaders, so he gave them harder bones to chew. Last week he addressed his nation and accused Nigerian government of laxity in allowing the Lakurawa terrorist group to take root and flourish, to the point of now threatening Niger Republic. In fact he goes ahead to allege that Nigeria and France had colluded to arm the Lakurawa against Niger Republic, yes the same terrorist group that Nigeria is deploying huge military arsenal to combat. The aim, he alleges, is to destabilise the Niger Republic government and force its capitulation. Fortunately, other than a few hardened Nigerian irredentists, no one else in Nigeria or anyone at all in Niger Republic believes his tall stories about insurgency and destabilisation.

    Gen. Tchiani is under pressure over his country’s worsening economic, security and political conditions. He will clutch at any straw to stay afloat. His fellow coupists in Mali and Burkina Faso installed as military administrators of their countries are also reportedly under pressure over worsening socio-economic conditions. Their citizens are demanding a timetable for the restoration of democratic rule, months after they foolishly gave rousing welcome to the coup leaders, and many months after they rallied on the streets in favour of Russian presence on their soils and denounced ECOWAS attempt to compel the return of democracy. Their folly is now attracting a backlash in terms of worsening economy, human rights abuse, and faltering counterinsurgency operations against Sahelian Jihadists linked to al-Qaeda. Even their Sahel alliance (AES) has proceeded only tentatively.

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    The easiest part of any rebellion, whether a military coup or a revolution, is to make empty utopian promises. Some misguided Nigerians, including activists claiming to be dedicated to the cause of democracy and good governance, clamoured for revolution or coup after the 2023 polls and during the ‘end bad governance’ protests. The problem, always, is that once the coup madness is activated, no one can predict its course. It is, therefore, dismaying that some Nigerians, still clutching to the old power order, are lending themselves to the service of an ignoble cause. They focus on demonising France rather than on campaigning for Nigeria to ensure good and favourable terms in its economic dealings with other countries, including France. If Francophone countries detest France for various economic and probably political and security reasons that hark back to their histories, it is unrealistic for Nigeria to inherit other people’s conflicts. After all, France is one of the highest importers of Nigeria’s oil.

    The Alliance of Sahel States (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger Republic) has shortsightedly opted for the embrace of Russia, with China and Turkiye on the sidelines, partly because they do not want to be accountable to their regional and continental neighbours. They also resent the peer review mechanisms put in place by their ECOWAS brother states. They are at liberty to engage in political and strategic alliances, whether these make sense or not, and expose themselves to proxy wars by the great powers. After all, last September they even indicated their resolve to issue new biometric passports for their countries. What is, however, dispiriting is when members of the Nigerian elite who should know better begin to sponsor despicable campaigns to force Nigeria into shortsighted alliances and also weaponise falsehoods to destabilise their country. Elections 2027 are not too far away. They should return to the drawing board and find ways of winning polls without destroying their country or setting ethnic and religious groups against one another.  

  • For PDP, it doesn’t just rain…

    For PDP, it doesn’t just rain…

    Few Nigerians hold out any hope that the minor opposition party, Labour Party (LP), would survive the tectonic moves triggered by its apparatchiks after they lost the presidential election. Increasingly, however, more Nigerians fear that even the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the ageing and dystrophic party which held power for 16 years since 1999, may face irreversible decline if its leaders do not show imagination in rearranging their party. They were yet to resolve the controversy over who their chairman should be: Umar Iliya Damagum, who is in office in acting capacity and appears in league with the intransigent spoilsport Nyesom Wike, or another unnamed candidate from the North Central geopolitical zone who would be expected to throw out Mr Wike and his crowd. While they hesitated, the Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu threw a spanner in the works as they upheld a High Court ruling invalidating Samuel Anyanwu’s position as the party’s national secretary. The appellate court declared Ude Okoye Ude as the genuine national secretary. But Mr Anyanwu stays resolutely in office, resisting deposition.

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    The acting chairman, Amabassador Damagum, stands indomitably pat; and now Mr Anyanwu joins the league of intransigents. They occupy two of the most sensitive, if not the most sensitive, positions in the PDP. For the party, it does not just rain, it pours. This year was fraught with tales of apocalypse for the party; next year could prove gloomier if reason does not prevail. How to make reason prevail will preoccupy party leaders all through next year. Should they try to cut the Gordian knot, hoping the mere act of wielding the knife would prove therapeutic, they might discover too late how surgical quackery kills patients effortlessly. Unfortunately for them, the only decisive man in the party’s leadership, Mr Wike, is not in lockstep with them. He sneers at them. The other leaders in the party are not only mediocre; they seldom put their money where their mouths are. This is a self-made tragedy whose seed was planted in the President Olusegun Obasanjo era, leaving the party with little choice but to contend with the leadership malady for much of next year.

  • Bail: needlessly lionising Farotimi

    Bail: needlessly lionising Farotimi

    Even without the Federal High Court in Ekiti admitting activist and politician Dele Farotimi to bail in the cybercrime bullying case brought against him by the Nigeria Police, it was inevitable that the Ekiti State Magistrate Court where he is standing trial for criminal defamation would also grant him bail. The police are prosecuting him pursuant to the complaint of legal icon and educationist Afe Babalola, 95. The Federal High Court set, among other terms, a bail sum of N50m, while the Magistrate Court set bail at N30m. Mr Farotimi is unlikely to face any difficulty in meeting the terms of the bails. Indeed, his former boss to whom he was presidential campaign spokesman, Peter Obi, has offered to help him meet the terms.

    Clearly, going by how he pumped his fist outside the Magistrate Court in the midst of his euphoric supporters, he is not going to beg anyone he has allegedly libeled in his penny dreadful book, Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System. He may have, in the estimation of many Nigerians, particularly the Obidients and anti-establishment activists and civil society organizations, written himself into a storm, but all his adult life as a lawyer, he has been shrill in lampooning anyone he did not take a fancy to, especially government. He had hankered after a cause célèbre, now he has found one. He will milk it to the bitterest dreg in his legal jousting with Chief Babalola. He was reported to have suggested that should he face a suit over his trenchant and perhaps tendentious views, the case would drag on until the complainant passes away.

    He has been admitted to bail, partly on the condition that he must not grant press interviews. Like the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, he would find it irresistible not speaking to the media, obliquely or undisguisedly. It is in his nature to posture, and as his December 20 bail hearing indicated, he cannot resist the glare of publicity. Leading Obidient intellectuals, their foot soldiers, and surprisingly an undistinguished faction of the Yoruba political and socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, had all warned before Friday that should the Magistrate Court decline to grant Mr Farotimi bail, they would embark on street action. It was an empty threat: they knew the offence Mr Farotimi was charged with was bailable, and they knew after the Federal High Court had given him bail that the lower court could not conceivably refuse him. By threatening fire and brimstone, like the man in the eye of the storm himself, they were just posturing.

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    The collective assault on the judiciary is saddening. How does a simple defamation case, whether criminal or civil, become a celebrated case in which the complainant is demonised and the accused is lionised? Before, during and after the presidential election, the judiciary had been pummeled and intimidated. Because it has its own flaws like all other institutions, it has been unable to respond adequately to the calumniation orchestrated by some ethnic irredentists, civil society organisations, and lately Obidients. The Farotimi case is a continuation of the intimidation of the judiciary and an indication that political reasons are at the base of the abuse of judges. Because the calumniators have got away with murder on social media, the intimidation is unlikely to stop. It will, therefore, be up to individual judges to stare down their traducers and insist on judging cases on their merit.

    By offering to help Mr Farotimi meet his bail terms, Mr Obi, a former presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), lends credence to the suspicion that a carefully wrought agenda to undermine the judiciary was being undertaken. Whether the suspicion is true or false, Mr Farotimi and his supporters, including Mr Obi, will continue to view every case judged against them as the product of judicial compromise. As the criminal defamation and cybercrime cases continue, every court appearance will be an opportunity for Mr Farotimi to engage in legal histrionics. Since the Obidients are a captive audience led by the nose, they will also use the appearance to scandalise the courts. This pull and push on a national scale will likely continue for some time, aided by social media and an undiscriminating traditional media. Few persons will be concerned that Mr Farotimi and his supporters are playing a political card, a tactic they will deploy to the hilt as the cases drag on and evidence become scarcer to find or more arduous to present.

    But it must concern the courts that this case should not be allowed to drag on for much longer than necessary. Not only is the complaint registered by Chief Babalola of such huge legal and societal consequence, to leave it unresolved for an extended period is to entrench the injury complained about as well as subordinate justice to politics. Hopefully the cases would be heard with despatch, and the cause of justice served. If Mr Farotimi is exculpated, so be it. But if Chief Babalola gets the upper hand, the courts must not be swayed by mob intimidation to hem and haw on suits that are likely to define public behavior and political relationships in the years ahead.