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    Last week’s twin articles on the imperative of economic rationality brought a gale of reactions. This morning we published some of them to facilitate the process of economic recovery in the land. Of particular interest are three reactions from former students of three different generations, two of them now professors in their own right.

    Greetings sir…….What happens when “the imperative of economic rationality” is faced with the logic of economic irrationality?  Olufemi Macaulay, Lagos.

    A pro-establishment, if progressive, genius laying bare the ugly facts albeit throwing a veil of diffidence over some galling outcrops of our unforgivably bald and stark traits, particularly elite brigandage and delinquency. The constraints are well-known and the heroic exactions noted as well. Enjoyable read, if a tad lacking the old supreme linguistic fancy footwork. Happy Sunday, old savant.  Professor C.A, Unilag. (Name deliberately withheld by the columnist in view of the impending Oro Festival in Lagos).

    ……and a peep from abroad

    Thanks so much for sharing sir. These are great insights into Nigeria’s structural conundrum and its confounding corollaries. I don’t envy Tinubu at all. The politicians who preach austerity are obscenely ostentatious. Nigerians who want to eat omelettes loathe chicken farming. Bandits are banishing farmers from their farms. The youth who can be the foot soldiers of our agrarian revolution are fanning hatred on the social media.

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    The Supreme Court’s ruling on LG autonomy, the 150% minimum wage increase, and the Emergency Food Program are steps in the right direction. Immediate food relief is a sine qua non of political stability as we try to figure out a more sustainable food strategy. The government must heed your warnings about the anti-state economic saboteurs who can scuttle the emergency food program. These mountebanks must be exposed, shamed, and emasculated.

    I am not naïve enough to think it is going to be easy reining in these unpatriotic anti-state moneybags, but the government only needs to make an example of one or two of them for the other to retreat somewhat. Remember how Buhari/ Idiagbon humiliated the junketing Ooni Sijuade and Emir Ado Bayero for visiting Israel? Nigeria needs a revolutionary policy shift akin to FDR New Deal, as enshrined in the Social Security Act of 1935 that helped America to clamber out of the Great Depression. To redeem Nigeria, Tinubu  needs his own 3Rs: Relief, Recovery and Reform.

    •Dr Tunde Olusesi, New York.

  • The British vote for change (II)

    The British vote for change (II)

    The first part of this series closed with the Keirs; Hardie, not to be confused with the famous Welsh writer Thomas Hardy as I did last week and Starmer. And, it is fitting that this continuation piece starts with Keir Hardie the acknowledged first leader and one of the founders of the British Labour Party. Incidentally, it is probably no coincidence that the current leader of the party is also called Keir because his parents were staunch, life long members of the Labour Party. It is unlikely that his parents had any premonition of his eventual destiny but giving this rare but iconic name to their child is strongly indicative of their strong commitment to an institution which has not only loomed large in their consciousness but has become part of long lived family tradition. It must be said however that there is no direct evidence to support the supposition that the current Prime Minister of Britain was named after Hardie but at least, it is romantic to think that he was.

    The Labour Party was formed by necessity under rather inauspicious circumstances at the turn of the last century. This means that the party has been in the business of gathering votes for all of one hundred and twenty-four years. At  the beginning, it had to depend on the help from the Liberal Party, the main opposition party in the British Parliament of the day, in order to gain some political relevance at a time when the Conservatives and the Liberals were the only parties standing. It was this alliance which allowed the Labour Party to enter Parliament in considerable number for the first time in the general election of 1910. It is perhaps necessary to point out that the party was not formed by men with deep pockets or those that have cast themselves in the mould of godfathers. On the contrary, it was financed by the contributions of men who earned only a few pennies from the dangerous work they did deep underground in coal mines or poorly lit factory floors. It was this money that was used to canvass for votes with which to send a few of them to parliament, there to plead their case before the world.

    The pre-election pact between the two parties was mutually beneficial as it allowed them to inflict a crushing defeat on the Conservatives. Then as now, the Conservatives were reduced to a rump in parliament and the Liberal Party ruled the roost all throughout the period of the First World War, until 1926 when post-war situations forced the formation of a Labour minority government making it the first time that the Labour Party formed any type of government in Britain. The next time that the Labour Party formed a government was in 1945 in the immediate period after the Second World War when to the surprise of all political analysts, the  Conservative Party of Winston  Churchill was tufted out, to be replaced by a Labour government which was led by the principled Clement Atlee who had been Churchill’s unsung deputy during the Second World War. Why the Conservatives who were the most visible party during the war were rejected at the polls as soon as victory was secured has never been satisfactorily explained but that certainly was the way it was.

    Looking back after all those many years it can be said that it was the Atlee government that laid the foundation for the modern welfare state that Britain is today. Perhaps the most talked about creation of the Atlee government was the National Health Service (NHS). For the first time in British history, healthcare was provided free of charge at the point of service. It has to be pointed out however that although service was free, it was only technically free as all taxable adults paid something towards making the service free for those who needed treatment for whatever ailed them. In other words, this was an elaborate, universal insurance scheme which was operated by the government. This is unlike what we have in Nigeria where services  which are touted as free are only nominally so because nobody actually pays anything towards the provision of the services which various governments claim to provide free of charge. Here, the only thing provided free of charge is the announcement that such and such services are free. The funds necessary for the provision of such services are only conspicuous by their being withheld. The difficulties associated with free communal services are shown by the current state of the NHS. The first is that such schemes demand heavy taxation, especially of those who earn more money than others as you will find in Scandinavian countries where taxation has been used successfully as a means of social engineering which has eliminated extreme poverty at one end and fabulous wealth on the other. This left wing politics have helped to push or pull society towards the centre. It is becoming quite clear that in Britain today, the welfare system is in serious decline as even the much vaunted NHS is under great stress as it has always been under the Conservatives’ various governments but then, the Party of government in Britain has always been and perhaps, will always be the Conservatives with Labour only filling in at periods of interregnum.

    Judged by any standard, the Atlee government could point to some solid achievements within Britain in the five years in which he was in power. Equally important were his accomplishments in foreign affairs. His efforts in restoring peace to a battered global community was commendable but his efforts within what became the British Commonwealth was even more so. Britain emerged from the war, more or less intact but with many strains just under the surface. The important question was what was to be done with the unwieldy British Empire which had spread right around the globe. There was India, the jewel in the crown of the Empire; there were also the white ruled autonomous countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, which wanted independence as well as many countries in Africa and the Caribbean in which agitation for independence had begun. It is to his credit that Atlee began the systematic dismantling of the British Empire with such speed that India had been partitioned to give the independent nations of Pakistan and India as early as 1947 and conditions for granting independence to many African countries. Given these successes, it is a wonder that within five years the Conservatives under Churchill were back in power and the chaos caused by the Suez crisis of 1956 not to talk of the awful mess created by the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. The only explanation for the loss of power by Labour at that point is that in a class ridden society such as Britain, the only party that could be trusted by the working class electorate was the party of those who had acquired the status of the privileged. In other words, the Conservative Party.

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    When I arrived in Britain in 1973, the Conservative government was in charge but only nominally so as  various Labour unions were making life very uncomfortable for the government. The most powerful union in this regard was the miners union which called out its members on strike making the generation of power next to impossible. It was soon clear that the government had lost all authority to rule and a general election could no longer be avoided. When it came very early in the New Year however, all that was achieved was a hung parliament in which the so called Labour majority was less than the fingers on one hand. The Tory government of the time tried to cobble together a new government with the Liberals but failed, thereby returning power to the Labour Party under the wily Harold Wilson, professor of Economics and consummate politician who once pointed out that a week in politics is a long time. How true this observation is is pointed out by the current state of American politics. This time last week, Donald Trump was still hauling insults at Joe Biden his putative opponent for the November election for the White House. Suddenly, the picture has changed dramatically and he is now scrambling around assembling insults with which to welcome the new Democratic Party nominee, the refreshingly effervescent Kamala Harris. Ask Trump and he will readily confirm that a week is certainly a long time in politics.

    1974 was a year of two elections in Britain as another election had to be called in October to decide once and for all, which party could be trusted with the reins of power. This time the Labour Party came away with a substantial majority.

    Edward (Ted) Heath who had led the Conservative Party to a quite unexpected victory in 1969 at a time when Wilson was at the height of his powers was still the leader of his party but, having led his party to two electoral defeats, his hold on the party slackened to such an extent that his leadership position was challenged by a young Margaret Thatcher who had earlier been promoted to a cabinet position by none other than Ted Heath. Under normal circumstances that challenge would have been swatted aside with something approaching contemptuous ease but those times were not normal and the young challenger was still standing after the first round of the leadership contest. Reading the writing on the wall, Ted Heath withdrew from the field leaving it open to Margaret Thatcher who became the first female leader of a political party in Britain.

    As things stood in Britain at the time, the uncommonly cerebral Shirley Williams of the Labour Party had been favoured to become not just the leader of her party but the first female Prime Minister of the country. As things turned out however, those honourable distinctions fell to Margaret Thatcher. Interestingly, both women had an effect on the trajectory of British politics in the last fifty years and will continue to influence the same for many years to come. Whilst Thatcher moved the country to the right, Williams made a great effort to drag the polity to the centre even as forces of the left struggled to promote a left wing ideology. All those forces are still fighting for dominance and many would argue that Keir Starmer has been successful so far because he has adroitly promoted a centrist interest in the face of the right wing forces promoted by the Conservative Party. The annihilation of the right in the just concluded elections suggest that right now, there is a great deal of comfort to be found in centre politics but only time will tell for how long Starmer will continue to resist the pull of the left.

    Whilst Margaret Thatcher succeeded in pushing Britain to the right as Prime Minister, Shirley Williams succeeded in her design by leaving Labour Party to help form the Social Democratic Party. By the time Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, the Labour Party under the leadership of Michael Foot had drifted so far to the left that people were talking of frank socialism which Williams and other members of the Gang of Four, Roy Jenkins, John Owen and Will Rogers could not support. They were all leading members holding very important posts within the Labour Party but in the face of their conviction, they gave up their positions within the Labour Party to form the Social Democratic Party which has formed an alliance with the Liberal Party. The alliance won 72 seats in the last elections suggesting that they are no longer on the fringes of British politics, testament to the quality of the vision of the Gang of Four.

    To be continued.

  • Presumptive nominee Kamala Harris: a truly historic development

    Presumptive nominee Kamala Harris: a truly historic development

    “We agree with President Biden. Choosing Kamala was one of the best decisions he’s made. She has the resume to prove it. But Kamala has more than a resume. She has the vision, the character, and the strength that this critical moment demands. There is no doubt in our mind that Kamala Harris has exactly what it takes to win this election and deliver for the American people. At a time when the stakes have never been higher, she gives us all reason to hope.” – The Obamas, Barrack and Michelle, endorsing Kamala Harris

    For the third straight week, this column will be dealing with the U.S Presidential election just as it hopes to continue to devote considerable time to the election due, Tuesday, 5 November 2024.

    This is not only because of the world-wide attention U.S elections normally elicit, but because of the aggravated, existential danger  former U.S President, Donald Trump, poses.

    While he alone, is enough danger not only to America but to the world at large, Heritage Foundation’s PROJECT 2025 has so  exacerbated Trumpism that it has rendered the man, after who it takes its name, worse than Hitler; the very name his Vice Presidential candidate, J.D Vance, called him before he ate crow.

    To know who Hitler was, you only have to remember who was responsible for the death of “some 75 million people, including about 20 million military personnel, and 40 million civilians, many of who died as a result of deliberate genocide, massacres, mass-bombings and disease”, during World War11, 1939 – 45.

    Trump is capable of far worse, seeing how he romanticises the few remaining tyrants around the  world.

    He does not believe himself second to any living human being and has, severally, shown that he cares nothing about   NATO.

    The fear of a Trump Second coming, with Project 2025 canvassing a total remodelling of America as its underpinning philosophy,  presently grips all Americans, except the captives of his MAGA colony, amongst who are those who trooped to the Capitol on January 6, 2020, intent on staging a Democratic coup.

    These are the factors energising the Harris campaign, eventuating in a democratic surge that saw her garner  84 Million dollars the very first day, as well as  enabled her to get more than enough delegates to qualify as the presumptive nominee.

    What then are the chances of Harris winning in November?

    Let us first explore the circumstances that saw her to the pinnacle; a catalogue of events that can only be described as dramatic.

    It is a bitter/sweet experience which saw the literal political end of President Joe Biden who, without a scintilla of doubt will, forever, rank amongst the most consequential presidents in U.S history and the rise, and rise,  of Kamala Harris, the former  California Attorney – General and later senator who, unforgetably distinguished herself with her withering questioning of Trump Supreme Court pick,

    Brett Kavanaugh, during his 4- day grilling by the senate Judiciary committee between September 4 – 7, 2018.

    Van Jones, lawyer and political analyst, who served as President Barack Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs in 2009, described the day President Biden stepped aside, endorsing Harris, as a “sad day in America, describing Biden as a patriot and an American hero who towers above most

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    Democratic luminaries. He described the day as a “huge moment, a human moment when the President chose country above everything else”. He was close to tears, saying all these on CNN.

    For starters, President Biden’s endorsement of Harris has  torn to shreds, the air of melancholy that had enveloped democrats in the U.S and lovers of democracy all over the world, creating such a huge Democratic bounce which has, in turn, sent shivers to Trump and his associates. It is so bad for the Republicans they  are now trying to conjure all manner of legal impediments to upend Harris’ increasing popularity, as well as harrass President Biden with threats of impeachment.

    Loonies all.

    Harris acceptance by all sections of the Democratic party and the American society has gone sky-high, thus enabling her to set many  records in the history of Presidential contest in America.

    For instance, in an unprecedented feat, she grossed 84M the very first day to be added to the existing near quarter-of-a-billion dollar war chest already amassed this election cycle, an amount so huge Trump has started lying about Elon Musk promising to give him 45Million dollars per month, which the latter has  denied on television, calling it fake news.

    LEADERSHIP also reports that the Kamala Harris-themed memecoin, KAMA, has seen a dramatic surge in value, reaching a market capitalization of $24 million, reflecting the enthusiasm and support from the digital currency community.

    She also secured enough

    delegates within the shortest time ever recorded in a Presidential contest in America.

    Harris path to victory seems assured. With a VP candidate that will adequately fit the bill, the team should hit the ground running, targeting Black Americans, a

    vast majority of who trust her and distrust Donald Trump – 71% compared to 5% – according to the largest-known survey of Black Americans since the Reconstruction era.

    Her campaign has also energised dispirited Asian voters while she has to work harder on the Hispanics which President Biden was already losing.

    With Trump severally accused

     of sexual misconduct over the years and blamed for strict abortion curbs –

    and with him proudly saying:”I kill Roe V Wade” , Harris should be able to weaponise Trump’s ‘women problem’, and use it as a cudgel to punish him maximally.

    The entire Harris team should eagerly settle into what has been Kamala’s consuming passion: REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH and ABORTION, letting every woman in America know that

     Trump is an enemy, ever so keen to tell the womenfolk what to do with their God – given body. They should let the Maga crowd know that

    Reproductive freedom is a  sine qua non.

    Among likely voters, Trump is at 48 percent to Harris’ 47 percent in a head-to-head matchup — narrowing the race to a virtual tie after Trump led Biden by six points when the same poll was taken in June.

    Another poll puts it at 49 per cent to Trump and 46  to Harris, both still within the margin of error.

    In a month’s time it should be possible to do a more compelling comparison of where both are, but with the massive enthusiasm driving the Harris campaign there can be no doubting the fact that Trump is on a journey too far.

  • Whose federalism, and for what purpose?

    Whose federalism, and for what purpose?

    Last week in this column, in the article titled “Federalism and the local government autonomy verdict”, it was argued that, due to the natural tendency for the meanings of words to change through broadening or narrowing, as a result of changing contexts, it was problematic to restrict the concept of federalism to a two-tier system of government. Given the continuing federalist controversies, it is necessary to examine the concept further. Alexander Hamilton and K.C. Wheare are two of the authorities often cited by some Nigerians to justify insisting that Nigeria’s three-tier system is an aberrant federalism.

    In an article titled “The structure of the government must furnish the proper checks and balances between the different departments” and published in Federalist 51 on 8 February, 1788, Hamilton noted: “In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments.” Hamilton further noted: “And happily for the REPUBLICAN CAUSE, the practicable sphere may be carried to a very great extent, by a judicious modification and mixture of the FEDERAL PRINCIPLE.”

    Hamilton also posited: “The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. … It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.” In a 2024 article, UShistory.org puts the idea as follows: “In their attempt to balance order with liberty, the Founders identified several reasons for creating a federalist government: to avoid tyranny, to allow more participation in politics, to use the states as ‘laboratories’ for new ideas and programs.” Moreover, regarding the purpose of federalism, an Encyclopaedia Britannica entry on federalism which was last updated on 8 June, 2024 states:  “The political principles that animate federal systems emphasize the primacy of bargaining and negotiated coordination among several power centres; they stress the virtues of dispersed power centres as a means for safeguarding individual and local liberties.”

    Referring to the 1943/1946 views of K.C. Wheare, who has been described as the “Dean” of modern comparative federalism research, John Kincaid in his September 2021 piece under the broader theme “Federalism in America: An Encyclopedia,” compiled by the Pennsylvania-based Center for the Study of Federalism, stated: “Wheare defined federalism as ‘the method of dividing powers so that the general and regional governments are each, within a sphere, coordinate and independent.’ He argued that federalism requires ‘co-ordinate partners in the governmental process.’ He believed that federalism is not an end in itself but rather a means to good government and that achieving that end requires adherence to the spirit as well as the letter of a federal constitution.”

    With respect to Nigeria’s federal constitution, The Punch, in an 11 April, 2022 piece by Leke Baiyewu, titled “Govs should determine how local councils run – Fayemi”, reported that as Chair of the Nigeria Governor’s Forum, Kayode Fayemi, when asked why state governments and governors were stifling local governments, said: “Today in Nigeria, the local government is not a tier of government … Federalism is a two-tier system: you have the Federal Government and you have the state government. … That is what is represented in the Constitution.”

    Moreover, Fayemi was reported, by Emmanuel Oladesu, in a story in The Nation titled “NFIU can’t dictate to states, say governors”, on 14 October, 2019, to have said as follows: “There is no law that has been passed in the country on local government autonomy. There have been several attempts, but it has never gotten 24 states Houses of Assembly out of the 36 in the country to make it happen. Nigeria is not a three-tier federation. Talk about Nigeria being a three-tier federation is a distortion.” Contrary to Fayemi’s views, Kunle Lawal, the Executive Director, Electoral College Nigeria (ECN) – “a non-partisan and non-governmental platform” – was reported by Samson Elijah, in a 12 July, 2024 piece titled “Local gov’t autonomy cornerstone for true federalism, dev’t – Lawal”, in Leadership newspaper, to have declared: “Despite being recognized as the third tier of government by the Nigerian Constitution, local governments face significant challenges in managing their financial resources independently.” 

    But, what exactly does the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria say about the local government system?  Section 3(6) states: ”There shall be 768 Local Government Areas in Nigeria as shown in the second column of Part I of the First Schedule to this Constitution and six area councils as shown in Part II of that Schedule.” Section 7(1) declares: “The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this Constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the Government of every State shall, subject to section 8 of this Constitution, ensure their existence under a Law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils.” Relatedly, Section 7(4) declares: “The Government of a State shall ensure that every person who is entitled to vote or be voted for at an election to House of Assembly shall have the right to vote or be voted for at an election to a local government council.”

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    Moreover, Section 7(5) states: “The functions to be conferred by Law upon local government council shall include those set out in the Fourth Schedule to this Constitution.” In addition, Section 8(5) states: “An Act of the National Assembly passed in accordance with this section shall make consequential provisions with respect to the names and headquarters of State or Local government areas as provided in section 3 of this Constitution and in Parts I and II of the First Schedule to this Constitution.” Complementarily, Section 8(6) asserts: “For the purpose of enabling the National Assembly to exercise the powers conferred upon it by subsection (5) of this section, each House of Assembly shall, after the creation of more local government areas pursuant to subsection (3) of this section, make adequate returns to each House of the National Assembly.”

    With respect to funding, Section 162(3) declares: “Any amount standing to the credit of the Federation Account shall be distributed among the Federal and State Governments and the Local Government Councils in each State on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly.” Section 162(5) also indicates: “The amount standing to the credit of Local Government Councils in the Federation Account shall also be allocated to the State for the benefit of their Local Government Councils on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly.”

    Section 162(6) also provides: “Each State shall maintain a special account to be called ‘State Joint Local Government Account’ into which shall be paid all allocations to the Local Government Councils of the State from the Federation Account and from the Government of the State.” Section 162(7) further states: “Each State shall pay to Local Government Councils in its area of jurisdiction such proportion of its total revenue on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly.” Moreover, Section 162(8) provides: “The amount standing to the credit of Local Government Councils of a State shall be distributed among the Local Government Councils of that State on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the House of Assembly of the State.”

    Some are of the opinion that some pairs of the constitutional provisions on local governments are inconsistent or contradictory. Ironically, the seeming contradiction is what appears to have made Nigeria’s three-tier model of federalism consistent with, for example, the American two-tier model with respect to safeguarding liberty or protecting against tyranny and providing increased opportunities for citizens’ participation in government, through duly organised elections at all of the levels of government. It is the capacity to perform these patent functions of federalism that the Supreme Court judgement of 11 July, 2024 on local government autonomy has enhanced. The judgement therefore deepens Nigeria’s federalism.

    Prior to the judgement, the state governments’ tyranny with respect to local government finance and the usurpation of the powers of the citizens to elect leaders of their choice had been widely acknowledged. Local governments’ funds were being sent to them, from the federation account, through the state governments to enhance transparency and accountability. But the state governments did not allow this noble objective to be achieved, because majority of them unconstitutionally withheld and illegally deployed the greater part of the local governments’ funds. Moreover, most of the state governments unconstitutionally dissolved duly-elected local government administrations and replaced them with illegal unelected Caretaker Committees.

    Various efforts to reform the oppressive, anti-federalist situations were frustrated by the state governments, using their real and assumed powers, and gloating over the abuse. The saving grace now is the seeming contradictions in the constitution which have created a federalism-enhancing liberating flexibility, which has freed the local governments from the absolute and suffocating control of the state governments.

    In a 27 August, 2020 video presentation by Kimana Zulueta-Fülscher on “What is federalism”, the Stockholm-Switzerland-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, which is an intergovernmental organisation that supports democracy worldwide, notes: “[F]ederalism is often a choice for large countries like India, the United States, Brazil, Germany, Mexico and Nigeria. … And, since no single country is exactly like another, no federal system is exactly alike either.”

    More precisely, Teachoo.com, a New-Delhi-India-based online educational resource centre, last updated on 16 April, 2024, observes: “Federalism means sharing of power among the levels, i.e., central, state, regional and local governments.” It further notes that, in a federal system, “it is not possible for one level of government to unilaterally alter the fundamental rules of the constitution;” and that “courts have the authority to interpret the constitution and the authority of various governmental levels. If disagreements occur between several levels of government as they use their distinct powers, the highest court serves as a mediator. For each level to maintain its financial independence, the sources of revenue are clearly identified.”  

    An encyclopaedia entry on “Federalism” by Daniel J. Elazar, last edited on 13 September, 2018, and published under the auspices of the Center for the Study of Federalism, rightly cautions: “No single definition of federalism has proved satisfactory to all students, primarily because of the difficulties in relating theoretical formulations to the evidence gathered from observing the actual operation of federal systems.”  This liberal perception is invaluable for the accurate rating of Nigeria’s federalism.

  • Protest is not the problem for Tinubu, but it’s impact on ordinary people 

    Protest is not the problem for Tinubu, but it’s impact on ordinary people 

    It was another very packed week for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He opened the week last Sunday in Ghana where he attended 6th Mid-Year Coordination Meeting of the African Union (UN) and gave an update on the achievements and challenges of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which he is second term Chairman over, having been re-elected on July 7 at the 65th Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS in Abuja.

    Returning to Abuja that evening, he must have decided it was time to deal with a social irritation that has in the last few days been threatening the peace and the very essence of the rather painful, but needful, sacrifices that Nigerians have been making since his administration injected some socioeconomic reforms into the Nigerian system. The major discuss within and around Nigeria, in the last few weeks, has been all about a budding protest the organisers have coined #EndBadGovernaceInNigeria, has been dominating the airwaves.

    You will be able to understand the kind of feeling and atmosphere most Nigerians, across the classes, are currently living with only if you were in Nigeria or catching up with news from Nigeria in October 2020. It was a season of dread, which claimed lives (especially law enforcement agents), destroyed multibillion naira private and public investments (material and non-material), and has left many livelihoods prostrating, never to find their feet again.

    Nigeria has experienced its share of history’s ups and downs, seasons of public unrest and restlessness, to which regions of the country have lost some of their finest. The Nigerian Civil War (July 1967 to January 1970) was one. Though the #EndSARS protest of October 2020 was nothing compared the Civil War, it came along with a realisation and self-awareness that nobody had in the ’60s and ’70s. That seeming ignorance could also be permitted because the world in which the Nigerian Civil War happened, as advanced as it was for some countries, never had the sort of technological advancement as today’s world lives with. If there was internet then, which I very much cannot ascertain right now, it had not espoused artificial intelligence (AI) and high-calibre weapons were not this accessible.

    So those who executed the #EndSARS protest had a massive technological edge over those who were in charge in the Civil War era or any other public crisis season. Maybe I should note that some analysts have concluded that the about-to-burst protest and the #EndSARS protest might be coming from the same prompters. As the narration goes, let’s say by those who understand social behaviours, this is the third metamorphosis of the spirit that is currently threatening to light the nation up and take everybody back to ground zero. How this happens to be the third manifestation of ‘a destructive monster’ may come up at some other time, in another edition, but just know that #EndBadGovernaceInNigeria and #EndSARS flow from same source, just an evil spirit manifesting differently.

    All the while the arrowheads and sponsors of the swelling protest have been spreading the dread, threatening all sorts, as if it was not meant to be a people’s march, rather a march against the people, the President has been silent and watching which form it wants to take, waiting to really identify what it really is. Though people within and around the government have been appealing and calling for calm, more time and reason, the President was bidding his time, measuring where to come in.

    Although he might have been meeting and reasoning with officials of the government who should have one role or the other to play in managing the situation, like he was believed to have held the meeting with security, intelligence and security chiefs on Friday, July 19, for reasons around the planned strike.

    However, the first time anything would be heard from him relating to the protest was after his meeting with the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris on Tuesday. Idris came out telling journalists, among other reasons for their meeting, Tinubu had told him to tell Nigerians that he already heard their calls and feeling their pains and he was not just folding his arms, but doing something about the hunger and general suffering they complain about.

    He appealed to those planning the protest to exercise a bit more patience with his administration, call their intentions off and allow him focus on delivering the fruits of the current national sacrifice.

    “Mr. President has asked me to again inform Nigerians that he listens to them, especially the young people that are trying to protest, Mr. President is listening to them, he takes what they say seriously and he is working assiduously to ensure that this country is good, not just for today, but also for the future. The issue of the planned protest, Mr. President does not see any need for that, he’s asked them to shelve that plan and he’s asked them to await government’s response to all their pleas. He has listened to them, like I said, and a lot is happening”, was the message Idris delivered from the President.

    Read Also: Election losers want to overthrow government through protest, says Wike

    Right from that Tuesday, the focus of national discuss shifted to the planned strike. Messages and calls for suspension or outright cancelling of the idea started coming from all parts of the country, passed by various stakeholder-groups and individual. At least, not less than four of such calls and appeals went out from the confines of the State House or the government as a whole.

    For instance on Wednesday, after a meeting of members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), convened by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, the federal government called on the planners to remain calm and allow both the President and the government deliver on relieving the populace of the prevailing hardship.

    The call for calm and rejection of the idea of imposing a protest on the nation when the people’s emotions are fluid became louder after the meeting of members of the FEC, which held in the SGF’s office. Much later on Wednesday, the Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), who doubles as the Chairman of the Southeast Governors’ Forum, Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, said the Southeast governors are opposed to the protest, especially as the organizers have not adequately tabled their grievances and have failed to engage with government over their reason.

    The chorus against the protest only peaked higher in pitch as the hours passed. On that same Wednesday the former spokesman of the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign in the 2023 run, Daniel Bwala, who had become identified with the Bola Tinubu Presidency for his constant defense of the administration over time, also came in to see the President and used the opportunity to lend his voice against the planned protest, noting the obvious threats it poses. He even said he would counsel his former boss, Abubakar, against his position endorsing the plan, noting all indications point to a looming violent outing.

    Thursday was choking with more solidarity visits on the President over the looming protest. It started with a complete roll call of PGF members at the Villa. Although they did not speak to journalists afterwards, their participation in subsequent meetings from different groups on the President spoke volumes of their position on the matter and their solidarity with Tinubu.

    After the APC governors, the traditional rulers from all parts of the country made their call, then the Ulamas from various Islamic groups. It was much the same message from them all. They are the groups that deal directly with the peoples of the country at different levels; the governors are the second line of contact before the federal government, while the traditional rulers are regarded as the first line of contact because they oversee the communities. The Ulamas are Islamic religious leaders, whose influence in the public cannot be passed over. They all called for caution, appealing for some level of patriotism and the need to be patient with the government.

    He did not fail to take advantage of the opportunities to express his view of the protest and those plotting it, including their assumed intentions. On Thursday alone, he spoke about it on three occasions. The first time was when he received Letters of Credence from new envoys from three countries, among whom was the ne American Ambassador to Nigeria, Richard Mills Jr. In his conversation with the American Ambassador, Tinubu touched on one of the excuses of the advocates of the protest, who are always quick to recall that he himself called for protest in the past.

    “During the military era, we made our voices heard against dictatorship, and I was part of the group that engaged in peaceful protests without resorting to the destruction of property. We have worked hard to ensure 25 years of unbroken democracy and I will continue to maintain this democracy. In as much as we believe that demonstrations are part of democracy, we will never encourage any protests that lead to the destruction of lives and property”, was his response to those who have tried to equate his passive resistance to military dictatorship and non-violent protest against bad governance to an obvious and deliberate plot against democracy.

    During his meeting with the Ulamas, President Tinubu sent a message to the impressionable, who seem to be willing to jump on every bandwagon without scrutinizing intentions. Warning against those calling people to come out to protest, using the veil of the internet to hide their intents and whereabouts, he said the sponsors of protests place their selfish ambitions above the national interest, noting that protests, fuelled by anger and hate, could degenerate into violence and set the country backwards.

    “The sponsors of protests do not love our country. They have no love for the nation. They do not understand citizenship. They have alternative passports. They are in different parts of the world holding meetings virtually. We do not want to turn Nigeria into Sudan. We are talking about hunger, not burials. We have to be careful. We should be careful with premature politics; politics of hate, and anger. The internet has made it possible to hold meetings in artificial settings. They hold meetings and sponsor anger”, he said           

    He also found the occasion to express his concern about the kind of plot being schemed. When he received the traditional rulers, he made it clear he does not fear genuine protest, he has no such aversion against protests, not when he has led protests in the past, albeit constructively, saying “we are not afraid of protests. Our concern is the ordinary people, and the damages that will be done. Till today, I cannot forget the brand new 60 and 100 seater buses, down there in Lagos that were burnt down, and we are now complaining of transportation”.

    As challenging as it was, the President did not let governance suffer last week, he ensured other areas requiring services received required attention. For instance, on Monday he appointed Professor John Oladapo Obafunwa as the new Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR). On Wednesday, he received Senator Pius Anyim, who just crossed over to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Also on Wednesday, he signed the North-West Development Commission (Establishment) Bill, 2024, and the South-East Development Commission (Establishment) Bill, 2023 into law.

    On Friday, he received the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nation (UN), Amina Mohammed, who visited with updates on the UN’s efforts at restoring normalcy in some African countries that are currently facing challenges. Same Friday, he approved the establishment of the Sector-wide Coordinating Office-Programme Management Unit (SCO-PMU), appointing Dr. Muntaqa Umar Sadiq as National Coordinator.

    This week should unveil more from the quarters of the organizers of the protest, we will see how it pans out, plus other events to our national advantage. We just have to wait to see what the week brings.

  • Tinubu’s Class Act: Achieving Labour’s Journey to N70,000 Minimum Wage

    Tinubu’s Class Act: Achieving Labour’s Journey to N70,000 Minimum Wage

    Last week could not have ended any better for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, it was like his mojo had all the supernatural elements cooperating, achieving closure on multiple fronts. We might not know about everything that happened for him during the week, but we definitely could not have missed the two most celebrated events of the week.

    In one week, he safely set an idea he has always thought of institutionalising in Nigeria sailing; a student loan scheme, known as the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), went live, officially, on Wednesday, July 17. As if that was not enough, he finally, and successfully too, closed the deal on a new national minimum wage, a discuss that has threatened the peace and stability of the country since it became a topic between the Tinubu administration and the organised Labour in the wake of fuel subsidy removal.

    However, by all standards, the agreement on the new national minimum wage, which had remained a thorn in the flesh of the state for the longer part of the current administration and which had sustained dread in the public, trumped all other events for not just President Tinubu and his lieutenants, but for all Nigerians, most of who had dreaded a failure to achieve concord through the negotiations and ‘discussions’.

    The long-drawn process to a new minimum wage ended on Thursday at the end of a twin-meeting (started on Thursday July 11 and closed next Thursday, July 18) at the State House, Abuja. At the end of the meeting this week, both government and the organised Labour briefed journalists, announcing that they both had agreed to a N70,000 minimum wage for the Nigerian worker. While taking turns to talk, the journalists they were addressing could see the change in moods from what it was a week before. For a reason, you could see the relief in the faces and composure of even the Labour leaders, who have been the ones to mount the sandbags all along.

    Between N30,000 and N70,000 there was a journey, a journey that saw threats of nationwide strike and an actual nationwide, a journey that saw the constitution of an elaborate 37-man committee, which went through proper negotiations, negotiations that broke down and picked up again. The Bukar Goni-Aji-led Tripartite Committee on New National Minimum Wage, with representatives from the federal and state governments, the organised private sector (OPS) and the organised Labour, did its task and submitted its proposals to the President.

    All along its negotiations, the committee was almost a bazaar with the employers’ side doing a real life haggling with the representatives of the employees. While the negotiations lasted, the employers’ side (federal/sub-national governments/OPS) offered varying amounts, starting with N48,000 to N54,000 to N57,000 to N60,000 to N62,000 and finally to the agreed N70,000. On the side of the workers’ representatives, negotiations started with a demand for ₦615,000 then lowered to N500,000 to N497,000 to N250,000 and finally agreed to N70,000.

    There were those who had concluded that had the meeting with the President failed to achieve an understanding, there would have been no imagining the hit that the economy and the livelihoods of the ordinary Nigerians, who ought to be the initial beneficiaries of the struggle, would have taken. As is the style of Labour anywhere in the world, they already had charged the atmosphere up with threats of strike.

    Read Also: Nigeria youth leaders hail Tinubu over minimum wage

    Even without the threats, people already knew there are elements within the Labour ranks who can only be characterized as anarchist in leaning, such who would have been praying for a wrong move from the government’s side, so there will be a pretext for shutting the economy down, just like they shut the national grid down on June 3, during a strike, in an attempt to enforce total compliance to the industrial strike.

    Like many other compatriots who watched how the journey of this last salaries negotiation went, I initially wondered how President Tinubu maneuvered the talks to get N250,000 to come settle down at N70,000. After studying his appeal and his target in negotiation, I concluded that we have a class act as President. He always seems to know what appeals to whoever he is reaching out to. I have always known it, especially from the process leading to him winning the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) presidential ticket, last Thursday sealed that view of him for me.

    In this case, he got the Labour leaders to see the situation, right from the onset, from his standpoint by appealing to their kinder nature, so much that they had to agree that it is better to settle for what is realistic than sticking to a gun that is certain to backfire. Like he told them the previous Thursday, his solidarity and genuine sympathy is with the working Nigerian and it is within their due to be waged handsomely, yet realistically. His consistency in his plea, and how it rings true to all the realities in the immediate environment across the country, actually achieved the almost elusive agreement.

    The deal breaker for Labour was a new idea President Tinubu thought up. Okay, instead of us to press ourselves to death, reaching for what is obviously not reachable at the moment, why not adjust our timetable to a more convenient timetable (instead of setting minimum wage review timetable to a whole long shot of five years, why not a three year review cycle?). He threw in the first compromise card and the Labour responded in like tone

    “I have heard all your presentations. You came here with the intention to get something on behalf of your members. It has been tough globally and if you review my track record, I have never been found wanting in ameliorating the problems of workers. I belong to the people and to all of you in leadership. Without you, this job is not interesting. You challenged the thinking faculty of leadership, and we have reviewed the position. I have consulted widely, and when the tripartite committee submitted their reports, I reviewed them again and started to think and rethink.

    “Last week, I brought the workload to you because we have a timeline. We have a problem, and we recognize that you have a problem too. We are in the same economy. We are in the same country. We may have different rooms, different addresses, and different houses; we are just members of one family that must care for each other. We must look at the parameters of things. Here, I have a speed limit, and I must pay attention to traffic warnings; slippery when wet, curved roads, and be careful not to have an accident. That is why I went as far as having this meeting today.

    “We are driving this economy together. Let us look at the tenure of review. Let us agree on that, and affirm three years. Two years is too short. We affirm three years. We will review. I am going to move from the tripartite committee. I am going to edge a little bit forward, looking at the review that we have done. Yes, no one in the federal establishment should earn less than N70,000. So, we are going to benchmark at N70,000”, the President said.

    I must also point my utmost respect for the leaders of the organised Labour out. Comrade Joe Ajaero, President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and Comrade Festus Usifo (who look seems more like that of a pastor to me), President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) were really matured in their final reading of the whole situation. They could have gone for broke, they have the number, but they had to consider the certain impact of going reckless with naked power, on the people. Giving a brief of the reason for Labour’s decision to settle for President Tinubu’s proposal of N70,000, the NLC President, Ajaero said “accepting N70,000 was the best way to make sure that we save Nigerians from further hardship.

    “At the last meeting, the President brought a proposal that ‘I will give you guys N250,000, if you allow me to equally increase the pump price of petroleum products’ and we said no, that we need to go and consult. Today, we went there to tell him ‘no’ and that the labour movement can make sacrifices without allowing Nigerians to suffer further on the increase of pump price of petroleum products”, the Labour leader said.

    Before that victory for the Nigerian worker and the triumph of the President’s negotiating skill on Thursday, there was Wednesday, the day he performed the presidential launch of the NELFUND and handed out symbolic student loans to institutions and individual student beneficiaries. Before the historic event of the NELFUND Presidential launch, there was the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, after which some of the efforts of the President to take comfort to Nigerians were disclosed, because they featured in Council. For instance, the decision to introduce an amendment to the 2024 Budget, for the sake of some exigencies, including the new minimum wage; the distribution of 740 trucks of rice to all the states of the federation, among others issues came out.

    It was also the birth week of one of his close associates, Professor Olatunji Dare and he did not miss the opportunity to celebrate the renowned scholar/journalist. He also held a security meeting with heads of security outfits on Friday, just before leaving for Ghana yesterday for the African Union (AU) Sixth Mid-Year meeting. He also met with a delegation from oil giant, ENI, led by the Chief Executive Officer Claudio Descalzi, and the management of the Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON), led by its Chairman, Alexey Arnautov, in separate meetings at the Villa.

    He is starting the week in Ghana, on behalf of Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which he chairs, but that will not deplete his activities. We will have to wait to see what the week brings. Hang on.

  • Federalism and the local government autonomy verdict

    Federalism and the local government autonomy verdict

    What is federalism? To answer this question, let us look at Princeton University’s Encyclopedia Princetoniensis, which has an entry on “Federalism and federation” authored, ostensibly around 2015, by Brendan O’Leary, a distinguished Professor of Political Science and, according to his biography, “the inaugural winner of the Juan Linz prize of the International Political Science Association, for research on federalism and democracy in multi-national states.”  According to Professor O’Leary, “a federation may be defined as a political system in which at least two territorial levels of government share sovereign constitutional authority over their respective division.” Federalism could therefore be described as a political philosophy or system which recognises two or more territorial levels or tiers.   

    The Nigerian federation, as indicated in the 1999 constitution, has three tiers: the federal, the state and the local government. Encyclopaedia Britannica, in an entry on Nigeria, written by Toyin O. Falola and Reuben Kenrick Udo, and last updated on 17 July, 2024, observes: “The functions of the government at the local level were usurped by the state government until 1988, when the federal government decided to fund local government organizations directly and allowed them for the first time to function effectively.” The direct transmission of local government funds to them was later terminated. According to former Vice-President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, “the decision by the Federal Government to consolidate disbursements of local councils’ revenues into the state government accounts was a decision that was borne out of politics of hasty compromise.” This decision has resulted in a slew of problems.

    Since part of the functions of the Supreme Court is to interpret provisions of the constitution and resolve disputes between different tiers of government, the Federal Government approached the Court in respect of the undermining of the autonomy of local governments by state governments. On 11 July, 2024, the Court ruled in favour of the Federal Government, as follows, in the lead judgement delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim: “It is the position of this court that the federation can pay local governments allocations directly to the local governments or through the states. In this case, since paying them through the states has not worked, justice demands that local governments allocations from the federation account should henceforth be paid directly to the local governments.”

    Justice Agim further declared: “I hold that the states’ retention of local government funds is unconstitutional.” Moreover, the Supreme Court ruled that it is illegal for state governments to dissolve elected local government administrations and replace them with Caretaker Committees, and that local governments run by such constitutionally-aberrant unelected committees are not entitled to allocations from the federation account until democratically-elected officials have been emplaced.

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu responded to the judgement as follows: “My administration instituted this suit because of our unwavering belief that our people must have relief and [the] judgement will ensure that it will be only those local officials elected by the people that will control the resources of the people. This judgement stands as a resounding affirmation that we can use legitimate means of redress to restructure our country and restructure our economy to make Nigeria a better place to live in and a fairer society for all of our people.”

    The Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, who instituted the suit on behalf of the Federal Government, also said: “I call it local government emancipation judgement … and I hope that local government officials will look at it as an opportunity to develop their various local governments. The ball is in the court of the governors. Let us see what they will come out with, but the judgement is clear as to what they should do. The judgement is clear as to what consequences will be attached to failure or refusal to follow the judgement of the Supreme Court, which takes immediate effect.”

    Even Opposition leadaer Alhaji Atiku Abubakar declared: “The court’s ruling is a step in the right direction and a major corrective action in greasing the wheels of national development across the country.  … I align with the decision of the Supreme Court that the structure of the Nigerian government is portioned in three layers, and of these, the local governments should be centers of development.”

    Read Also: Local government autonomy and federalism

    In an unsparing response to the Supreme Court judgement, in a 14 July, 2024 report in The Punch, titled “Tinubu’s govt will be remembered for confronting govs’ criminality against LGs – SAN”, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former Dean of the Faculty of Law at Nile University, Abuja, Prof Abdullahi Shehu Zuru, said: “In my view, the verdict was awesome and very unambiguous. … Every cogent observer of our democratic politics will admit painfully that the governors have succeeded in surreptitiously destroying the third tier of government in Nigeria because they have strangulated … the local government. So, what the judgment has done is to resurrect the local governments from the ashes of death.”

    Professor Zuru further observed: “Recall that during Ibrahim Babangida’s administration when the local governments were receiving their allocations and had the freedom to budget as well as earmark developmental projects at their level, this created what you might call the economic class at the local government level as there were contractors who were working for the local governments, and supplying foods to schools.” The validity of this claim is established by the fact that you can still see today some of the developmental projects which local government administrations executed before they became financially and logistically hamstrung.

    The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, noted that the decades-old efforts by the National Assembly at constitution review, to enhance local government autonomy, a seemingly unrealisable goal, had eventually been rewarded. Specifically, he said: “Today that impossibility became a reality. Everyone is happy and we are looking forward to local governments that will work functionally, and … extend goodwill to their own people undisturbed by the excesses by the state governors.” The President of the Nigerian Senate, Godswill Akpabio also remarked: “… the Supreme Court has spoken and we have no option than to abide by the Supreme Court ruling. So, I will just call on all states of the federation to respect what the Supreme Court has done and then we will go back to the legislature and see where we can dot the i’s and cross the t’s to ensure the full implementation.”

    In spite of the widespread praise of the Supreme Court judgement, there have been strident voices of opposition to or condemnation of the verdict. One interesting thing about these dissenting voices, who range from senior academics to lawyers to governors and to media personalities or even entire media establishments, is that they all, to a large extent, seem to have predicated their condemnation on the claim that the judgement is an affront to the concept of “federalism” or what they call “true federalism”.

    In a representative and magisterial articulation of this claim, The Punch editorial of 16 July, 2024 titled “Supreme Court got it wrong on LG autonomy” stated:  “In its latest judicial intervention … the Court declared that the government is portioned into three tiers – federal, state, and local. This is a blatant assault on the tenets of federalism. … The Supreme Court erred in its judgement as the LGs have no place in a federal constitution. Therefore, one of the fundamental flaws of the 1999 Constitution is to list the 774 LGs in it. This must be corrected. In federal jurisdictions, such as the United States, India, and Brazil, the constitution recognises only the centre and province/region/state governments. … Thus, the Supreme Court judgement is a conspiracy against federalism.”

    Those who oppose or condemn the Supreme Court judgement seem to be unanimous in insisting on the twisting of Nigeria’s legitimate version of federalism to align it with their narrow definition of federalism rather than broadening the definition of federalism to accommodate the Nigerian experience. In a 2017 article by Dr. Dele Babalola titled “50 shades of federalism – Nigeria: A federation in search of federalism,” the author notes: “Federalism, like most Social Science concepts, has no standard definition as it ‘may mean different things to all [people].’” He further observed: “In Nigeria, true federalism means different things to different people. The newfound phrase could be better understood using a geo-political lens.”

    In clinging unyieldingly to the narrow concept of federalism, opponents of the Supreme Court judgement on local government autonomy also engage in the fallacy of appeal to authority, by citing equally narrow definitional examples. Moreover, consistent with the logically-weak fallacy of red herring, some of these opponents shift focus and begin to dwell on matters not central to the original or specific issue of debate. They also find ad hominem arguments handy, preferring to engage in abuse rather than logical argument.

    The point being made is related to the fact that the precise meanings of words are context-dependent, and as contexts vary, the meanings of words change. Such changes could involve the broadening or narrowing of meaning as conditioned by different epochs or different events. With respect to this phenomenon, Richard Nordquist in Thoughtco.com notes as follows in a 4 November, 2019 article: “Semantic change may also occur when native speakers of another language adopt English expressions [e.g., ‘federalism’] and apply them to activities or conditions in their own social and cultural environment.” In other words, ‘federalism’ is not a semantically-fossilised word, and much of the controversies surrounding the Supreme Court judgement on local government autonomy, with respect to its consistency with the principle or definition of ‘federalism’ or ‘true federalism’, amount to mere grandstanding. Insisting on only the definition of ‘federalism’ as a two-tier political principle or system is therefore semantic tyranny.

    If we have any true hope for a redirection of our society for positive growth, the Supreme Court judgement provides a genuine justification. Local governments have been bedridden, and a new medicine has been found which has saved them from outright death. To aid full recovery, local governments must be trained on how to walk again, through robust reorientation programmes for their elected and career officials.

    The present state of affairs raises a question: “What can be done to counter the travesty that’s called State Independent Electoral Commission or SIEC-organised local government elections, which are, in many cases, popularity-or-performance-independent, and, in fact, have been referred to as coronations by “Emperor-Governors”? As the Supreme Court judgement has shown, wisdom never gets so completely used up in the world that we would need to go looking for more in heaven. So says the Yoruba proverb “Ogbón ò kìí tán l’áyé ká wa lo sí òrun.” And what does its English equivalent say? “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

  • Biden: Things getting messier as more ranking democrats ask him to step aside

    Biden: Things getting messier as more ranking democrats ask him to step aside

    Last week we dealt at some length with the confusion that has descended on the Democratic party, especially the Biden campaign, since his calamitous debate performance against Donald Trump on 27 June, 2024. Things have since gone south for both entities.

    Indeed, were  Donald Trump‘s would -be assassin, two weeks ago, a member of the Democratic party or had the incident happened in Nigeria, a mini World War 111 would, by now, have started in either country; in Nigeria, because of our highly toxic and atavistic politics. Happily it did not happen here and Thomas Matthew Crooks turned out a registered Republican though said to have once donated 15 dollars to a Democratic cause.

    A classmate who took a history class with him was reported to have told the Enquirer that he definitely was politically conservative, and wondered why “he would carry out an assassination attempt on the conservative candidate.

    The assassination attempt has now literally become history, remaining at best, a job for the security agencies and congress both of which would definitely probe deeper into the terrible security lapse.

    That has, once again, brought to the frontburner, the ‘civil war’ raging, and seemingly, consuming the Democratic party which has gone into a tailspin since President Biden’s disastrous debate performance.

    That situation has  been  exacerbated, indeed, terribly worsened, by the increasing number of ranking members of the party now asking the President to opt out lest he destroys the party at the November election at which he could perform so badly the party may lose the House which it hopes to retake.

    The timing of the internal crisis within the party is so terribly dispiriting to members coinciding, as it does, with a triumphant  Donald Trump – the same foul – mouthed, democracy – loathing brat, who last Thursday was uproariously ‘crowned’ as the Republican Party candidate for the November election, as usual, serially lying through his teeth and, ipso facto, making the night the best for the Democrats in three weeks.

    Trump, who had always categorised the election as one between strength and weakness, was all gaiety, in spite of his near death experience, while President Biden now walks with a noticeable difficulty; a situation certain to now worsen by the fact of his having contacted Covid -19.

    Read Also: Biden under new pressure from top Democrats as Covid halts campaign

    He has been telling fellow democrats that the simple cure for his travails is for them to  “get out there and show the sceptics that he has what it takes to run for, and win, a second term” – an absolute chimera in a situation where Trump is leading him hugely in all the key states.

    Things are certainly not going Biden’s way at all.

    Rather, an increasing number of ranking democrats are  asking him to ship out. For instance, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi who had initially advised him to reconsider his position, is now reported to have privately told him that polls already show he cannot win, but  could, instead destroy the party’s chances of winning the House in November if he insists on contesting. Pelosi was said to have sought the assistance of Biden’s longtime adviser, Mike Denilon, in driving this message home while there’s still time for the party.

    Although it is being denied, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is also believed to have told him in unmistakable terms that he has to end his campaign now. Congressman  Adam Schiff, who is contesting the Senate election in California, has added his voice to those asking Biden to drop out of the race.

    Said Schiff, “while the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch and in doing so, secure his legacy of leadership by allowing us to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming election”. Continuing, Schiff said: “our nation is at a crossroads and a second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of  our democracy and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November”. Adam Schiff is a close ally of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

    There is, however, an attempt by the Democratic National committee and, perhaps the Biden campaign, to fast track his formal nomination before August 7 in order not to run into any potential legal issues related to Biden’s ability to get on the ballot in Ohio, through a virtual endorsement, but a growing faction of the party believes that the President is too politically damaged to defeat Trump and has,  therefore, advised the DNC to perish the thought. It has been suggested that this could make a complete mess of the Chicago Democratic party convention slated for 19 August, 2024 as it could eventuate in an intraparty clash between those insistent on fast tracking the formal nomination and those against. According to a leading member of the faction opposed to a virtual roll call vote, the President is already so terribly politically compromised that were the election to hold today, Biden would be crushed. This faction just do not want President Biden at the top of their ticket because of the damage they say that could cause, not only to the party, but for the future of America in the hands of a Donald Trump and his Republican party – a party now completely made in his image – in control of both the  House and the Senate in addition to the presidency.

    Americans, not just members of the Democratic party, are worried stiff about a Trump Second term. Indeed, Europe can barely breathe, Ukraine in particular, with Trump’s Vice Presidential candidate, the  anti-Ukraine, pro -Israel and anti-China J.D Vance, already causing anxiety in Europe.

    For a certanty what the world saw of Donald Trump in his first term will be a child play compared to the ogre he is certain to become at his second coming – no thanks to Heritage Foundation’s PROJECT 2025.

    Organised with the aim of “promoting a collection of conservative and right -wing policy proposals to reshape the United states federal government and consolidate executive power in Donald Trump’s hands. Although he denies any link to them, many of his former staff are key members of Heritage Foundation. They are promoting totalitarianism under the lead of  Trump who has always wanted to be like Putin, Xi and  dictators in general. Trump campaign advisers are known to be in regular contact with the Foundation.

    Among other things, the  Project recommends the arrest, detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants. It proposes deploying the military for domestic law enforcement and canvasses capital punishment and the speedy finality of any of the sentences arising from their recommendations. The plan, as is already being showcased by the U. S Supreme court, proposes a partisan control of the Department 0f Justice, the Federal Bureau of  Investigation, the Department of Commerce, the Federal c0mmunications commission and the Federal Trade commission. It recommends a complete dismantling of the Department of Homeland security. Project 2025 proposes abolishing Education whose programs would either be terminated completely or transferred to other agencies. Funding for climate research would be cut as it has no interest, whatever, in climate change. It also seeks to cut funding for Medicare and Medicaid.

    Such are the draconian recommendations of Project 2025 you would not but wonder where in hell its promoters came from.

    Critics have described all these as a programme of personal revenge and vendetta already being preached

    by Donald Trump, just as it is intended to undo most of President Biden’s achievements in office.

    I deliberately went to all this length about Project 2025 to show what extreme danger President Biden will be exposing, not only the U.S and the entire world, but his own place in the annals of U. S history to, if through his obduracy, and failure to hand over to a younger generation of Democrats as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi once did in the legislative branch, and thereby handed over America to a man  about who  J.D Vance, his  selfsame Vice Presidential pick, once called a ‘social heroine and Hitler’, he would, by himself, have written off his legacy of long and meritorious service to America in the course of which he suffered truly unforgettable personal tragedies.

    Yet as you read this, Biden still says he has not seen the compelling data to make him quit.

    My prayer is that the good Lord will guide him in making the choice that will not only edify him but be beneficial to America and humanity.

  • The British vote for change

    The British vote for change

    Although I did not think that I was coming to an enchanted country, I was not prepared for the ordinariness of my surroundings when I arrived in Britain, Manchester to be precise, to start a postgraduate course in late September 1973. My first impressions about my destination were definitely far from flattering. I arrived at Manchester airport in the late evening of a Saturday when I could not get to town and decided to stay in a nearby hotel until Monday morning. I took a taxi, telling the driver to take me to the nearest hotel. Like taxi drivers all over the world, he saw me for what I was, a stranger and took me on a merry go round in the dark by which time I had run up quite a bill. I suspected that I was being fiddled but was more relieved than anything else when I was deposited at what turned out to be a decent hotel. I had left a hot and steamy Lagos only half a day before to be confronted with a typically chilly late summer Mancunian evening for which I was  prepared neither physically nor psychologically and thus I was introduced to the discomfort of being dumped into a rather efficient refrigerator with winds blowing around my head with sadistic intent. The cold sliced through me like a scalpel in the hands of a confident surgeon and did as much damage as a steak knife wielded by a competent chef. My discomfiture was accentuated by the fact that, the hotel management, ignoring the evidence of any honest thermometer, clung to the fiction that we were still in summer and did not think it fit to provide any heating. The frigidity of my otherwise comfortable room convinced me that my very survival was at stake so I got into bed fully clothed, but found very little comfort even under the thick duvet that was provided to keep out the cold. As I shivered under that duvet, my mind went back twenty-four hours to the warmth of my own bed which was lying unused and uselessly warm far away in Lagos.

    Manchester University was and is still is one of the best universities not just in Britain but in the world and so I was proud to have been admitted to such a reputable institution. My first impressions of the university were however rather muted. I had arrived there from a brand new, modern and purpose built university campus at Ife and there simply was no comparison between where I was coming from and where I had arrived at with so much excitement. I had arrived on the premises of the university on Oxford Street early on the Monday morning to find that the university, famous as it was, was just a collection of rather nondescript buildings which appeared to have been flung haphazardly on either side of a short stretch Oxford Street. The Department of Pharmacy which was to be home to me was housed in a building within which John Dalton had worked some one hundred and fifty years before my inauspicious arrival on the same premises. The place screamed history but for elegance, you had to look elsewhere. Inside the old building however, some serious scientific work was going on as I soon found out and joined in. But that morning, I could not help but wonder what I was in for as some friendly young man, knowing how thoroughly confused the disposition of the place  must have been to me, intervened and took me round a maze of twisted corridors, before finally bringing me to the presence of my supervisor who had been expecting me to show up. Looking at my elegant but flimsy suit, my supervisor did nothing more than shake hands with me before sending me with careful instructions to go out shopping for appropriate clothing. For this, he placed me in the company of the only Nigerian student on the premises, the future Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria who knowing the importance of that commission earned my undying gratitude by dropping everything he was doing and took me shopping. That was the first day. On the second day, now suitably clothed, I was in the laboratory to start the work for which I had come more than five thousand kilometres to do.

    With the help of friends I had known from Lagos, I settled down quite quickly to life in Manchester and began to take stock of my environment. This was home to those demi-gods who had come all the way to Nigeria and other places all over the world to lay down their law and force feed us with the tenets of their adopted God. For them to have been able to do this, they had to have been special, or so I reasoned at first. Seeing them close up however immediately disabused my mind of any such fanciful notion. Even those of them who were in the university did not show overt signs of mental competence and I wondered how they had managed to do with us what they had done all round the world over several centuries. To tell the truth, I am still wondering how people who were so outstanding in their ordinariness could have held the rest of the world to ransom for such a long time.

    The Britain I arrived in in 1973 was a country in crisis. The Conservative government of Edward Heath was locked in bitter struggle with the trade unions for the very soul of the country. War had broken out in the Middle East and the winds of inflation were gathering strength all over the world so that the people found that they did not have money with which to purchase the bare necessities of life. That winter has been described as a winter of discontent as it was characterised by the three day working week, electricity cuts, rubbish piled up in the streets, dustmen having walked out on strike, all accompanied by various other discomforts and annoyances.  No surprise at all that the elections called early in the following year were won handsomely by the Labour Party which was confidently expected to clear up the mess left behind by the retreating Conservatives.

    The Conservative Party, the oldest political party in Britain is first and foremost the party of the privileged and in a class ridden society, the natural party of government. Most of its leaders were members of the establishment, determined to protect the interest of the rich who owned all the means of production. They owned large farms, mines, commercial institutions such as banks and insurance companies. In short, they had influence far beyond their number and it was in their interest to restrict the number of people, strictly men of course since women could not be trusted to use any vote conceded to them wisely who could be allowed to vote. Men who did not have property were emasculated and their vote taken from them. In modern parlance, the old Conservative Party firmly occupied space on the political right leaving the Liberal Party to hold on to the centre, with the left conspicuously unoccupied.  In truth however, the Conservatives did not have things all their own way. Over on the continent of Europe beginning from France in 1789, the peasants were serving up bloody stews in the name of revolution, shaking all the ancient regimes to their foundations. In France, the unspeakable happened when king and queen were hurled out and publicly deprived of their royal heads. Except for a brief Napoleonic interlude, France has remained a republic since then.  It was clear to the British ruling class that the waters of the English Channel could not protect them from the revolutionary contagion which was sweeping through Europe and this being the case, they cut their poor some slack so as to protect themselves from the fury of the majority who were constantly on the verge of starvation or in danger of some savage punishment for slight infarctions such as stealing apples, for which they could be banished (transported) to Australia or publicly hanged for stealing a sheep. To put it simply, it was a crime to be poor in Britain some two hundred years ago even though that was the lot of the majority of the people. The first political victory for the poor, if it can be so called, was the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. Before then the poor had no access to the cheaper grains which were available elsewhere because of heavy taxes levied on imported grains. This led to a reduction in food prices allowing the poor to breathe a little. There had been opposition to the repeal of the Corn Laws because they protected the interest of the rich landowners on whose farms the grains were produced. It was in their interest that grain prices remained high, as high as possible to ensure the enhancement of their profits.

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    Although the repeal of the Corn Laws brought some relief to the poor, their plight was still on the wrong side of desperate but because they had no representatives in parliament, nothing or at least very little could be done for them. The poor and abandoned majority sometimes tried to redress their grievances by taking to the streets but the resultant riots that erupted were easily put down by the police who ironically were recruited from the same social class as the rioters. In the meantime, the land owners and the employers of labour continued to pay their workers starvation wages on which they could not bring up their children but nobody in authority spared any thought for the poor workers, not to talk of their unfortunate offspring. It is against this background that Marx and Engels published their iconic Communist Manifesto in 1849 in which they called on the workers of the world to unite to free themselves from the oppression of the rich. It was an appropriate time to make this clarion call because as pointed out by Marx, the spectre of communism was at that time haunting Europe and it seemed that the stage was set for the liberation of the poor from the chains of their poverty.

    It was around this time that it became apparent to the workers that they had to unite in order to liberate themselves from the fierce and unfeeling clutches of the rich and began to form unions through which they could fight for their rights to live as human beings. By this time, the Industrial Revolution was well on its way and factories producing all kinds of manufactured goods were springing up all over the place. The driving force behind the revolution was coal, as steam power drove everything before it. All over the country, principally in Scotland, Wales, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, mining communities sprang up and many thousand men were united in their effort to dig up coal from deep mines to bring the black stuff to the surface to be burnt in furnaces and provide power to thousands of those wonderful and powerful machines which drove the revolution which had the world in its grip. Those men were not just moles digging for coal but sentient men who could fight for their right to be treated as human beings. They came together to form unions which were the vehicles for this fight and in time, those unions coalesced under the leadership of Keir Hardy, almost inevitably a Scottish miner, to form the Labour Party. One hundred and fifty odd years on, another Keir, this one surnamed Starmer has emerged to lead the Labour Party to a land slide victory over the Conservatives. He has inflicted such a crushing defeat on the Conservatives that two weeks later, there is talk of an extinction event having overtaken the British Conservative Party, for so long, the party of government in Britain.

    To be continued.

  • Olatunji Dare at 80

    Olatunji Dare at 80

    • This living legend, mentor, columnist, teacher and highly principled man deserves national honour

    Professor Olatunji Dare did not know that he was writing a piece that would later shape somebody’s life when sometimes in 1984 he wrote his brilliant piece on the Decree 4 promulgated by the then Buhari/Idiagbon regime, in April, 1984. It was a damning verdict on the decree which sought to put the fear of man in journalists, with the impossible clause that whatever they published must be correct in every material particular, whatever that meant. Clearly, it was meant essentially to gag the private newspapers and Dare did not fail to so point out.

    This characteristically brilliant piece was what God used to get me my first job after graduation. Prof Dare was an essential vessel in my securing my first appointment at ‘The Punch’ in 1985. I had always dreamt of working with the newspaper ever since I made up my mind to read Mass Communication when I was in Form Three. I was heavily  inspired by the writings of some of the best in journalism that Nigeria paraded then and wanted to be part of the club of people that would be shaping opinions in the country.

    So, my joy knew no bounds when after my national service in 1985, I was invited for interview at ‘The Punch’. I guess about 40 something of us came for what eventually became an examination, as it lasted from morning till late in the evening. We were examined on two different aspects of journalism: a written test and newspaper production. Right from my university days, I had never liked newspaper production because, like many of us then, I felt it was too technical. Interestingly, that was what I was employed to do after successfully scaling the hurdle of the examination.

    I knew I was weak in production and so concentrated on the written aspect which was on Decree Four. Somehow, after preparing for the examination, something kept prodding me to read something on the decree. That was about 18 months after its promulgation. I usually take such leading seriously, especially when it becomes deafeningly persistent.

    It was about the last thing I read going for the interview. The then Dr. Dare’s piece in ‘The Guardian’ came handy. I read and read until I had mastered it and that was how I gave it ‘back to sender’ in the written test.

    Something continually told me I had already secured a place in the newspaper if what we wrote was going to be the real determinant of the selection process. You could not have nearly reproduced what an erudite scholar like that wrote without expecting a positive outcome.

    My only fear then was about some of our colleagues then who happened to know some of those that were to determine our fate. The rest of us who knew nobody literally had our hearts in our mouths when they started weeding out the candidates, beginning from the last 10.

    In the end, four of us emerged victorious: myself, Olu Awogbemila, Ganiyu Aminu and Ganiyu Akogun, all of us classmates at the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos.

    I am grateful to Prof Dare for this just as I also celebrated, last week, Chief Ajibola Ogunshola, former chairman of the board of directors of the company for the role he played in my career progression in the company.

    Interestingly Chief Ogunshola and Prof Dare are friends. Somehow too, they share the same birth month and birth year. As a matter of fact, Ogunshola turned 80 on Sunday, July 14. Dare turned 80 three days later, i. e. on July 17. If they had come from my kind of family, Prof Dare would never call Chief Ogunshola by his name. He would address him as ‘egbon’ (elder brother)!

    Be that as it may, I am not sure I met Prof Dare in person until I became editor of the paper or acting editor (or so), when he came on a training mission to ‘The Punch’.

    But Dare is not the kind of person you have to meet before knowing the kind of person that he is. Reading his column tells you all about him. Highly principled, courageous in that he is never afraid of telling truth to power. It is an understatement to say he is a man of integrity, or that he is exceptionally brilliant.

    If you say Prof Dare is a nonconformist where principle is the issue, you are correct. But this did not begin yesterday. Far back as when he was a child, he had dropped his baptismal name because he felt it was a colonial name, despite protestations from his mother. I tried to know what this name was. Indeed, it was one of the highpoints of our 43-minute discussion on Wednesday night, after the birthday programme held to mark his 80th birthday at Radisson Hotel on Isaac John Street in GRA, Ikeja, Lagos.

    But when someone like Prof Dare dives to the left and then to the right before revealing such a piece of information, you have no choice but respect that wish. So, as a journalist, I have unveiled the source, permit me to hold on to the  information!

    Of course his many write-ups in his column, whether at ‘The Guardian’, the defunct ‘The Comet’ or ‘The Nation’, bear eloquent testimonies to his principled stance. In a country where column space is seen as meal ticket by not a few, it is to Prof Dare’s credit that he has all through the decades maintained a principled stance on critical national issues. He is predictable even when he decides to convey his thoughts through  a style he knows how best to deploy — satire. Dare would say it in a way that even his enemies would confess they enjoyed it, despite the piece being highly critical of them.

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    I know satire is not an easy style because I have had to try my hands on it on several occasions. That is when, like a hunchback, I realise that  it is a Yeoman’s job that a man who is standing upright is doing. But my occasional attempts at satire also told me something about our educational system. I remember when I decided to reduce some serious national issues to satire, I would start getting calls from readers who wanted to know if I meant what I said right from church services on Sundays. I would ask them to go read the piece again. Some would get back to me that they had discovered I deployed satire to convey my message. Yet, others, no matter how many times they read it, would never know you were merely playing pranks with words. Sometimes I felt bad that many people could not decipher satire but sometimes also, I was happy that those ignoramuses also felt bitter as I was over the subject-matter, hence their uncontrolled anger with me. If someone like myself who deployed satire sparingly could be so thoroughly abused, I wonder how many of such criticisms and sometimes curses Prof Dare would have experienced in the course of his odyssey in satire.

    One would know where Prof Dare was coming from when he refused to go with ‘The Guardian’ team that went to beg the then Head of State, General Sani Abacha, the one who ruled as if he had death in his pocket. Abacha had proscribed ‘The Guardian’, ‘The Punch’ and ‘National Concord’, three vocal private newspapers that he considered highly critical of his government for months. Only ‘The Guardian’ went to beg. Prof Dare, however, did not join that train; by choice. Rather, he promptly turned in his resignation letter from the flagship.

    Even in normal times in the company, things were not particularly rosy. There was this occasion organised, (I think) by the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), I can’t recollect whether it was the national body or the Lagos State Council and at the end, Prof Dare was taken home in the car of one of my friends. It was that bad.

    I had undergone such an experience and therefore know how it feels when you leave a job you otherwise loved, unprepared.

     Sadly, when recounting such ordeals, we often forget the woman in the house. This same omission occured on Wednesday at the birthday event that Prof Dare and his wife joined online from their base in the United States. Not a single mention of the wife until one of the members of the family present (I think), drew our attention to this grave oversight.

    It is easy for a man to wade through such crisis only with a supportive wife. With school fees to pay, house rent to settle, and a sundry other bills to pick, and without any other source of income except ‘The Guardian’, Prof Dare must have been in a quandary. As he himself admitted, it would have been tougher if his wife was a lover of material attractions. However, it is to her credit that, unlike most other women, she did not allow herself to be led by toys in those trying moments. This is much more so, as Prof told me on Wednesday, that agents of the powers-that-be at the time got in touch with her and told her that the only stumbling block between her and better life was her uncompromising husband. How many women won’t backslide when they hear of better life from government? So, if Prof is ever proud of his wife, know why.

    But it must be pointed out that Nigeria is one of the few places in the world where brains, indeed a legend like Prof Dare would be compelled to perpetually see abroad, as home. It won’t be a bad idea for the Bola Tinubu administration to honour this legend.

    A much-travelled journalist, Prof Dare was born on July 17, 1944. He attended the University of Lagos, Nigeria, where he earned the first-ever First Class (summa cum laude) degree in Mass Communication and later became senior lecturer in journalism.  “He also holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University, in New York, where he won the prizeman in Editorial Writing, and a Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, with twin concentrations in International Communication and Public Policy.”

    On his 70th birthday in July 2014, he presented a  festschrift titled “Public Intellectuals, the Public Square & The Public Spirit:  Essays in Honour of Olatunji Dare”.

    Dare has reported from more than a dozen datelines on three continents and interviewed several statesmen of global stature.

    He left Nigeria for the United States in 1996 when the heat of his opposition to the then military regime became too intense for comfort, to take up a faculty position at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois. He served in the university until his retirement in 2015, when he was named Professor of Journalism, Emeritus.

    I congratulate this genius who makes my head swell when, all the time, he calls me ‘namesake’.

    Many happy returns sir.