The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

It was Tinubu’s Positively Exciting week

Fanfare or no fanfare, watch out for actions this week, notwithstanding” was the closing line for the piece last week. The week did not betray as had been projected, it was another week of very choked activities for President Tinubu. It was the week of May 29, his anniversary in office and expectedly, ministers were competing to have him commission some of their completed projects that were achieved within his first year of office. So it was from one event to the other, commissioning projects, the fruits of his one year labour. It was hectic, no doubt, but I guess it was a positively ‘hectic’ for him. Having to cut tapes here and there for projects the grace of God has helped him to achieve for the people he lives to serve at the moment.

The commissioning spree started from the first day of the week, being Sunday, when the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, took him back to Lagos, his own home, to perform the first set of tasks. He was initially scheduled to inaugurate the newly reconstructed Apapa-Oworonshoki-Ojota-Oshodi Expressway, a 36.02km road connecting Nigeria’s premier ports – Apapa and Tin Can Island – to larger parts of Lagos State, as well as virtually inaugurate the recently rehabilitated Third Mainland Bridge. He was however represented at the task by the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio.

The funding of the Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement (CRCP) Apapa-Oworonshoki-Ojota-Oshodi Expressway was undertaken by the Dangote Industries Limited, under the tax credit method of infrastructure funding, with Hitech Construction Nigeria Limited as the subcontractor. The road is expected to enhance access to the ports, boost commercial activities, and spur economic development.

Much later he led dignitaries from Lagos and from across Nigeria to the Ahmadu Bello Way end of Victoria Island for the flag-off of the construction of the 700km Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, a project already described as ‘legacy’ because of its huge economic, social and strategic importance. It will be safe to say of all the several projects commissioned during the week, either personally or by proxy, it was the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway that touched his emotions most.

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First, this was the project that has mostly come under attack from opposition politicians, some of whom had alleged base reasons. For example, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who contested the Presidency with him last year, has attacked the project, the President and his intents on the project more than once. He once alleged that the project is being rushed, just as he has alleged that it is meant to serve the President’s personal interest.

However, at the flag-off ceremony, the visibly excited Tinubu declared it his bragging day, apparently giving it back to those who had failed to see the potentials of the project, not just for the people of the nine litoral states the project will cross through, but for the entire Nigerian State, and had weaponised it for political reasons. He went on to point out its benefits

“I said earlier that it’s my bragging day, we said we will do this road, we’re determined to do it. The way we’re going, we’ll have a road that will outlive all of us here present. That is how to build the future. The project is more than just a mere road, it is a symbol of hope, unity and prosperity. I’ll go on the next ten benefits of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway. During the period of construction, the road will provide direct employment to thousands of people and indirect employment to ten of thousands of artisans and more.

“Economic opportunities for millions are being opened, it will fast-track community development, it will bring development closer to the people and give 30 million people improved access to production and marketing centres. The potential of the road is enormous. The spur to Sokoto is undergoing procurement, let us sped up the financial details being worked out. Don’t be afraid, we will do this road, it will be a success for Nigeria and we will do more. I am a very happy man today. Share with me in the joy today”, the President said.

The colourful coastal highway, which was graced by the crème of Lagos corporate and political class, as well as the federal might of Abuja, was combined with the virtual flag-off of the nationwide reconstruction and rehabilitation of emergency interventions on 330 roads and bridges across the six geo-political zones of the nation.

President Tinubu returned to Abuja on Tuesday, resuming another round of very hectic outings. From Tuesday, the man he dubbed the ‘Landlord of Abuja’, that is the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, hijacked him for the commissioning of his many projects. First was the Southern Parkway project, which serves as a critical artery connecting major areas within the city and which has been named after him (Bola Tinubu Way).

Wike continued with his heist on Wednesday; he got the President to flag off the commercial operation of the FCT Light Rail System also known as the Abuja Metroline, a project. That occasion was another opportunity for Tinubu to show that populist in him. He got the FCT administration to give free rides to Abuja commuters on the Metroline till the end of the year.

Before he went for Wike’s show, he was earlier at the National Assembly Complex where he commissioned a library. Before the library commissioning he spoke to the Joint Session of the National Assembly, calling for stronger collaboration and strengthening of the nation’s bonds of unity, its diversities rather being binders than divisive tools. Earlier that morning, he had already signed the National Anthem Bill 2024 into law. That law reinstates the former anthem known as ‘Nigeria We Hail thee’.

On Thursday, the third consecutive day, Wike had the President again, this time around to commission an engineering infrastructure (over-head bridge) linking Wuse to Wuye.

The next event after returning from the Wuse-Wuye Bridge commission was also critical for many reasons, but what we might have the space to treat here is one of the pungent points he made during the event. He received leadership and members of the very critical Arewa Consultative Forum (AFC) and seized the opportunity to ring the bell in favour of the local council administration. It was important for him to throw an appeal to the socio-cultural body because of the legal matter between the federal and state governments, to determine the autonomy of that third tier of governance. He needed the voices of those revered across lines, those who can also collectively determine the fate of any politician, whatever position he might occupy.

“We are running a constitutional democracy. I will appeal to you to summon the governors. I am doing my very best to enhance the revenue base of the country. They must equally be sympathetic, and they must urgently consider the needs of the local people. People reside in the local communities. That is where they work, farm, and live, if the local governments are not effective in delivering services; as leaders, we must not hang on to the numbers. We have 774 local government areas, but are they truly effective? Do they solve problems for Nigerians? Do they coordinate development programming with the state and federal governments? Who is being held accountable for the performance of the 774 local governments? Maybe we should look at recalibrating. What was good four years ago may not be good today. When we want the votes, we go to the locals; when we get the votes, we move to and focus on Abuja”, was his appeal.

There were other events, but like indicated earlier, only what could be accommodated will be contained. It was indeed a loaded week and deservedly so.

By the way, some people have expressed their surprise at the choice of the President of the Senate, Akpabio, representing Tinubu at the commissioning of a project executed by the Executive, wondering what happened to the Principle of Separation of Powers. Although the concerns were not entirely misplaced because those expressing it are not foreigners and it is assumed they are informed enough to know there should be a dividing line between the domains of the Executive and that of the Legislature. What these concerned citizens might not have taken into considering is the fact that the anniversary warranting the commissioning is not peculiar to the Executive, which the President presides over, it was also their anniversary at the National Assembly, the Legislature, which the President of the Senate presides over.

In fact, Akpabio is a first-timer President of the Senate, except anyone knows when he once led the Upper Chambers before the inauguration of the 10th Senate. Like Akpabio being a first-timer President of the Senate, there are tens of newcomers in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, who are also celebrating their first year at their new political station.

But even much more than it being their mutual anniversary, President Tinubu, who has consistently acknowledged the support of the National Assembly for his administration, considering the level of access he has enjoyed, has attributed whatever amount of success he has had to the legislators’ cooperation, hence making his success theirs as well. So in that philosophy, Akpabio commissioning projects executed by Tinubu’s administration is not just a positive sign, it is also an indication that none of the arms wants to obliterate the other.

There are still many more projects lined out by ministers and heads of agencies, even state governors who want to identify with the President. We can only wait to see what the coming week will look like.

June 2, 2024
Tinubu should cut ministers some slack

When the Bola Tinubu administration clocked one year, the country was agog with news of the looming sack of nonperforming ministers. It is not clear where that expectation came from. The ministers had just spent about nine months, not even a year. Except where a minister is so blatantly incompetent or lethargic or incapable of interpreting the administration’s programmes and policies, it may amount to an overkill to begin thinking of sacking any of them. Some redeployment can be done, and a few rejigging here and there. But to dismiss a minister when he or she had hardly started, even if they had spent over a year, may be excessive.

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Some ministers take longer time to settle down, and some are far too introspective for their own good in a country giddy with excitement about hiring and firing officials. Some other ministers may also not be self-promoting, but are nevertheless self-assured and given to quiet and solid achievement. It will be a mistake to approximate the performance and flamboyance of, say, Nyesom Wike or David Umahi as the rigid minimum for the cabinet. No, the president should please cut his ministers some slack. He must not forget that many of his appointees are political IOUs. And with the far-reaching reform he is undertaking, much of it alienating powerful interests, if not regions, he needs to be careful and deliberate.

June 2, 2024
ECOWAS split seems petrified

The foreign ministers of the military-led Sahelian states of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger Republic may have taken the final, fateful steps in establishing a regional alliance distinct from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The draft text for the ‘institutionalisation and operationalisation’ of the Confederation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), said Niger Republic’s foreign minister Bakary Yaou Sangare triumphantly on May 17, had been finalised. The new organisation ignores ECOWAS, and has gone ahead to replace French hegemony with Russian hegemony. Between 2020 and 2022, the three countries had experienced coups d’état and immediately attracted a panoply of sanctions that strangulated their economies and instigated street protests. The romance between their starry-eyed publics and the militaries may have now soured, especially with the soldiers entrenching their rulership and hardening their positions, but this did not diminish the efforts to create a new regional body.

It is all but certain that the AES will see the light of day, especially seeing that the foreign ministers were curiously enthusiastic about the proposed regional body. But why they assumed that ECOWAS was being influenced by France is hard to explain. Yes, ECOWAS aggregates French-speaking and English-speaking West African countries, but to conclude that France had an upper hand in the entire region is mystifying. There is no doubt that France had brutally exploited its former colonies, but ECOWAS consists of many independent-minded countries, including Francophone countries, and the three Sahelian countries could still have found relevance and achieved their goals within the larger regional body. Clearly, the three AES countries are all about power games. They resent being lectured on the evils of military rule and the utopia of democratic rule. To them, Russia is less meddlesome and exploitative. It, however, remains to be seen whether Russia would remain altruistic in the face of the AES countries’ rich mineral deposits.

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Months ago, in the face of domestic agitations for a return to democratic rule in the AES countries, their military juntas banned street protests and even went ahead to place a moratorium on media reports. Now, Burkina Faso’s military rulers have gone a step further into infamy by postponing democratic rule for another five years from 2024. They claimed to have concluded a national dialogue which produced a consensus, according to the organising committee’s chairman, Col Moussa Diallo, to extend military rule by five years. Most political parties, which had foolishly welcomed the Captain Ibrahim Traore coup, boycotted the dialogue. How Capt. Traore hopes to hold on to power for five more years in a coup-prone country is not known. He had in September 2022 ousted Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba barely eight months after the latter staged a coup against the democratically elected President Roch Marc Kaboré. Clearly, the coups were not about their flagging counterinsurgency war or of the evils of French domination and exploitation. It was all about power.

This column had repeatedly suggested that ECOWAS efforts to mollify the AES were an exercise in futility. Even before the larger regional body reacted petulantly to the July 2023 coup in Niger Republic, which formed the casus belli of the AES break with ECOWAS, those three Sahelian states had yearned to strike a different and independent path for themselves, free of peer review and completely rid of pressures to return to democratic rule. To prevent ECOWAS from fracturing, and hearkening to the ossified thinking of former Nigerian heads of state like Yakubu Gowon and Olusegun Obasanjo, ECOWAS unwisely and awkwardly bent over backwards to accommodate and reintegrate the AES countries, including softening or even lifting sanctions. It was a futile exercise.

The AES will be formally inaugurated soon. ECOWAS had better get used to that awful and depressing idea of a regional split. It is a reality. They may want to blame themselves for pushing the three military-led countries out of the regional body; they should resist the temptation. With the insurgencies in those Sahelian states threatening to get out of hand and economies being increasingly suffocated, something was bound to give. The sanctions and ECOWAS threat of military action simply pushed the errant and recalcitrant states over the cliff of no return. That was where they were headed all along. They have now berthed in their clumsy utopia authored by the distressed and amoral Russia. ECOWAS should be encouraged to sit down and rethink the regional body instead of fighting the tide, imbue what is left with far more noble objectives than its founding fathers gave it, and produce annual festivals, programmes, and scientific and military collaborations and exchanges other global economic and political unions would envy. If the rest of ECOWAS can’t outthink and outdo the AES, then they deserve to fracture even more.

June 2, 2024
Nigeria needs new military doctrine

It is going to take a herculean effort for the Nigerian military to transform into the people’s army. The Nigerian government, since military rule began, has had no idea what people’s army means, and the army itself has demonstrated no appetite for change. Hundreds of events and incidents illustrate this deficit. But three recent incidents should exemplify the depressing disconnection between Nigerians and their military, a disconnection that has accentuated the crisis of underdevelopment and stymied the effectiveness of the military in its numerous counterinsurgency wars in the Northeast, costly efforts to pacify the Northwest, and other internal peacekeeping duties.

The first incident relates to the shutting down of Banex Plaza in Abuja for one week over a dispute between a phone seller and a soldier. A trader allegedly sold a defective phone to a soldier, and refused to make good. Soon, the disagreement escalated into a fight and a free-for-all, leading incredibly to the deployment of five teams of soldiers to barricade the shopping plaza for a week. The details of the disagreement, and who provoked whom, have neither been investigated nor reported, nor is it clear who was to blame, nor whether the phone was actually defective or not. Until the disputants are interviewed, the whole truth may not be known. But how on earth such a dispute escalated so quickly until it became an official matter said to be capable of threatening national security is hard to fathom. The reasons may, however, are not be as far-fetched as imagined.

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Disputes between buyers and sellers are commonplace. Sometimes they get out of hand, but often they don’t, especially if relevant regulatory or law enforcement institutions function properly. Admittedly Nigeria is a developing country and both regulatory and law enforcement institutions are inadequate or too weak to mediate conflicts. Army spokesman Onyema Nwachukwu, a major-general, spoke of the sacrosanctness of military uniforms, the aggression of the ‘hoodlums’ who attacked ‘unarmed soldiers’, the presence of unidentified miscreants who ‘use the Banex neighbourhood’ to threaten security, and the capacity of such incidents to ‘orchestrate threats to national security’. Alarmingly, commenting on the incident days later, former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Lucky Irabor regarded the statement by the spokesman as mild. For him, shutting down the plaza and occupying it were the right things to do.

In Gen. Irabor’s view, no person in uniform should be attacked because he represents the state. He said: “This applies to any uniformed person for as long as he is an agent of the state. An attack on him is an attack on the state, so any Nigerian of goodwill must condemn such an act. For me, I join to support the closure of Banex Plaza for as long as it takes to have anyone responsible for that dastardly act brought to justice. This is because if we fail to do so, we will be calling for anarchy. The only men who are sacrificing their lives to ensure our collective good are members of the armed forces, the police, and other security agencies.” With such a mindset, it makes it harder for disputes not to be blown out of proportion. That sense of institutional exceptionalism has seemed to corrode thea propriety of responses to provocations and the moderation that should flow from the commonality of human beings and experience. Soldiers sacrifice their lives; but so do doctors, nurses, and others. Ukraine could today not make the distinction that Gen. Irabor has made. When a country’s existence is threatened, everyone becomes a soldier. Indeed, it is in such sacrifices, which the former CDS made reference to, that the best of soldiery and highest regard for the sanctity of life are located. Drawing the kind of distinction the general has done is unhelpful and inciting. If at the level of commanding a country’s entire armed forces a military general could promote a controversial appreciation of military doctrine, then it is time to ask for more fundamental changes and reforms. Perhaps, it is time they went back to military histories and get inspired afresh.

The second incident, sadly, flows from the Okuama, Delta State, incident in which 17 military personnel lost their lives in an ambush by militants on March 14 over a land dispute between Bomadi and Okuama communities. The reprisal was swift and fierce, indeed as the military warned. Okuama is a small community of a few hundred people, but it was soon levelled, a fact that came to light after the military ended their occupation. A third incident is the May 30 killing of five soldiers by militants in Aba, Abia State. The identities of the attackers are disputed, but military officers suspect the Indigenous People of Biafra/Eastern Security Network who organised that day’s lockdown to commemorate the sacrifice of their civil war heroes. Responding to the killings, the military in a statement spoke about the ‘imperative’ to ‘retaliate’ and why it would be ‘fierce in its response’. The military also spoke about the people being the lifeline of terrorists, but also acknowledged that the military could not hope to win the war against terrorism without the people. What would they, therefore, do about the seemingly conflicted role of the people? Whether the military likes it or not, the sacking of Odi community in Bayelsa State in 1999, after the killing of 12 policemen and some soldiers, did not prevent the Zaki Biam, Benue State, killing of 19 soldiers and the reprisal killings of hundreds of Tivs. And both the killings and the sacking of the two communities did not prevent the Okuama and Aba killings, not to say the humiliation of soldiers at an Abuja shopping mall. This is why the military must now begin to consider a different approach to responding to provocations.

As long as the police are structured and funded poorly to rise up to the threat posed by criminals, and as long as soldiers are inappropriately deployed to carry out police duties, the interactions between soldiers and the public would inevitably weaken, if not corrupt, the military. And for as long as Nigeria’s military personnel have a poor understanding of an equally poorly designed military doctrine, they would see themselves and their uniforms provocatively above censure or attack. If their brightest and best embrace a controversial understanding of military doctrine, it is impossible for them not to embark on angry reprisals against audacious criminals who attack soldiers, and in the process killing the innocent in retaliation, or even wiping out entire communities. The Banex Plaza provocation should have been left to the police, and the Okuama incident left to the Department of State Service (DSS) and the police; but anger and the need to retaliate the effrontery of civilians got the better of the military. Letting the police handle the Banex affair does not take anything, not even a jot, from the military. But it seems their military doctrine does not admit to such a lasting and effective approach to civilian provocations.

Unfortunately for the military, the enormous firepower at their disposal is wholly unsuited to the kind of interactions and domestic assignments they are saddled with. This mismatch is worsened by the fact that the people actually yearn to love their military; for the ordinary soldier is first a civilian, a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, and a relation whose death or incapacitation would be a tragedy. Prince Harry’s visit last month and the televised events that exposed Nigerian soldiers permanently maimed while on duty brought it agonisingly home to Nigerians the huge and incredible sacrifices Nigerian soldiers make to keep the country safe and united. It is a disservice to their collective sacrifice that their comrades-in-arms descend to the ignominious role of approving self-help and tyrannising civilians on the grounds of the uniforms they wear. Being wounded in action is one thing; sometimes some of them return home in body bags, their eyes permanently closed in sleep while their relations continue to mourn. Surviving soldiers should stop desecrating the memory of their fallen comrades, and senior officers charged with formulating and teaching tradition and doctrine in the military should stop depriving the civil populace from relating with, and loving and honouring soldiers forever poised to give their all, including their limbs and lives, for the country.

The best place to begin this new approach is for the military to eschew violent, supremacist language from their statements during provocations. They have no control over provocations; but they can determine how they respond to attacks, either in ways that honour their uniforms and training or in ways that dishonor their arms. The choice is theirs to make. However, it is time to stop seeing themselves as soldiers superior to the polity. After all, they are not soldiers of fortune. For when they respond fiercely and indiscriminately to provocations like militants and insurgents, talking about retaliation and vengeance instead of calmly and forcefully saying they would bring the attackers to justice, how can they prove they are different from those animals who unfeelingly leave destruction in their wake?

June 2, 2024
A SONG FOR CHILDREN’S DAY (1)

     If you don’t see me in the parade today

     Do not think I love my country less

I asked daddy for new shoes

and those white stockings

and belts with glittering buckles

Daddy merely shook his head

But manly tears betrayed his empty purse

he hasn’t gone to work in several months

since a thumb-stained retrenchment letter

scribbled away a job that was the centre

of the family life

Ravaging hunger has taken a permanent seat

in our crowded home

     If you don’t see me in the parade today

     Do not think I love my country less

I asked mommy for those green shorts

and lovely shirts we need for the gathering

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without which the teacher’s cane

would carve painful patterns

on my boney buttocks,

the resounding laughter of richer mates

biting through my tattered shirt

mommy merely showed me her fraying wrappa

and the empty carcass of her once brimming kiosk

now laid low by government’s emergency edicts

which caress the rich and kill the poor

Our country’s knife is sharp on the weak

and blunt on the strong

the more you steal, the less the crime

Powerful thieves buy justice

in the legal market, and purchase divine blessings

from saintly churches and holy mosques

     If you don’t see me in the parade today

     Do not think I love my country less

*First published in Songs of the Season; updated and re-used here with significant amendments.

                    (To continue next week)

June 2, 2024
Kano, Rivers and culture of rhetorical violence

Kano and Rivers States have become the new poster boys for rhetorical violence. Kano always seemed combustible, and has in the past two or three weeks proved its mettle in boisterous politics, but it was Rivers, with its immense talent for both rhetorical excesses and engaging burlesque, that got Nigerians transfixed for the past few months. It is somewhat quiet now on the Rivers front, albeit the quietude of the graveyard, but who knows tomorrow? On its own, after achieving what is probably a contrived judicial stalemate after two heady weeks of monarchical war games, Kano is lapsing into unearthly somnolence. But it won’t be for long. Something or someone will break the logjam, not only in Kano, but also in Rivers. It is the way things work in these parts. Just when they teeter between war and peace, suddenly they regain balance and move on much steadily than anticipated.

Whether for long or merely episodic, what seems to define the politics of Kano and Rivers is their almost total embrace of rhetorical violence. They enjoy it, and are indeed cavorting in it. In Kano, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, a protégé of the founder of the Kwankwasiyya movement and former governor of the state, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, had just railroaded a bill through the House of Assembly two Thursdays ago to repeal the Kano Emirate Council (Repeal) law. That law sacked the five emirates of Bichi, Gaya, Rano, Karaye and Kano created by the previous administration of Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje. But on that same Thursday, a Kano kingmaker, Aminu Babba Danagundi, who is also the Sarkin Dawaki Babba, brought a motion before the Federal High Court, Kano, headed by Justice Abdullahi Muhammad Liman, to impede the return of dethroned Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II to the unified Kano throne. Since then, injunctions and interim orders from various courts have been flying around in the state.

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The multiplicity of injunctions is of course bad enough, causing giddiness among security agencies and the Kano populace, but much worse is the rhetorical violence thundered by interested parties, including, sadly, the state government, and even former vice president Atiku Abubakar. Last week, rather than call for restraint in the tussle for the Kano throne, the former vice president warned that anarchy was imminent and asked Nigerians to hold President Bola Ahmed Tinubu responsible. What about the governor, the state’s lawmakers, acerbic government officials, lawyers, and the emirs themselves? Nonsense, implied Alhaji Atiku; the buck stops at the president’s desk. Mendacity and truth have become hopelessly inextricable, nerves are frayed, and the combatants have dug their heels in. Bilious and trenchant statements by sundry interested parties began flying around warning of anarchy, disorder and doomsday. Nearly everyone wants the president to intervene. How? By sanctioning the courts, stifling the rights of citizens to seek relief in the courts, hamstringing the state government, or issuing diktats to the emirate council?

Some commentators have gone as far as suggesting that because former governor Ganduje was involved in the creation of the five emirates, which Governor Yusuf has now unified into just one Kano Emirate, then President Tinubu must be a party to the dispute, perhaps subtly on the side of the former governor for political and electoral reasons. Other commentators accuse the current governor of preconceived bias in railroading the repeal law on the grounds of his and the Kwankwasiyya movement’s campaign promises. Since the idea of one big Kano Emirate still holds attraction for many Kanawa, it was also suggested that the other side enamoured of the split emirates must be evil. Positions have hardened, and fiery, unforgiving statements are flying round and complicating the tussle for the throne and obfuscating electoral extrapolations. Everyone, left or right of the spectrum, gives the impression that war is imminent. They would in the end be disappointed if war does not break out in line with their wishes nurtured since the end of the last president poll.

The situation in Rivers is more farcical but no less truculent. There the courts are also naturally involved in issuing orders and counter-orders, of course complicating the severe and ongoing political tussle in the state. The Rivers tussle is much simpler, however. Governor Siminalayi Fubara fell out with his benefactor and predecessor, Nyesom Wike. Unlike the Kano Emirate tussle, the Rivers crisis was a hasty and unnecessary struggle for dominance. Wisdom should have dictated a different course of action, but as some commentators in the state observed, Gov Fubara embarked on a rapprochement with some political actors who opposed his election and who fought his predecessor to a standstill. In the eyes of Mr Wike, the peace march was a ploy to hijack the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) structure in the state and turn it over to the ‘enemy’.

Very quickly, the frontline took shape and positions became ossified. A peace deal was struck early in the war of control at the behest of the president, but after some so-called state elders intervened and deconstructed the deal, in almost similar circumstances to the pre-civil war Aburi Accord fiasco, Mr Fubara ‘saw the light’ and became intransigent. The fight began in earnest, State Assembly building was torched and soon demolished, and the suspended and minority lawmakers of four legislators soon became the de facto Assembly appointing speakers, making laws, and vetting commissioners. More, the minority legislators sat in Government House, turning over the control and inspiration of the legislature to the state executive. In days, dithyrambs were composed and all manner of troubadours began writing classical and jazz music, complete with provincial ensembles and orchestras. Unusually fecund for producing musical scores, Rivers State began churning out virtuosi rhetoricians, including the governor himself, who could play with words and phrases as well as energise rhythmic musical expressions. But they soon began speaking violence, warning about the enemies of Mr Fubara plotting to set the state, nay the country, alight should the president fail to intervene and restrain Mr Wike. As recent as last Wednesday, the courts were still belching out injunctions, creating a situation where many wondered whether they would have any left before the year runs out.

June 2, 2024
Obasanjo’s platitudes on Tinubunomics

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has surprisingly been tame taking the Bola Tinubu administration to the cleaners over the current economic crisis. But at the Paul Aje Colloquium last week, he was scathing all the same, accusing the administration of being less than savvy in responding to the economic challenges of the day. He acknowledged that the administration had correctly identified the country’s economic problems, but he insisted that its response left much to be desired. It was necessary, the former president admitted grimly, for President Tinubu to tackle the issue of fuel subsidy and exchange rate crisis. However, instead of focusing on “production and productivity, which belief and trust in government leadership will engender,” the administration had been unable to “gain the confidence and trust of investors who have alternatives.” In short, the former president was simply being platitudinous.

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On the exchange rate crisis, Chief Obasanjo said “Tinkering with the exchange rate is not the answer. The answer is consistency and continuity in policy to ensure stability and predictability.” This was again more platitudes. If, as he said, productivity and production had yet to be revved up, how on earth could the administration avoid some ‘tinkering’, if indeed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was tinkering? In short, Chief Obasanjo had nothing to say. He of course has the right to speak up on national issues, part of it from experience. But whatever he says must make sense and carry weight. Did he, for instance, consider how complicating to the country’s economic crisis the over N30trn printed by the previous administration was? As he said in his contribution, there are no short cuts; but his platitudinous statements were exactly that.

June 2, 2024
A patriarch departs

To the magnificently draped and finely appointed events hall at Harbour Point where the land ends and interminable seas begin for a rousing Service of Songs for Pa Gabriel Adegoke Ajayi last Wednesday. It was a severely jetlagged columnist that made it to the venue. Haven promised himself and the children to pay papa our last compliments, yours sincerely had to wing his way homewards by whatever means available.

Patriot, patriarch, philosopher, traditional savant and man of culture and sartorial refinement, Papa was also a man of uncommon humility and Spartan self-effacement. In his later years, he came to resemble one of those ancient Yoruba sages: all-knowing and all-seeing but hiding it all behind a huge wall of chummy and adorable reticence.

The late centenarian was a man of uncommon faith and exemplary devotion. Nothing could ruffle his Olympian equanimity. In his Gbongan community, he was very much loved and adored by both the young and the old. He was an apostle of peace, harmony and reconciliation. A quintessential traditional statesman, he was well-known for his unobtrusive kindness, generosity and charity. In Lagos which he took to like a fish to water, he mentored many a aspiring young people particularly from the provinces.

   As attested to by the presence of many brotherhoods and sisterhoods of Christian faith that came to pay him their last respect, Papa Ajayi was a heroic rallying point for Christianity becoming Life patron of the Youth Club at St Jude’s Church, Ebute Metta which he joined in 1949 at the age of twenty five and later as the Leader-General of the Guild of Stewards at the cathedral. He was also a Sunday School teacher.

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   In a moving tribute, Deinde Abolarin, one of papa’s numerous younger acolytes and adopted children, noted that in all his encounters with the departed icon both in Lagos and his Gbongan homestead, Ajayi never asked God for earthly riches and other secular blandishments. He was content with his allotted lot. The only covenant he made with God was for his maker to grant him the indulgence to live up to a hundred years.

So sure and certain was papa that God would accede to this wish that no doubting Thomas or mortal frailties could upend his belief in the sacred covenant. On February 3rd, Papa reached the centenarian milestone. A few days later on the eighth day of February, Pa Gabriel Adegoke Ajayi was recalled by his maker.

   This write up is a tribute to a genuinely great man and one of the extraordinary figures thrown up by colonial and postcolonial Nigeria in order. We write this to draw attention to alternative lifestyles in this diseased and afflicted landscape. There is much more to life than stealing and state larceny. Here is a life of unrivalled devotion to people and noble causes. If Nigeria is ever going to get a reprieve from the colossal collapse of values, then it is important to cultivate a cult of heroic example.

Pa Gabriel Olagoke Ajayi was born to the illustrious family of Chief Amos Ebenezer Ajayi at Ile Asoro Compound in Gbongan on February 3, 1924. He was the second of three siblings of his father and Mrs Elizabeth Eketunde Ajayi equally of blessed memory. Early life was rural and idyllic. The junction town was a mini melting pot with its peaceful, placid ambience hosting people of diverse sub-ethnic backgrounds while serving as an important and strategic holding fortress for traversing travellers. Ibadan was only forty miles away, Oshogbo thirty miles, Iwo nineteen and the famous Owu kingdom about sixteen miles distance. No town can be luckier in its choice of location.

Christianity came early to the people and there was an equally vibrant Muslim community. In the event, the passion for education and higher learning grew exponentially among the people inducing a federated consciousness of competing ambitions which propelled the town forward as a remarkable citadel of learned people. The fruits of this hunger and thirst for education can be seen in the endless strings of accomplished and distinguished Gbongan indigenes in all the professions that we see today.

Pa Ajayi was a rugged prototype and early exemplar of this passion for educational excellence and personal distinction among a forward-looking people. Very early in life he exhibited the remarkable trait of independence and single-mindedness when he was merely a six year old boy. He decided to journey to Ibadan forty miles away all by himself. He was lucky to be rescued by travellers who brought him back home to his parents unharmed.

By 1939 at the tender age of fifteen, Ajayi was in Ibadan Grammar School for his secondary education having passed his Primary School examination from St Pauls’s Central School, Gbongan. From Ibadan, he proceeded to Ijebu-Ode Grammar School from where he obtained his Senior Cambridge Certificate in 1942 in flying colours. Lagos, the enchanting capital of Nigeria, beckoned.

   In 1943, barely nineteen years of age, the young sojourner from the rural and provincial junction town duly arrived in Lagos to begin a remarkable career in civil service which saw him traverse many departments and ministries including Public Works Department(PWD), Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Communication where he was an Internal Auditor. He retired as a Senior Accountant at the Federal Provident Fund on January 21, 1976 at the age of 52 years after serving for 30 years without any blemish or stain on his professional escutcheon.

   It is remarkable that Pa Ajayi lived for another forty eight years after retirement. But a leader is always a leader no matter in what capacity he has found himself and no matter what dice life has thrown at him. What the civil service has kept to itself, the larger society received with bounteous gratitude. Pa Ajayi was to spend his retirement years reading, reflecting, counseling the younger ones while plunging full time into church and community activities.

It can be said that this was when he truly came into his own. Despite his traditional aristocratic background, he was a man of modest taste and frugal disposition. Not for him any outlandish display of ostentatious wealth. As a thoroughbred civil servant, the civil service had instilled in him an almost ascetic self-denial which was colonial in its rigour and Spartan discipline. Ajayi believed that a man must live within his means.

He was a genuine article or as the Americans will say a real McCoy. Those who flocked to him in his later years for guidance and mentoring did not do so on account of unmerited wealth or his wheeling and dealing on the corridors of power and corrupt influence. They did it because they found him an altruistic and noble-hearted man who was genuinely interested in people and their development.

On a countervailing note, a leading son of the area and one of Nigeria’s most gifted entrepreneurs ever once rued to this writer in a tone of weariness tinged with puzzlement and perplexity about the strange modesty and the lack of energy and ambition for material wealth which seemed to have rendered the first generation of Gbongan elite who found themselves in the old capital hors de combat in the scramble for patrimonial loot and the stupendous bazaar opened up by Nigeria’s postcolonial pabulum.

It was in the course of our long discussions and usual meditation about how to project the endowed township on the global map. And to cap it all, the same scion continued on a mournful and disconsolate tone, after they have retired and decided to make a home of Lagos, they look for the safest and most obscure corner of the city such as Iyana-Ipaja, Orile Agege, Igando, Ejigbo and Ikotun-Egbe to build their retirement perch as if they are not entitled to the choicest real estate in the city.

I put this down to the ways of people of organic empires and kingdoms, people whose ancestors have created an orderly, peaceful and harmonious society in which everybody knew their place and things were done by measures and where defaulting criminals were punished with exemplary firmness and iron promptitude.

   In an ironic reversal of Peter Ekeh’s famous thesis about the “two publics” in which the new public, unlike the old traditional public left behind in the village, is seen as a Roman coliseum where anything goes and everything is up for grab, this new elite group from the heartland of old Yoruba empire sought to infuse the values of their ancient world to align with the dictates of the new colonial imperium.

This is quite unlike their most implacable competitors, ferocious savages emerging from the hot hell of their anomic and normless primitive society. Grabbing, grasping and grappling with everything, they have come to see life as a ceaseless war in which all is fair. Yet as the Nigerian narrative unfolds, it is clear that those who hanker for order in a fundamentally disordered society might have put themselves for elimination.

The last lot always tends to lose out in the economic sweepstakes. But if they survive the machinations and occasional resort to assassination, they often reach the zenith of their career where their passion for justice and equity, their sagacity and pragmatism and above all their tame and temperate political temperament often compel the nation to reach out to their prototype particularly in times of crisis and confusion.

Neither king nor plutocrat, Pa Ajayi was buried in his hometown on Friday with all the accolades and plaudits reserved for a colossus among humanity who left his footprints in the sand of time. The entire town took on a carnival-like atmosphere. From the second Service of Songs on Thursday and the burial proper on Friday, it was a triumphant communial processional.

   After the service of songs, yours sincerely headed out to reconnect with the town. One did not return home until midnight having been “captured” by some chaps who couldn’t believe that an apparitional figure like the columnist had actually materialized from the shadows. The rendezvous was the latest and arguably the poshest hotel in town. Situated near a palm-oil processing mill on the outskirts of the town, a strong stench of rotting palm kernel and decayed palm shroud lingered producing a feeling of eerie nostalgia. May the soul of papa rest in peace.

June 2, 2024
Weep not, William

As Ngugi calls out the President of Kenya

Oh boy, oh boy!!!! It has been a long time one had read such a blistering polemic. In a widely circulated epistle during the week, Ngugi, the great Kenyan author, has called out his president , William Ruto, for becoming a slave to American interests in the beleaguered country known as Haiti. Beware of these cunning sophists. Nobody would have thought that the old wizard of Gikiyu Valley still retained the literary firepower and the argumentative savvy to put the old political hyena out of contention.

But there he was laying the stick deep into the rough back hide of William Ruto. It is obvious that Ngugi is in fine literary fettle and has lost of none of his immense capacity for a savage putdown. The crux of the contention was Ruto’s decision to send Kenyan police to keep peace in Haiti, a decision Ngugi believes is a slap on the face of the longsuffering people of the embattled country.

If anybody should be compelled to keep peace in Haiti, it is the international order, particularly the Americans and French who have laid waste and devastated their former slave colony under the guise of peace-keeping. This charade has been going on for over a century and Haiti can no longer be described as a functioning country but a pulsating hell on earth.

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Unlike many African leaders, Ngugi knows his history very well. Haiti is the first authentic black nation anywhere in the world, its Black leaders comprising of the descendants of freed slaves having fought off the mighty army of France to establish a nation of free citizens. Famously described as the Black Jacobins by CLR James, the Trinidadian writer and cricket enthusiast, it was a revolutionary rupture with the new colonial order brought to life by imperialist masters.

But the colonial masters were having none of that nonsense. For the Americans, the inalienable right of all people to freedom and self-determination does not extend to sub-human species such as former African savages now parading themselves as revolutionary liberators. If such contumely were to be encouraged, it may plant funny ideas in the mind of their African slaves who at that point in time still had more than half a century journey to manumission.

As for the French who were the former masters of the Haiti slave plantation, they smarted for a long time as a result of the heavy military drubbing inflicted on them by a ragtag army of runaway slaves and irregular local militia. Consequently and with the connivance of the Americans, they resorted to a naval blockade which made it impossible for the Haitians to trade with the outside world. The reparations they demanded and got for lifting the naval siege crippled the new nation.

Ngugi, a master of invectives, was unsparing in his strictures. Particularly telling was the oral technique of calling out a person by directly addressing them in their father’s name. Ruto’s eardrums will be ringing for a long time. The greater irony of it all was that Ngugi could be so dismissive, so corrosive and contemptuous of America’s values while writing from Atlanta. The narrative of human redemption is a permanent work in progress.

June 2, 2024
Tinubu and his critics

Without the slightest quibbling, Nigerians are currently going through excruciating pain -what with the high cost of living, an increasingly un-tameable inflation and a level of insecurity that was not dented in any substantial way.

All these notwithstanding, any objective evaluation of the Tinubu administration must take into account the parlous state of Nigeria, not just its economy, but the entire polity on May 29, 2023.

Also true is the fact that had some of those now leading the crucify, or lynch him orchestra any modicum of shame, they shouldn’t as much as open their mouths because Nigerians saw them hold public office in this selfsame country.

With history as our guide, therefore, it looks to me ludicrous that the likes of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, his VP Atiku Abubakar, and former Anambra state governor, Peter Obi did not just walk away rather than badmouthing Tinubu’s efforts. But no, the way they went about it, you would have thought they were analysing Tinubu’s government at the end of his first term.

Nigerians saw these people – yes all three of them – held very high positions; one of them, indeed, twice as president. And we have not forgotten how they performed.

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We not only saw Obasanjo lay the very foundations of the darkness now enveloping Nigeria after wasting a humongous16B dollars aimed at improving electricity, but actually ended up worsening it with deleterious consequences on manufacturing in the country.

For instance, literally all textile industries in the North became moribund for lack of electricity

just like Nairametrics, Ikorodu, is now on its way out of Nigeria.

We also witnessed his government sold off Nigeria’s over 100B dollar investments, some dating back to his time as military Head of state, for a measly 1.5B dollars under a corruption – ridden privatisation policy which was headed by his Vice, Atiku Abubakar of the Special Purpose Vehicles fame.

Ask Nigerians what Peter Obi will best be remembered for as Anambra state governor, and you’d be told that he spent state money acquiring investments for his family and occupied a conspicuous, ringside position in the notorious Pandora Papers.

Nor can we forget that the Senate ad-hoc committee of enquiry into the affairs of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) recommended sanctions against Atiku Abubakar for abuse of office, aiding and abetting diversion of public funds and found Obasanjo wanting for using PTDF funds for purposes outside the fund’s mandate.

Interestingly, these are the Angels and Arch- Angels now lecturing Nigerians on governance, especially on the management of a Nigerian economy they worsened in their time.

Isn’t it the mother of all hypocrisy for an Atiku who superintended over the worst privatisation policy ever, selling public investments to his cronies, to now say, tongue in cheek that:“Nigeria remains a struggling economy and is more fragile today than it was a year ago adding that joblessness, poverty, and misery, all of which defined the Buhari administration have now exacerbated”? Now that our one – time Vice President is well read, he should go and research into how many Nigerians lost their jobs and livelihood as a result of his, and Obasanjo’s, crooked privatisation policy.

Obi and Atiku should, in their own interest, be advised to go and devote quality time to actualising their much talked about political alliance the way Tinubu and others did to birth APC which shamed their government out of office.

On his part, the highly regarded Baba Obasanjo should cooly continue his political tours from the South South, to Osun state, even to Kano state where his experience should now be in great demand, as he appears not to have outlived his days in office, the manner he breathes down on others.

As history is our guide writing this piece, we may very well remind him that had he not been consumed with the Third Term project – in reality a life presidency gambit – and continued along the trajectory he was on, and in the process eggregiously rigging the 2007 presidential election which he gifted a good, but sick, Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua, Nigeria would most probably never have been humbled by an insecurity which has turned her to a caricature by the time Tinubu became President on May 29, 2023. Yorubas say be careful when you point an accusing finger at your enemy because the remaining four are pointing directly at you.

Like a joke, I have also seen Babachir Lawal. Yes the same sacked Secretary to the federal government, on television wax lyrical, doing his damnnest, attempting to also rubbish Tinubu’s performance as if anybody expected otherwise. The guy, who had expected Tinubu to name him his Vice presidential candidate, was offered an opportunity on a television network to speak like a statesman, but for where?

He has not been able to live down his disappointment and would most probably never do. Good thing is: a thousand Babachir Lawal can never unravel Tinubu, whose lifelong hireling he was. He will only continue to grumble in his new, unaccustomed anonymity.

Any objective analyst would readily see the difference between how the Buhari administration hugely, negatively impacted the Nigerian economy, with his CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, selling foreign exchange to members of the Villa Mafia, at their preferred rates, and what now obtains under the current administration where the CBN governor and the Co-ordinating minister of the Economy are working, assiduously, trying to reset the thoroughly beleaguered economy President Buhari left behind.

Unlike when these same critics were in office, at a time Nigeria was awash with petro dollars, and they could spend public funds buying birthday gifts for girl friends, as well as personally ‘restructured’ Nigeria by acquiring wives from every region of the country, below is the Nigeria Tinubu inherited, as captured by Senator Abu Ibrahim in a recent article:”The Tinubu administration inherited a sluggish economic growth, record debt and shrinking oil output. He also had zero budget for fuel subsidy. These challenges have made life tough for Nigerians. Nigeria’s debt ballooned by nearly 60 per cent since 2015, hitting $103 billion in early 2023, according to figures released by the Debt Management Office. Considering the off-book loans from the Central Bank of Nigeria, the country’s indebtedness appears higher, at $167 billion. This was why finance experts have asserted that as much as 90 per cent of total revenue would be needed to service debt”.

With that as the exant situation and the fact that Nigeria’s crude – her main source of revenue -is being stolen on an industrial scale, what magic was Tinubu expected to have performed besides ending the ruinous fuel subsidy and harmonise a forex market which Emefiele had turned to kalokalo? Continue to print paper money? No way. Tinubu is a Finance man who could never have taken any of the routes being suggested by busybodies.

However, criticise the Tinubu government on insecurity and you would find me lining right behind you. The government has not, in any substantial manner, dented an insecurity which has rendered life in Nigeria short and brutish. It has very negatively impacted food security to a point every Nigerian feels it. To eat and feed family, some Nigerians now buy yam in pieces packed in nylon bags as they can no longer afford to buy a tuber of yam which goes for between N3ooo – N5000 naira each.

There’s n’t the slightest doubt that our men and women in uniform are doing a great job, putting their very lives on the line.

This is why government must now urgently consider the following suggestions:

* Increase the number of our men and women in uniform by at least 50 per cent of the current number.

To fund this exponential increase in numbers, government should simply disregard Labour’s unreasonable demand for a N615,000 minimum wage(now reduced to N400,000) when, according to BudgiT, about 15 states are currently unable to pay the N30,000 minimum wage.

●Ensure their rapid, and adequate, training; And

●Maximally equip all the security forces with state of the art technology to combat the current challenges.

Also get the U.S to remove all restrictions on the use of the A – 29 Super Tucano Aircrafts to enable Nigeria effectively fight all manner of insurgency.

It is difficult for Nigerians to believe that bandits, in their hundreds, could move enmass on motor bikes to attack defenceless citizens, and our security forces would not get to know of such attack within minutes, no matter where in the country it is happening.

Equally embarrassing for their non- availability, are advanced listening equipments which would enable our military to have advance information of every enemy activity.

Finally, concerning insecurity, it has been suggested that some Fulani elements are still able to kidnap in the South because this government is afraid of their powerful backers.

I hope to God this is not true.

June 2, 2024