The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tunji Adegboyega

  • Ask your governor

    Ask your governor

    With increased revenue from the FAAC, state governments should complement the efforts of the Federal Government by paying more attention to the needs of their people

    Ask your governor. That would seem the simple message that the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, passed across to many Nigerians who, rather than look toward their state administrations, always look to the centre for virtually everything that is wrong with the country. However, unlike many people who merely say the governors are receiving more money under the Tinubu administration than hitherto, Yilwatda gave specific figures of the quantum leap in the allocations to the states from the Federation Account.

    “Governors now receive two to four times more than before. They can focus on bigger projects, but they must also improve the daily lives of the people,” he said even as he urged Nigerians to engage local leaders more than they are doing presently.

    The APC chair spoke at a book launch, Vicious Red Circle written by Alex Ugochukwu Oriaku, in Abuja, on Monday. According to him, state governors are getting more than enough and should not have any reason to complain. “We have 24 (that is APC governors) and we are still counting. We will have more. We know that two years ago, what they used to share was about N400 billion per month. But today, the last they shared was N2.2 trillion. No governor in Nigeria today collects less than three times, four times of what they used to collect before. None.

    “They can do more for their people. They are focusing now on bigger projects. And to me, this is a turnaround that we need in governors. I would say, talk to your governors. Talk to your local government chairmen. Let them do more. Talk to the APC governors to do more’’.

    It could not have been more bluntly said.

    No governor has controverted the claim that they now have more cash in their kitty. That was one of the reasons we are not hearing any of them complaining that they cannot pay the new minimum wage of N70,000 per month. As a matter of fact, it is as if some state governors are celebrating money festival (Yoruba people will say ‘won n se odun owo’), as some of them are, even on their own, announcing bigger packages than the official minimum wage. Lagos and Rivers are paying N85,000 each, Bayelsa, Enugu, and Oyo N80,000 each, and Ogun at N77,000. Other states like Delta, Ebonyi, and Kebbi also have minimum wages between N75,000 and N77,000 while Kogi is paying N72,500.

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    This was not the situation before the advent of the Tinubu administration. As a matter of fact, at least 14 state governments were, according to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), either unable or struggled to pay the former N30,000 minimum wage that was enacted in 2019. The states were: Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River and Delta. Others were Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Nasarawa, Niger, Sokoto, Taraba and Zamfara states.

    Lest we forget, many state governments relied on bailouts from the Federal Government in the Buhari years before they could get out of their financial quagmire.

    But all that has changed. Thanks to the Tinubu administration that removed fuel subsidy and also ‘’floated’’ the naira. The two policies have led to availability of more money in the coffers of the Federal Government that the three tiers of government are now sharing. As the APC chair observed, allocations from the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) have often exceeded the N2 trillion per month mark post-May 2023, with record highs over N2.2 trillion. State governments’ collective share has increased substantially, from about N400bn to N700bn+ monthly.  Like many other state governments, Abia State government has thus doubled from about N12 billion to N13 billion monthly. Many state governments are said to be paying up their debts as a result of the improved funding.

    This is good news.

    But, the bad news is that many governors are just not getting their priorities right, as Yilwatda observed.  Indeed, some of them are behaving akin to a Yoruba proverb that says the initial money that a child makes he spends to buy bean cake (owo ti omode ba koko ri, akara lo maa fi ra). They simply forgot where they were coming from. May be we can pardon those of them who are first-time governors and have not experienced the rough times. But what of those among them that were returned to office? Should they not have learnt sufficient lesson on how to be prudent with funds?

    Under the 1999 constitution, as amended, all tiers of government have their functions. Critical services like primary health and education fall under local governments, while secondary health, education and infrastructure fall under state governments. The Federal Government has responsibilities for national security, tertiary healthcare, the economy, etc.

    Unfortunately, while the constitution is clear on these roles, many state governments have hijacked the local governments and indeed pocketed them. President Bola Tinubu tried to extricate the local councils from the apron strings of the state governments, to no avail. Not even a Supreme Court judgment could free them from the clutches of the governors, who in many cases do not want to see autonomous local governments in the first place. And the reason is simple; the governors are not satisfied with their own portion of the national cake. They want more and that more they want to rake in from the local governments.

    The result is that the local governments merely exist in name in many states. Their chairmen cannot do anything without the consent of the governors. All the councils get as allocations are mainly to pay salaries. The results are glaring in several parts of the country: bad local roads, inadequate or no drainage, dilapidated primary schools, wastes all over the place, etc.

    You may not like the Tinubu government for different reasons, chief of which is that cost of living is high under it. But you cannot deny the fact that it has done some things to alleviate the sufferings of Nigerians. Imagine the number of people that have benefitted from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, (NELFUND) that the administration set up to cater to the needs of indigent students whose parents cannot afford to send their children to higher institutions. The idea is to ensure that no one is denied access to higher education simply on account of parental poverty. I learnt that as of late October, over 624,000 students have benefited from the fund, and over N116.4 billion disbursed since the portal opened in May, 2024.

    I always cite the example of one of my seniors in the university who paid glowing tributes to his parents for “gladly embracing poverty to see him through university education”. The loan takes care of the students tuition fees as well as N20,000 monthly stipend would lessen the burden on such parents because it is not easy to gladly embrace poverty. As they say, “iya ki ise omi obe” (suffering is not pepper soup). The NELFUND would definitely make a lot of difference to many parents.

    Talk also of the conditional cash transfer in which the Federal Government has launched a conditional cash transfer programme targeting 15 million vulnerable households in Nigeria, to provide N75,000 to each eligible household over a three-month period. Talk also of the loan scheme for income earners to purchase their needs now and pay in installments. 

    Even before now, the bad faith on the part of some state governments manifested with the palliatives that were distributed during the Buhari era, which some public officials at the state level converted to political pork.

    If we can have some of these initiatives complemented by the state governments, “ebi npa mi” (I am hungry) slogan would not be as popular as it is today. Forget the fact that the person who made us adopt it as a slogan is not one of those really hungry! And if he is; his is a different kind of hunger!

    Then, talk of grandiose projects that have no bearing to the real needs of the people that some state governments are embarking upon. Take airports, for instance; which, apart from public officials in some states, are of no use to most other people. Yet, we find some governors sinking billions of tax payers’ money into them even when many roads in their states are death traps.

    All said, the APC chair could have appropriately diagnosed the problem; to wit; that many state governments are not getting their priorities right, but, I seem to disagree with him on his rhetorical statement asking us (or, who in particular?) to tell him if we want him to tell the governors to do the right thing. Hear him: “If you feel I need to talk to the governors, please tell me. I will call their attention. And if you feel you want to have a nexus within the National Assembly and the government, not just at the national level, even the state governments, you want to have that nexus between them, we have most of the governors.’’

    Yilwatda does not need any prompting from any quarters before doing the needful. If he is convinced his assertions are right, then he should just go ahead and tell the governors what they seem not to be doing right. After all, as he noted, his party has a preponderance of the governors; 24 out of 36 and ‘’still counting’’.  That is getting close to shellacking!

    “We have 24 and we are still counting. We will have more.’’

    So, Nigerians, you now have a better idea of what to do when certain things are not working. All eyes do not have to be on Abuja all the time. Your local government chairmen and governors are closer to you. They should be the first set of people to reach in times of trouble. Meet them. Ask them. After all, as they say, all politics is local.

  • Driver’s licence without tears

    Driver’s licence without tears

    • FRSC deserves support in its effort to revolutionise issuance of this vital document

    Yes, you heard me right: driver’s licence without tears! That is what the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) says it is bringing to the table to replace the present moribund order. As things are, prospective applicants for driver’s licence literally go through hell to get the document. Perhaps it was deliberately designed to be so cumbersome to allow for the usual corruption in the system. Of course when we talk about corruption on the issuance of driver’s licence, it does not mean all those connected with the processes are corrupt. Just that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is to obtain driver’s licence without falling into the hands of some corrupt officials in the course of the interactions.

    That is one of the problems when human contact dominates any particular exercise. At present, obtaining a driver’s licence in the country is a three-step process:

    Step 1 involves applicants attending training at an accredited driving school and obtaining a Learner’s Permit if he/she is a first-time applicant. The next stage is to undergo driving test administered by a Vehicle Inspection Officer (VIO).  The applicant then receives a Certificate of Proficiency or pass certificate from the VIO upon passing before proceeding to Step 2 which involves applying for and paying the requisite fees online or at a bank, completing the driver’s licence application form, either online at nigeriadriverslicence.org or at a Driver’s Licence Centre (DLC). Applicant then proceeds to submit all required documents and the application form for verification and endorsement by the Board of Internal Revenue (BIR) Officer and VIO at the DLC.

    Applicant then goes to Step 3 which is biometric data capture, then collection. This would be done at the FRSC by the officer at the DLC for biometric data capture which includes having the applicant’s photograph, fingerprints, and signature taken. The applicant then receives a temporary driver’s licence, which is usually valid for 60 days , which only frees him from being harassed by policemen, FRSC officials, VIOs, etc. who usually demand such documents on our roads. The wait may take as long as two years to get the original driver’s licence. If it is the three-year type, then you may be lucky to use it for a few months before beginning the process for another one. And, if it is five years, you may use the original for about half its original period before applying for another one.

    Anyway, once applicant receives the original card, he/she may be able to activate the digital driver’s license (eNDL) by scanning the QR code on the physical card.

    I can hear you say, this is a mouthful’. Actually it is.

    Perhaps the only easy aspect of the process is payment for the licence. That is even when there is network to do it.

    I can also hear you say, ‘why is it this cumbersome’? This is a question I may not be able to answer. But I know that generally it is hardly easy in some other climes to obtain driver’s licence. An uncle of mine who relocated to the United Kingdom told me the troubles he underwent before he was able to get a driver’s licence.

    But, if you ask me: I don’t have any problem with the cumbersome processes if it is all about efficiency, professionalism, safety and honesty. When you license a person to drive, it is not a joking matter. It is about lives, and life, as they say, has no duplicate. If the UK and some other countries make you go through hell to obtain driver’s licence, they know why. They know the person they are giving such licence has all it takes to drive on their roads without causing problem for the system. They make you undergo all kinds of tests,to be sure they are not licensing a killer. Those countries with rigid processes for driver’s licence value the lives of their citizens.

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    Interestingly, that was the way it was in Nigeria too before we lost it. I remember when I got my driver’s licence in the ‘80s at Iseyin in Oyo State, back then; I went through all the processes, including the driving in the middle of carefully arranged drums to see how I could maneuver the vehicle under some tight situations. I remember how happy the person who assessed me was seeing me making wevery stage of the process. I was happy with myself, too. I had passed all the other tests, including the Highway Code, road signs and what have you. It was after I had successfully done everything that I tipped the man. I think I even bought beer with which we celebrated it. Whenever I stumble on the booklet that passed for driver’s licence then, I marvel at how we have totally lost it as a country because I remember the rigours that went into my getting that booklet then.

    All of these have gone with the wings. You find people who have not seen a Learner’s Permit in their entire life behind the wheels. Even on university campuses, many of the spoilt brats have dispatched their fellow students to untimely graves or maimed others by driving without passing through the rudiments.

    Back then, you would see vehicles marked ‘Off Road’, meaning they were not roadworthy and the owner or driver never removed such marks because he knew what awaited him if he was caught. I can’t remember when last I saw any vehicle marked ‘Off Road’, yet there are many such vehicles on many of our roads today, waiting for who next to knock down.

    As I said earlier, I don’t have problems if the rigorous processes involving several agencies in the issuance of driver’s licence in the country are all about ensuring the right things are done. But this is not the case. Whether at the ports or wherever, what you find are layers of corruption in those places where you think the multiple agencies are supposed to ensure sanity. Again, as I said, this is usually what obtains when there are too many human interactions in official processes.

    It would seem the FRSC now wants to be deaf to the calls of the past; obedient only to those of the present. If the agency walks its talk, then, soon, very soon, it would be driver’s licence ‘sharp, sharp’, with contactless biometric capture system, with the agency leveraging technology.

    Hear the corps marshal, Shehu Mohammed: “We have activated plans to overcome the perennial challenges associated with delays in obtaining the driver’s licence and number plates. Our printing facility has been upgraded to print an average of 15,000 driver’s licences daily.

    “This production average will be increased to clear the backlog before the second week of November 2025,” Mohammed said.

    Mohammed, who spoke at the launching of its 2025 Ember Months Road Safety Campaign aimed at reducing road accidents during the busy festive period in Abuja added that the FRSC was “about to commence the contactless biometric capture with on-spot printing of the licence, which will eliminate temporary licences, thereby signalling the beginning of digitalised one-stop-shop for processing driver’s licence.

    “With this development, it is expected that delays and other challenges related to the national driver’s licence will be history.”

    The campaign was appropriately tagged “Tech Responsibility for Your Safety: Stop Distracted Driving.” It targets dangerous driving behaviours often linked to increased crashes in the ‘ember’ months, and particularly between December 15 and January 15. The point is that many things combine to contribute to the increased number of road crashes usually witnessed during this period. One of them is the fact  that many vehicles that are not roadworthy are on the roads, including articulated vehicles that mere seeing them even people who are not VIO or road safety officials know they ordinarily should not be on the road. We have many drunk drivers behind the wheels who take undue advantage of the festive season to get high on all manner of alcoholic drinks before driving. Then, the urge or greed to make more trips than usual because of the fact that many people travel to celebrate the end of year festivities with their loved ones in the hinterland, and so on. Not to talk of many people who are not qualified to drive on the roads.

    Unfortunately they attribute the many road crashes to the works of witches in the village instead of situating them appropriately. Unfortunately, too, those ones do not have the guts to come deny these bogus claims.

    But that is not for today. Back to focus.

    The corps marshall said “Globally, we have seen how driver’s licence has been obtained. As soon as you come, you get the driver’s licence. What matters is the comprehensive data, the adequate data that will be stored for usage at any given time,” he added.

    Mohammed explained that the system would fully integrate existing driving school, VIO, and certification processes, but with a faster and streamlined approach.

    “We are almost through with the process. It is no longer going to be the process of putting hands on the biometric. This one is contactless biometric. It doesn’t take time, and also, it captures all the essence required,” he said. According to him, the entire process, from application to licence issuance, will become immediate upon capture.

    I can only wish the FRSC well. This is a noble objective but then, the agency has to work with other state agencies in the process. The corps marshal gave the impression that they have perfected their inter-agency collaboration to ensure that the exercise turns out well. These include the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). Cooperation with NIMC ought to be the standard practice here as it is globally; yet, we find all manner of institutions organising their own biometric data storage. Still, these have not stopped abuses that a well synchronised system ought to have prevented.

    We look forward to the clearing of the 800,000 backlog of driver’s licences that the FRSC said it was dealing with round the clock and hope it would be able to put that behind it by mid-November as it has promised.

    There are many questions to ask; but, at the risk of not wanting to sound pessimistic, I would only want to highlight one: and that is the FRSC’s claim that “Once you reach the point of capture, you get captured and you get your driver’s licence instantly’’, as Mohammed said. But what happens before then? More so as driver’s licence is on the concurrent list as I observed earlier?

    All said, I wish the FRSC well on its drive to revolutionise the issuance of driver’s licence. But the government must be ready to come down hard on those who might be perfecting strategies to sabotage the new system. That is the only way it won’t work only for some time and we return to square one shortly after.

  • Screening of kindergraduates

    Screening of kindergraduates

    JAMB’s exam for underage but brilliant children ends with fond memories

    Just as the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) was yet to release the results of the candidates who penultimate week sat for the underage screening examination into tertiary institutions in the country nationwide, came the rude shock that the Federal Government had decided to change the current admission process into tertiary institutions in the country by allowing the institutions to decide their choice of students themselves. In effect, JAMB would have lost its essence. To put it more bluntly, the board would naturally cease to exist once that happens because, under the extant arrangement, JAMB is central to the admission process.

    I would return to that shortly because this piece actually set out to comment on the underage screening that took place in Abuja, Lagos and Owerri between October 8 and 9. One hundred and seventy-six candidates in all sat for the examination, out of which 84 were adjudged to have finally scaled the hurdle to proceed to the universities of their choice for the 2025/26 academic session, having met the set criteria. This means they have scaled the four-stage screening set for them, having scored at least 320 in the UTME; at least 80 per cent in the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE); 80 per cent in the university’s internal screening exercise; and another 80 per cent in the final screening conducted by a JAMB-appointed panel comprising vice-chancellors, civil society representatives, education experts, and other distinguished professionals.

    These included Prof. Adamu Ahmed, Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, chairperson of the Lagos centre; Prof Taoheed Adedoja, chairperson of the Abuja centre while Prof. Paulinus Okwelle, Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), chaired the Owerri centre.

    Prof. Boniface Nworgu, a renowned psychometrician, who chaired the panel in Lagos on October 9, as Prof. Ahmed had to leave after the first day for other engagements; Dr Rafiu Soyele, Provost Federal College of Education, Abeokuta, Prof. Lawrence Ezeminye, Vice-Chancellor, Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, and Mrs. Mary Millicent Nnawuogo, Principal, Federal Government Academy, Suleja, among others.

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    A candidate becomes eligible for the next stage only after successfully meeting the requirements of the preceding one. This, indeed, was the issue with one Miss Kareem Kaamilah Omolarami, who scored 371 in the UTME and indeed successfully scaled the first two hurdles but was not invited for the final screening because Nile University of Nigeria to which she had applied wrote to JAMB that she was absent at the  university’s internal screening. She therefore automatically became ineligible to continue the process, having missed one stage. 

    It was interesting how the oral interview session went in Lagos, with Professors Ahmed and Nworgu in charge. The conviviality of the atmosphere was such that could have normalised the blood pressure of the most nervous candidates. It took place largely on a father to son/daughter basis and not as some professors up there looking condescendingly at some kids trying to do what they did several decades ago.

    At times, the candidate’s name was an object of joke. While some knew what their names meant (as we usually give people names in this part of the world for different reasons), I remember one of them who said his surname was ‘Arowosaye’ and he was asked the meaning, which he translated as ‘’one who has money to enjoy life’’!

    How about welcoming the candidate to the oral interview with ‘’how are you doing, my son/daughter’’? Sometimes, Prof. Nwogu would, during break, chat up the candidates. ”Are you enjoying your coffee’’? Sometimes he cracked jokes with them, drawing laughter. It was such an enjoyable time that I knew some of the candidates would wish never ended. Virtually everyone that JAMB selected for the exercise was a parent indeed; born teachers, too. They had all it takes for such exercise: the patience, stamina, knowledge and what have you.

    And JAMB more than spoilt the candidates with food, snacks and drinks.

    I observed the process at the Lagos centre which held at the Senate Chamber of the University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos. Trust Prof Ishaq Oloyede, the registrar and chief executive of JAMB, he would never allow any opportunity pass deserving of a joke without seizing it. The Senate Chamber also happens to be the seat of the highest decision-making authority in the university. In case the candidates did not know, Oloyede made them understand that and how indeed lucky they were to be sitting in such a place when they have not even become ‘JAMBITES’ (students newly admitted into the university). He was right. The candidates were lucky indeed. For those of us who left the university decades ago, the Senate Chamber was a place we looked at with awe from outside. We could only be imagining what the hell was happening in there!

    Then, the candidates’ food. There was no doubt that some of them were amazed at what they were served, as they openly confessed that the pieces of meat and fish they were served were adult size. But that was not all. They equally had tea break during which they had snacks and coffee on the two days, all very rich qualitatively, and something to write home about, quantitatively, all paid for by JAMB!

    But that is Oloyede for you. As a matter of fact, when the parent of one of the candidates asked him whether the board made any arrangement for lunch for the candidates, the question did not go down well with him as he wondered whether it was possible for any reasonable person to assemble such children without making provision for feeding for them. But then, both the parent and Oloyede were right. It is just because the JAMB registrar cares. Some other organisations would organise such things from morning till evening as JAMB did and the children would have to be catered for by their parents. All they would give them is lunch break; and the candidates, forget their impressionable ages, would have to fend for themselves.

    This brings me yet to another aspect of the Oloyede phenomenon: resource management. When I considered the money spent to conduct these examinations in three centres, the calibre of experts that were engaged to ensure that things went well, the facilities used, etc., I keep wondering where the JAMB registrar gets the billions that he returns to the government’s coffers despite all these unforeseen expenses. Considering that this underage screening is novel in the JAMB processes, it means it was probably not budgeted for. Yet, candidates were not asked to pay a dime for its organisation. And I doubt if this would in any way stop the board from returning billions to the government’s coffers at the end of the day, given our experiences in the last few years that Oloyede assumed the front seat in the board.

    May be someday, the man would tell Nigerians the magic. I do not want to dwell on this aspect of JAMB’s operations since the coming of Oloyede because it has become a familiar thing. As a matter of fact, the news from JAMB is; if the board cannot remit the billions as it used to do, not otherwise.

    If JAMB’S past is anything to go by, then Oloyede is going to leave oversized pair of shoes for his successor when his second term ends. Alternatively, he may have to induct him or her into the secret of the machine that is spinning the billions that he has been handing over to the Federal Government annually in the last eight years. Or better still, show him or her  the way to the shrine from where the gods cough up the remittances! What I am saying is that Oloyede’s successor must be ready to continue to ‘su dundun’ as we say in Yoruba land. That is he or she must be ready to excrete something pleasant or sweet! That is one of the lessons and legacies of the Oloyede years in JAMB. Anything short of that is unacceptable.

    Be that as it may, let me seek your indulgence to return to the satanic rumour about the Federal Government scrapping JAMB, or making it impotent by stripping it of its role in the admission processes into tertiary institutions in the country. I did not take the rumour with a pinch of salt right from the time it ‘broke’. Mind you, rumours too break, not only stories! I knew it must have been something from the pit of hell. Apparently, some of the people benefitting from the rot in the JAMB of old must have had a dream of such happening. And, just like the Lagbaja episode, ‘’Omo, anything for me’’, and the response: ‘’Lagbaja, nothing for you’’!

    Mercifully, the Federal Ministry of Education did not waste time to turn the fraudsters’ dream into a nightmare by issuing a rejoinder signed by the director of press and public relations of the ministry, Boriowo Folasade, on behalf of the minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa. The statement said: “For the avoidance of doubt, JAMB remains the statutory and legally empowered body responsible for conducting entrance examinations and coordinating admissions into all tertiary institutions in Nigeria.” It added: “The established admission processes through JAMB remain fully operational, and any contrary information should be disregarded in its entirety.” Thus ended the antics of the satanic dreamers.

    All said, that the screening of the underage candidates went without serious hitches in the three centres was due mainly to the fact that it was well organised. Yes, there were minor hitches, especially with some of the parents who accompanied their children; these were generally sorted out without incidents. The fact that many parents indeed came with their children, at least to the Lagos centre, was one proof they were really underage; as in below the minimum 16 years required for admission. In my time, no one followed me because I was old enough to know my left from my right before seeking university admission. That was one of the things two years of Higher School Certificate (HSC) did for us back then.

    It was indeed thoughtful of Prof Oloyede who insisted that the examinations should be held on university campuses instead of centres in town. This restricted movement and also made many of the parents to comport themselves. Otherwise, the exercise might not have been as successful as it was. In fairness to the candidates, they were generally calm and law-abiding. But, because babies would always be babies, some of them forgot the original of some of their documents in their answer sheets, particularly the National Identification Number (NIN) slips. Mercifully, they were not too many; therefore retrieving the documents did not pose a serious problem.   

    I congratulate the 84 candidates who successfully scaled the hurdles. In terms of brilliance, many of them cannot be denied the accolades. From reports globally, Nigeria has got talents. Many of our children, including the very ones we are talking about have all it takes when the matter is academic studies. What has been the central concern of many is whether these children have the mental and physical capacities to withstand the rigours of the environments in our tertiary institutions, with cultism and all.  

  • The oil unions we knew

    The oil unions we knew

    The sector’s labour leaders must realise that the dynamics are changing and they must change tactic or die

    Anyone conversant with how our oil sector functions would have known that the purported truce brokered by the Department of State Service (DSS) early last month between Dangote Refinery and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) would not last because what is on the surface is not just the issue. There is high-wire financial and other considerations that led to the impasse between the refinery and the union

    That explained why, almost immediately after the resolution of the dispute between the refinery and NUPENG, the other major union in the oil sector, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) began its own strike. The strike was initially called, again, over Dangote Refinery’s alleged sack of 800 Nigerian workers for joining PENGASSAN, and replacing them with foreigners.

    The refinery confirmed the job cuts and described them as a “reorganisation exercise” aimed at improving efficiency. But it said it never replaced Nigerians with foreigners as alleged by PENGASSAN, which was joined in solidarity in the strike by NUPENG.

    I knew there was not going to be any respite after the NUPENG and Dangote deal. Even now, it does not seem to me that we have got to the end of the matter, despite the deal that made PENGASSAN to suspend its two-day strike started September 28, and ended on October 1.

    I saw all of these coming because one does not have to be a prophet to know that what is rearing its ugly head in the oil sector would eventually come to pass. That was why I had asked several times on this page, somewhat rhetorically, why things that are as soft as bean cake in the mouths of people in other parts of the world become tough bones in the mouths of Nigerians, when Dangote Refinery and the former management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL) quarrelled shortly before the then group chief executive officer of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, was sacked on April 2. The flip-flop policies of the NNPCL started causing disruptions in the price of fuel which had started to decline and stabilise. Things only took a dramatic turn as the NNPCL refused to renew the naira-for-crude deal with Dangote Refinery.

    What I am saying is that what we seem to be having, even now, is peace of the graveyard. As a Yoruba proverb says, ‘oku te sin leekan, ese e si wa nita’ (the legs of the corpse you buried are protruding outside the grave).

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     When the present crisis began about three weeks ago, some allegations were made against the unions in the oil sector. One that stunned me most was the one that NUPENG collects about N70,000 on every loaded truck at the NNPCL depots.

    Some experts have done the calculations of the average number of trucks loaded daily and multiplied by the N70,000 or N75,000. I couldn’t believe my ears when I first heard about this and the first question that came into my mind was ‘owo kinni’ (what is the money for?)

    ‎Weeks after, I have not seen anyone deny that allegation or say what the money is all about. Mum has been the word from NUPENG until PENGASSAN came up with its own strike. ‎ Ordinarily, our anti-graft agencies should have been interested in this and call for NUPENG’s books for scrutiny.

    The truce reached on the two occasions between the oil unions and Dangote Refinery reminds me of the joke a colleague used to crack many years ago about an undergraduate student who was suspended for breaking one of the university’s rules. The young man was asked to bring his parents. It happened that only the father went with him, and he was a stark illiterate.

    When they got to the vice-chancellor ‘s office, he told the father what the son did. The father agreed that his son did not do well and simply asked him to prostrate and apologise to the vice-chancellor. As soon as he did, the father asked him to take his bag and baggage to his hall of residence and sin no more, and thanked the vice-chancellor for his magnanimity! Is that how it works?

    If the unions in the oil sector were truly patriotic, with power of strike that they deploy at will, our refineries should not have been dormant for the decades they have been. How else do you explain it: refineries are not working and the workers were getting paid for doing nothing? I saw figures that some experts quoted as what they collected as salaries and other emoluments running into trillions of Naira, for doing practically nothing over the years. As a matter of fact, they were still going on trainings abroad, according to some accounts, and NNPCL under successive governments was releasing funds for the travels and other emoluments.

    The oil unions saw nothing to go on strike over all those years of the locust. Their members were getting salaries and the bank alerts were coming by way of check-off dues paid by the members, which, really, seemed the basic concern of the unions and their leaders.

    It was so easy for both the unions and the respective managements of the NNPCL to be chummy because, again, permit me to fall back on another Yoruba proverb: ‘ko s’aremo lomo elede, gbogbo won lo nyi’ra mere’ (there is no difference between the first and last borns of pigs as they all play happily together in the mud).

    Both the NNPCL officials and the unions were all united by the monies they all made off Nigerians’ misery, despite the fact that the refineries were not working.

    If care is not taken, the oil sector unions may be looking forward to such abnormality of ‘oga ta, oga o ta, owo alaaru a pe’ (it is not the truck pusher’s business whether his client sells or not; his (the truck pusher) will get his money complete even now that the sector has been fully liberalised!

    And, before you say Jack Robinson, the unions would call their members out on strike, saying it is not their members’ business whether Dangote Refinery is functioning or not. They would be deaf and blind to the reality that they are no longer dealing with a government entity. It is only government that can continue to spend public funds the way the unions are used to: paying salaries without productivity. As we all know, government’s money in Nigeria is like a mad man’s leg which anyone can always go to cut a piece from because it belongs to no one in particular! Or, is the mad man himself not ‘government pikin’ in our country?

    It would be naive, mischievous or simply fool-hardy for anyone to expect Dangote Refinery to leave distribution of its products in the hands of NUPENG as we now know it. That would tantamount to committing business suicide. Even at a point, the Federal Government began to buy fuel tankers because it did not want to leave that in the hands of unions that would declare strike overnight and cripple its activities over mundane matters.

    The owner of the refinery has studied the sector very well; and you cannot blame him. You don’t invest over $20billion in a project and some people without a dime in it would come and ruin it for you, just because they are involved in the distribution of the products.

    I had said it before, that we would see strange developments in the oil sector because, one; many of the players in the sector have been so used to importation and all its trappings and they cannot imagine how all of that would end overnight. The old regime profited them and it is impossible for them to contemplate that all that is over now. Seeing fuel pumps dispensing fuel for one year without disruption is enough to give them heartache. We cannot rule that out in the strike we just witnessed.

    The fact of the matter is that it can no longer be business as usual in the oil sector because of the dynamics of ownership that has changed hands.  

    Newspaper owners in the country would not forget their experiences with newspaper agents; people who have no investment in the multi-billion business but want to determine what happens in the business, including how much the newspaper should be sold, just because they are involved in the distribution process.

    With the refinery investing N720 billion on 4,000 tankers, the signal should be clear to the oil unions that they are dealing with someone with the muscle to drive his company with little push, that not even the labour unions would wield any significant influence beyond getting their check-off dues from their members, not from the refinery or Nigerians that would bear the N75,000 per truck that they claim NUPENG alone corners.

    Ordinarily, these trucks would not have been necessary if successive governments had maintained the oil pipelines in the country.

    Without doubt, NUPENG has turned full cycle from the progressive NUPENG of the Frank Kokori’s days to what it has become today.  The NUPENG that Kokori led from 1982 to m1999 was one that fought on the side of the Nigerian people against our military overlords who were not ready to gift us democracy in spite of their rhetoric to do same. Unlike today’s union leaders, when the union called workers out for strike then, the nation caught cold because it was not used like a toy that it has become. Nigerians would not forget the heroic role the union played in the struggle to send the soldiers to their barracks, leading to the democracy that we enjoy today.

    In spite of the fact that the NUPENG’s leadership did suffer in the course of the democratic struggle, they lived a Spartan lifestyle. We never heard they collected huge sums on every truck of fuel. Not so today’s labour leaders; the very extravagant lifestyle that they condemn the politicians for, they are also living in their own fiefdoms. 

    In fact, if the NUPENG and PENGASSAN leaders think deeply, they would realise that Nigerians no longer see them as the pristine conscience of the nation that they used to be, especially in their ongoing fight with Dangote Refinery. Ordinarily, they should have been the toast of the man on the street, with the full weight of Nigerians behind them. Fighting for Nigerians is not the same thing as fighting for selfish or parochial interests.

    The earlier the unions in the oil industry realised that things have changed in that industry from one in which government was the dominant player and adjust accordingly, the better for them. ‎At the rate they are going, it is only a matter of time for them to demystify themselves, preparatory to their inglorious slide into irrelevance and obscurity. 

    Labour leaders in the oil sector should thank God for democracy. In some other climes, they would be in the dock for economic sabotage.

    Now, you may ask me; where do I place monopolistic tendencies in all of these? That is a business left for the Federal Government to address. It is its duty to seek a delicate balance between some spoilt unions and business investment, not Dangote’s.

  • Add value or perish

    Add value or perish

    • That was Tinubu’s message to African countries on exportation of raw materials. But we have been hearing that for some time. It’s time to put it into practice, probably with Nigeria showing the way

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu struck the right chord at the Second Africa Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG) High-Level Roundtable on Critical Minerals Development in Africa, held on the margins of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, New York City, where he called for a complete overhaul of the global financial architecture governing Africa’s mineral resources, to enable African countries take full control of such resources.

    He was represented at the event by Vice President Kashim Shettima.

    The President said, “First, I urge African nations to climb the value chain’’, adding, “We must end the ignoble cycle of exporting rocks and importing finished goods. From beneficiation to green manufacturing, Africa must build industries on African soil.”

    “We must take the bull by the horns in financing our future. Never again shall we wait for capital to trickle in. With sovereign funds, blended vehicles and innovation tools like the Africa Mineral Token, Africa shall finance Africa. To safeguard this sovereignty, we must guard our cobalt, lithium, graphite, gold and rare earths not as fragmented states but as one continental bloc, wielding collective power in global supply chains,” the President was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the vice president’s spokesman, Stanley Nkwocha.

    But Tinubu did not say anything novel. Several African leaders, international organizations like the World Bank, and economists have for long been making a case for value addition to raw materials before export, to boost economic growth and create jobs.

    One such prominent figure is President Akufo-Addo of Ghana. ‘’ One thing that Ghana, and Africa, must do is add value to the sale of raw materials and natural resources. We need to transform stagnant, jobless economies built on the export of raw materials and unrefined goods to value-added economies that provide jobs to build strong middle-class societies and lift people out of dire poverty,” Akufo-Addo once said.

    Also, our Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, has urged African nations to take sovereign control of their natural resources by halting the export of raw minerals and prioritising domestic value addition through local processing and industrialisation. Alake spoke in July at the opening ceremony of the 4th African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit held at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

    The minister said African countries deprive themselves of the immense benefits they could have enjoyed if they processed their raw materials before exporting them. According to him, the continued exportation of unprocessed mineral resources deprives the continent of critical economic benefits, including job creation, technological advancement, and sustainable development.

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    Indeed, experts have for decades unanimously concluded that the only viable option for African countries is for them to add value to products and provide transport and production of African goods. They are of the opinion that failure of the continent’s producers to add value to their products before exporting them is part of the main reasons for the continents’ slow economic growth.

    As the experts noted, whenever we export processed goods, we create jobs for our teeming jobless youths and add value to local economies. But it is the other way round when we export raw materials: we keep the industries of the receiving countries humming; their citizens employed at the expense of ours and generally help them grow their economies.

    For instance, they said its better for Africa to learn how to export copper cables instead of copper and aluminum sheets

    The Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of the Raw Materials Research and Development Council, Prof. Nnayelugo Ike-Muonso, gave an insight into what the horizon would look like if we begin to add value to our raw materials: He said, “Crude oil is a raw material. We export oil in its raw form and get back only fuel. We lose additional revenues because we just exported crude oil in that form.”

    Ike-Muonso is not done: “If we process copper here, it will be difficult to hide or remove the gold content embedded in it. When exported raw, they smelted it abroad and made excess profits,” he stressed.

    Now to specifics.

     In the cocoa industry, Nigeria loses $1 billion annually due to limited local processing of raw cocoa beans into high-value products like chocolate. The country exports raw cocoa at $10 per kg, and the chocolate comes back at $100 per kg. That’s not good. Once we export raw materials, we don’t get much value.

     Nigeria loses $3.7 billion annually from raw cashew exports, highlighting the massive opportunity cost of not processing these cashews into higher-value products.

    Moreover, Nigeria exports most of its shea nuts as raw materials, with only about 18 per cent processed domestically, whereas foreign countries, especially in Europe, process these nuts into shea butter for cosmetics and food. This is why the ban on exportation of this produce by the Federal Government is welcome.

    The case with petroleum products is even worse, especially with subsidy being paid on every litre of fuel imported due to the country’s inability to refine fuel locally until the Tinubu administration put an end to the subsidy fraud in 2023. Although what is paid for a barrel of crude oil and what is eventually spent refining it varies from producer to producer, one indisputable fact is the wide disparity between the cost crude oil is sold and the amount crude exporters like Nigeria spend on importing the refined products. 

    Of course, as we have always known, corruption exacerbates the problems in the Nigerian oil sector, with so many interested parties feasting on the misery of ordinary Nigerians. So, they can never wish for a situation where the country would stop fuel import. This is one of the bases of disagreement between Dangote Refinery and the unions in the oil sector, among others.

    The government has to come down hard on the parasites feasting on the system in the oil sector if Nigeria is not to continue to experience fuel scarcity in spite of the fact that we are beginning to have some capacity to fuel our vehicles locally.

    Even in the days when Nigeria was a major producer of palm oil, the raw products were exported almost for peanuts, while we imported the manufactured products from them at exorbitant costs.

    Everyone that matters has made the points that needed to be made on this matter. But it should not be about speech-making. African nations need to move from the stage of reading well drafted speeches to concrete action.

    Continued exportation of raw materials over the decades is part of the reasons Africa has remained potentially great perpetually. And, unless they change the narrative; that is the way the continent would remain in self-inflicted subjugation forever. Self-inflicted because it is a thing they imposed on themselves.

    All of these call for domestic reforms by African leaders to harmonise their policies and increase trade among their various countries, to achieve sustainable development.

    Nigeria must be ready to take the lead and take the idea of value-addition to the realm of implementation. This is one way of demonstrating its strength as ‘giant of Africa’. Perhaps a good way to start is to enforce the approved amended version of the Raw Materials Research and Development Council Act, 2022, which mandates that exporters must process at least 30 per cent of raw materials locally before exporting.

    Sponsored by Senator Onyekachi Nwebonyi, the goal of the amended bill that was approved by the Senate on July 2, is to stimulate value addition, strengthen domestic manufacturing, reduce imports, and spur sustainable economic growth. Any exporter who fails to meet the 30 per cent processing threshold would incur a 15 per cent levy on the export value; it could also lead to the suspension or revocation of the exporter’s value-addition certificate.

    However, the point must be well made that for the idea of value-addition to raw products for export to come to fruition, power supply is key. No nation can industrialise without a reliable power supply. And you can only add value by industrialising. Therefore, the Federal Government must be ready to further shake the power sector to deliver. Yes, some progress is being made gradually in this direction, but then, more needs to be done. Most Nigerians seem to have agreed that the extant template in the power sector cannot take us far.

    The state government and private investors should take full advantage of the new vistas of opportunities being opened by the Federal Government to take a substantial share of the pie from the existing power players. May be that is the elixir that would jerk them to the reality of the fact that their best is not good enough.

    Above all, however, African leaders must be ready to govern responsibly. The era of life presidency is over. The era when leaders sit tight as if their respective countries would collapse if they suddenly drop dead is also over. No one is indispensable. Here, the regional and continental bodies must be ready to be on the side of the people and not protect their friends and colleagues in power even when it is clear that such leaders have outlived their usefulness.

    That Africa has so far spent so much of even the little she realised from exporting raw materials on arms and ammunition to protect corrupt and inept leaders is a notorious fact. This would not change if the mindset remains unchanged even after more money starts to come in from value-added to products that are being exported from the continent. It would only mean more arms and ammunition, more hunger and squalor, and more poverty, at least for the people, with the changing really never changing.

  • Obi of Lagos? Abomination

    Obi of Lagos? Abomination

    Oba ipe meji laafin; ijoye le pe mefa laafin

    Although the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has dismissed the publicised fundraising for the N1.5bn palace of the Obi of Lagos as a fraudulent agenda by an individual, the tension the announcement generated, particularly in the social media, should remind, if not tell us about the desperation of some people in the south eastern part of the country, to pursue ethnic expansion by some other means, in other parts of the country and probably beyond.

    Last week, the news went viral that one Chibuike Azubike, 65 years, had printed invitation cards inviting personalities to the unveiling of the prototype of the N1.5bn palace he intended to build for himself as ‘Obi of Lagos’. The event was billed to hold at Apple Hall, Amuwo Odofin, Lagos.

    Mercifully, the police waded in to forestall the trouble such an affront could have caused in an ethnocentric clime like ours. On Wednesday, they arrested the fake Obi and three of his alleged accomplices: 57-year-old Chibuzor Ani, 65-year-old Martins Nwaodika, and 41-year-old Ikechukwu Franklin Nnadi.

    The police said Azubike told them that he intended to swindle apparently unsuspecting Igbo people who would have come to donate generously at the occasion. The command’s deputy public relations officer, Babaseyi Oluseyi, said in a statement on Thursday that “Investigation revealed that the principal suspect, Chibuike Azubike, confessed he is not a qualified engineer but has been parading himself as one. Further findings showed that the planned unveiling of the ‘Obi of Lagos Palace’ was fraudulently designed as a ploy to swindle unsuspecting personalities and Nigerians of their hard-earned money.”

    The police have promised to prosecute the suspects.

    It is good that the police swiftly moved in to stop the nonsense. They have the onerous responsibility of securing lives and properties, a thing that could have been jeopardised due to the ethnic tension that the announcement of the said fundraising had already generated in Lagos.

    This should be expected given the assertion prevalent, especially among some Igbo, that Lagos is ‘no man’s land’. It is only in a ‘no man’s land’ that somebody would just wake up from the wrong side of the bed and say he wants to be addressed as so and so, and in a manner that contravenes the established laws governing such a declaration.

    I don’t know from which part of history those propagating the falsehood of Lagos being ‘no man’s’ land’ got it.

    But for this turning logic on its head, and fears induced by real rather than perceived experience from some people in the south east, the story would have passed for another rumour from the ungoverned space called social media which would ordinarily fizzle out the way it came. In which case, one would have allowed sleeping dogs to lie. But that would be tantamount to sleeping under a burning roof.

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    The case of the self-proclaimed Eze Ndigbo of Ajao Estate, Lagos, Frederick Nwajagu, is still fresh in mind. He was sentenced to one year imprisonment with no option fine in 2024, for unlawfully parading himself as a titled chief in Lagos. Nwajagu also had, in what seemed a clear indictment of the NPF and other security agencies of bias, allegedly threatened to invite members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to Lagos to protect the properties of Igbo residents in the state.

    Justice Yetunde Adesanya who in her judgment acquitted and discharged Nwajagu of terrorism charges because the Lagos State government could not prove that beyond reasonable doubts, ordered him to be released after the judgment since he had been in custody for over a year during the trial.

    Nwajagu had appealed the judgment, saying the Section 34 of the Obas and Chiefs of Lagos State Law (1981) under which he was convicted ran afoul of sections 39 and 40 of the 1999 Constitution which guarantee freedom of association and expression.

    We were still awaiting the outcome of his appeal when rumours of the Obi of Lagos emerged.

    Another compelling reason why one cannot let this too pass as the police merely dismissed it is because of the kinds of comments some people (I guess the youths, apparently from the south east) have been responding to Azubike’s arrest. People who are having the notion that some other people can just come and become lords in other ethnic regions have to be constantly reminded (in case they have forgotten, because it is convenient to do that sometimes), that it can never be so fast.    

    Azubike is said to be a native of Obodoukwu in Ideato North Local Government Area of Imo State. Just as no one jokes about fainting (a ki fi mo daku sere) in Yorubaland, so it is in Igboland. In Yorubaland, people don’t joke about land and traditional titles or matters, generally.

    ‎We see all of these things in Nollywood because movies reflect the environments in which they are being acted. We see blood relations running after themselves with machetes and other weapons that can be used to sever heads from the neck in the south east over land and chieftaincy matters.

    ‎It therefore beggars belief that someone from Obodoukwu, a distance of about 500 km to Lagos, (traversing at least five states and probably crossing several rivers) would leave his own state and indeed, his entire region for Lagos and proclaim himself king. By the estimation of Google Maps, it would take about nine and a half hours from Obodoukwu to Lagos. And some people would be defending that!

    This is a thing they would not tolerate even among Igbos like themselves. The matter would only be settled after some heads would be rolling on the floor. So, why are we just like this?

    If you are not hospitable, and nobody is grudging you for that, why would you now take it upon yourself to premeditatedly provoke others who are?

    The South East Council of Traditional Rulers had, in a release in January said, inter alia: ‘’Sequel to the controversy surrounding the “Eze Ndi Igbo” title which has reportedly been abused and misused by leaders of Igbo groups in the Diaspora, the Southeast Council of Traditional Rulers (SECTR) has released an approved title for leaders of Igbo groups and communities residing outside Igboland…

    ‘’We are glad to inform you that South East Council of Traditional Rulers after several meetings, deliberations and due considerations has approved ”Onye Ndu Ndigbo” (Igbo Leader in Diaspora) as the most appropriate name or title for whoever is the Head of Ndigbo in any place abroad or Diaspora within and outside Nigeria. Consequently, all Igbo leaders abroad or in Diaspora are to revert to this approved and agreed title with immediate effect. Similarly, all signposts, letterheads, complimentary cards, etc. should accordingly be designed to reflect this’’, the release, signed by the chairman of the council and others declared.

    These are people who have had cause to decide numerous cases involving land and chieftaincy matters in their domains and therefore understand what the issues are. Most of the people commenting on the social media apparently know not what they are saying; may be partly because they were denied the opportunity of reading History.

    But for the fact that the police had the preemptive job of preventing the kind of violence that such fundraising could have attracted, it would have been interesting to see who and who could have been at the event. The chief launcher, his supporters, royal father of the day, and so on. 

    Although the police have said Azubike was only out to dupe people; I don’t have cause to disagree. Even as I think it may be more than that, too. The point is that in Nigeria, anything is possible. If the man saw the reaction during and after the fundraising (if it had held), that he could actually go beyond raising funds, to actual construction of the palace, why would he not be encouraged to do that, seemingly remote as that might be? And after constructing the palace, someone must occupy it.

    ‎Anyway, even if the intention is only to get money from people by deception as the police claim, it would seem not a few Igbo people have seen such endeavours as new growth areas from where they could make stupendous wealth. If you cannot get it through Biafra nationalism, you can use the traditional institutions.

    Imagine Azubike succeeding in becoming Obi of Lagos truly, you will be shocked at the number of wealthy Igbo people who would be coming to pay homage to him, even if they tell you they don’t have much respect for chieftaincy or traditional matters. And the man would be staying in his palace doing nothing and feeding fat from both the gullible and even some of the supposedly educated people.

    See Simon Ekpa who has just been convicted for terrorism in Finland with his rotund cheeks? Which industry did he establish? Even Nnamdi Kanu that has been undergoing trial in Nigeria for some years was like a Messiah in the south east before his arrest, with many of the big names in the region at his beck and call.

    You should ask yourself why Obi of Lagos and not Obi of Izombe or Mgbidi, or any other remote part of the eastern region? For Azubike, if he must be Obi, it must be that of cosmopolitan Lagos because that is what could have brought the N1.5bn that he was looking for, a thing that might even have, surprisingly, been oversubscribed? Does a proverb not say that if one wants to eat a toad, he should look for a fat and juicy one?

    The Igbo who think they can just do as they please, those things that no one else can do in their own domain, have to do a rethink. I have no apologies on my position on a matter like this because it would only take an ethnic bigot who saw the altercations between two prominent Yoruba Obas, the Alaafin of Oyo,  Oba Abimbola Akeem Owoade 1, and Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II, over the award of a chieftaincy title that many of us Yorubas did not even know when it took place (until the matter became messy), to accuse anyone of being tribalistic over this idea of some Igbo misguided elements trying to do unto others what they would not want others do unto them.

    If Nwajagu could go on appeal over his self-declaration as Eze Ndigbo of Ajao Estate, Lagos; then, the Yoruba cannot be dismissed as rabble-rousers for taking on people like him. As they say in my place, it is one slave that makes us abuse two hundred others.

    In Yorubaland, we cannot have two kings in a place. It is only chiefs that can be as many as people choose to have (Oba ipe meji laafin; ijoye le pe mefa laafin).

    I can however support, albeit, with condition, the position of the SECTR that south easterners who are hungry for traditional titles outside of Igboland can only be called ” Onye Ndu Ndigbo’’(Igbo Leader in Diaspora). Even then, this has to be ratified by their domiciled state governments.

  • ‘Lie lie’ wage structure

    ‘Lie lie’ wage structure

    This must be dismantled and replaced with a realistic and equitable one

    With regard to wages or salaries, successive Nigerian governments have been behaving like the woman who has only one child, and when the child was fighting outside and the matter was reported to her, she asked: which of my children? Which one? How? How many children does she have to warrant that sort of question?

    That is exactly the same way Nigerian governments and indeed, almost all employers in the country have been deceiving themselves over salary matters for years.

    They pay wages that cannot take people home and call them take-home pay. Unfortunately, the politicians in the National Assembly who become so stingy when handling other people’s salary matters spoil themselves with some of the most stupendous wages and allowances that would qualify for one of the most obscene in the world.

    While some state governments and even private employers are trying to do more for their workers, others are lukewarm.

    Just last week, the Nigeria Labour Congress’s (NLC), president, Joe Ajaero, and the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), commended the Imo and Ebonyi state governments for raising minimum wage from the N70,000 approved by the Federal Government in July, 2024, to N104,000 and N90,000, respectively.

    Ideally, this should be the spirit: the Federal Government’s minimum wage is, as its name implies, the minimum anywhere in the country. Employers of labour are at liberty to go beyond that amount. But they cannot pay less. The two state governments said they are able to raise workers’ salaries because federal allocation to them has increased substantially.

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    This is a truth some state governments do not want to get out there. State governments, as well as other tiers of government have been receiving substantially more revenue from the centre since President Bola Tinubu took over in May, 2023, as a result of withdrawal of fuel subsidy. But, despite this increased monthly allocations, not much is happening in some states.

    This is why I join the NLC and NECA in commending the two state governments. Investment in human resource is a meaningful one and workers that are relatively comfortable should be able to put in more to justify their pay.  

    I have never believed, as labour does, that state governments must pay the same salary across the country. One, states are not equally endowed. Two, they operate in different economic milieus. While food and some other items are relatively cheap in some states, they are also relatively expensive in others.

    But, the question now is; do Nigerian workers need as much as N70,000 or N90,000 or even N104,000 minimum wage to be happy? I don’t think so. Just that things have gone haywire.

    In the 1970s, the N96 or so that school certificate holders in the country earned monthly then was always enough for people in that category. I remember I bought eggs at the then prestigious Kingsway Stores, even as a school certificate holder, not just because I worked there after my secondary education , but because then, meat pie at Kingsway (the equivalent of today’s Shoprite, etc), was sold in kobo (I think 25 kobo apiece) and its size doubled what now goes for the average meat pie in any reputable eatery of the same standard with Kingsway Stores then.

    Even though Kingsway was an elite departmental store, it is unlike the Shoprites of today because many people, including school certificate holders, could go in there and have snacks, cold or hot beverages and coffee, electronics and what have you. Today, many graduates see the Shoprites only from outside, or even when they manage to enter, all they do is window-shop, hoping that someday before their time at this end would expire, they too would one day be able to walk in and out of the place, clutching something of substance, or having some people carry whatever they purchased from the place for them.

    For many, the way things are structured, that may remain eternal pipe-dream unless and until some of the measures being taken by the government begin to yield results.

    This is why I have always argued that labour leaders should insist on good governance. Not incessant wage increases.

    But they would not listen. Today, workers have the wads of naira notes in their pockets but can only buy little with them. I was far better off with the N400 that I first earned as a graduate in 1985 than today’s graduates earning N150,000 per month.

    A colleague who just returned from abroad told me that the price of a car he ordered a few years ago remains virtually the same today, but when it gets here, that is where the problem lies because of the exchange rate.

    If Nigerian workers had been insisting on good governance, it is not unlikely that what is hitting us hard now would not have been this serious because there would have been incremental adjustments that would have made things easier for us to swallow now.

    The truth of the matter is that what we call salary today, starting from the president down to the least paid worker, is ‘lie lie’ salary. How can our president be earning N1.5 million monthly? To do what? We need no one to tell us this is unrealistic. That of the National Assembly is even worse. Ask 100 members how much they earn monthly and you will get 100 different answers. Nigeria is probably the only place in the civilised world where such a matter of public concern is shrouded in secrecy.

    I do not know in how many state capitals people earning N70,000 can live if they must enjoy electricity, pay school fees, spend on transport for a family of at least four, pay for medicals, and do other routine things.

    Let nobody tell me we were able to enjoy most of these things before because they were being subsidised. Was the government also subsidising the bumper meat pies that we were eating then at Kingsway Stores? Was it subsidising the Hing’s singlet (unarguably one of the best brands then) that we were buying on the streets of the popular Balogun Market in Lagos at the time, for almost peanuts? Were they also subsidising the Peak Milk that some of us would always insist on, as against the Carnation and other brands that we considered inferior?

    Come on, something is wrong somewhere. It is that thing we should find and fix. The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) should get down to serious business and stop this unrealistic pay fixes.

     It is because the National Assembly members are not comfortable with whatever the commission gave them that they found a solution to their wage problem through some other ingenious means. Recently, in spite of the economic challenges the poor are facing; they even mooted pay rise for themselves.

    Meanwhile, lesser Nigerians have to cope with the miserably low pay the same National Assembly approves for them.

    We need to do something about this lopsided, ‘lie lie’ wage structure before it does something to us because it is not just inequitable, it is ungodly. It is a recipe for tempting even people who do not know how to steal. It is only a matter of time before we start expanding our prisons because we would have cause to receive more prisoners; not prisoners by choice, but prisoners by societal injustice.

    Professors earning N500,000 to N600,000 a month in this economy is scandalous? To do what? Many people would have stomached it if this is the general trend but a situation where conscientious workers cannot get commensurate reward whereas a few others cream off the resources at the expense of millions of others is unsustainable.

    Many of us who disagree with Ajaero often do so not because we do not understand his point, but, first, because, we know some of his protests had beyond labour undertones. And, two, because contemporary labour matters should now be more of brain than brawn and ‘gra gra’. Ajaero does not seem to be ready to admit that labour leaders would be judged in the final analysis, not by the number of strikes they mobilised, but by the impact their tenure had on workers’ welfare.

    Ajaero needs tutorials on how his forbears in the labour struggle, like the inimitable Pa Michael Imoudu, and indefatigable Hassan Sunmonu, did it so successfully.

    One of the reasons some people get so much to steal from the public till is because we have too much idle funds all over the place. Otherwise, why would someone be able to steal the humongous amounts of money we used to hear (some would tell you public funds are still being stolen) running into multiples of millions and sometimes billions (as if these billions are Japanese Yen), without the country knowing until years after? Something must be wrong somewhere.

    We may argue that the loopholes are being blocked, but the most important deterrence would be to punish those who pilfer our funds, to the full extent of the law. Often they don’t get their full comeuppance. Rather, they are given slaps on the wrist by allowing them to do plea bargain which allows them to return only a fraction of what they stole and keep the rest to themselves.

    Unfortunately, while these people who stole more than their three generations require get this kind of soft treatment, the poor man that stole a goat or something because he is actually hungry gets years behind bars; sometimes with hard labour. No plea bargain. Well, as one of our former first ladies used to say, ”there’s God o.”

    Nigeria’s ‘lie lie’ salary reminds me of an advert that newspapers used to carry some years ago. The ad had to do with a company that paid peanuts as salaries. At the head of its management was the lion calling the shots, flanked by other dangerous animals. Your guess is as good as mine as to what that company would turn out to be.

    That is the Nigerian situation with regards to its wage structure. While I have no problem with some sectors earning extremely well because of the sensitive nature of their jobs, what is required, in my view, is a holistic review of wages for all such that every Nigerian will, like it used to be when we were growing up, be able to afford the basics, particularly food and shelter.

    If for one reason or the other that is not feasible now, it should be on government’s pending priority list.

    After all, as they say, “what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander”.

  • Work in progress

    Work in progress

    Although barely 20 months in the saddle, Kuku has made significant progress

    Next year, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), will be 50 years, having been founded via Decree 45 of 1976, with the statutory responsibility of overseeing the operation and maintenance of all federal airports in the country. However, the Civil Aviation Reform of August 1995 brought about the realignment of some of the functionalities of the predecessor Nigeria Airports Authority (NAA) as well as its renaming to the present Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).

    Significantly, the authority had been managed strictly by men for 47 years, until President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, found  Mrs Olubunmi Oluwaseun Kuku, worthy of the position of FAAN’s chief executive/managing director in December, 2023. She has therefore broken the record as the first female to occupy that exalted seat.

    Since its establishment, FAAN had been assessed several times by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the most recent being in March, last year, when it rated Nigeria’s aviation security system well in its audit. It rated the authority 71 per cent. Good as this score might be, it suggested some gaps in personnel, training, and quality control.

    Kuku was barely four months in office when the 2024 exercise was done. That another might come anytime is enough to put Kuku on her toes as she cannot afford to be caught napping. 

    Airports must meet certain standard in accordance to ICAO’s regulations. These include international airports having security and perimeter fencing, comprehensive runway lights, high level of security, easy internet access, high safety standard and modern facilities for easy passenger facilitation.

    With the current 71 per cent score, Nigeria is expected to carry out remedial action plans to close the gaps noticed by ICAO. This is precisely what Kuku has hit the ground running, to address.  And, given the seriousness with which she has been tackling the challenges despite being at the helm of affairs at the authority for barely 20 months, she seems determined to improve on this rating.

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    Rehabilitation of Runway18R/36L as well as its vandalised approach light and centre line and the abandoned Taxiway A have been completed under her. Similarly, her administration had repaired the failed section on the presidential taxiway in Abuja. Also, Zulu Terminal at the Domestic Wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, has been expanded, even as the place has been provided with an airline and protocol lounge.

    A 33KVA has also been provided for the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, (AIIA), Enugu, alongside extension of the car park. Dedicated power was also provided at the Kano airport. In like manner, the pilgrims terminals and airfield ground lighting at the General Tunde Idiagbon International Airport, Ilorin, have been rehabilitated. Kuku has also seen to the completion of the Domestic Terminal Building at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Airport, Minna, Niger State. She also constructed sewage treatment plants at the Kaduna and Benin airports. Generator plants were also provided for the FAAN Headquarters and Maiduguri airport.

    She has seen to it that the washrooms, command and control room, VIP waiting area, monitoring room and briefing room at the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) have all been rehabilitated and upgraded.

    To facilitate communication at the airports, Kuku has procured about 3,000 units of handheld radios (walkie Talkies) and the accompanying base, among others.   

    Although some of these achievements (up to this point took) place before her assumption of duties, work on them was completed during her tenure.

    Under her, however, efforts have been made to make the various directorates in the authority perform optimally. The directorate of cargo development and services, for instance, has constructed, equipped and commissioned a cargo processing shed at the General Aviation Terminal (GAT), a facility at major airports like Lagos and Abuja, dedicated to handling non-scheduled flights, private jet operations, and related services. She has also succeeded in significantly raising revenue collected from cargo processing operations by, among others, blocking sources of revenue leakages.

    The directorate of finance and accounts has settled all outstanding claims, cleared inherited liabilities, including staff claims and contractor payments. It has also successfully finalised the authority’s 2022 and 2023 audited financial statements. Its global customer reconciliation that was conducted across all airports in the country in the last quarter of 2014 resulted in the recovery of over N1.139bn of the outstanding debts.

    The directorate also successfully recovered N1.3bn from the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) for 2023 concession fees and Skyway Aviation Handling Company PLC (SAHCO) N521m out of N782m debt to FAAN. In all, the authority initiated moves to recover about N6.2bn owed it.

    The directorate of aviation security services did professional training and retraining for 1,593 personnel in various specialist areas. This is crucial, especially with regard to two unsavoury incidents at two of our airports recently, which revealed gaps in training. Kuku has also repositioned the International Civil Aviation Organization Aviation Security Training Centre (ICAO ASTC)-Lagos, for effective delivery of mandatory international AVSEC Courses, including Basic AVSEC STP 123 for all security personnel, specialised training for roles like screeners and supervisors, and awareness courses covering various security aspects such as cargo and mail security.

    Passenger screening time has also been reduced by 80 per cent at peak periods even as the directorate has enhanced airport security surveillance and response systems in Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Benin, Yola, Ibadan and Maiduguri airports, and also implemented a comprehensive AVSEC manpower audit for planning and enhanced service delivery.

    The directorate of airport operations undertook several assignments on reduction of carbon emission and as well engaged stakeholders on its management at Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, in December, last year.

    Of course, no matter how much any agency has done, it must find a way of getting this effectively across to its publics. It is only when people do not have something to showcase that they are afraid of a strong media presence. FAAN, under Kuku has taken some actions to enhance efficient dissemination of its activities, encourage media monitoring and partnership as well as embarked on measures aimed at increasing its revenue generation from protocol and excursion services to boost the authority’s internally generated revenue. Kuku has also improved on executive protocol service and excursion services for FAAN’s clients.

    She has upgraded customer service lounges at some of the airports as well as provided dedicated hotlines/telephone numbers in four of the major international airports. There is also the service charter that is aimed at educating stakeholders on their rights that she has developed, even as there is now much more increased customer engagement and guide, among others.

    Significant progress has also been made in FAAN’s other departments like commercial and business development, that is, among others, and in partnership with a private company, trying to attract the first aircraft manufacturing company in West Africa into Nigeria.

    Her achievements also include strengthening the authority’s collaboration with critical stakeholders like the Nigerian Export Promotion Council and the World Economic Forum, to boost the authority’s trade facilitation role.

    Kuku is also not relegating staff welfare, knowing full well the benefits from well-motivated members of the staff; she has seen to the implementation of the new minimum wage to over 9,989 of FAAN’s workers and 5,432 pensioners, clearing all arrears from August 1, 2024, to March 2025, as at May, this year.

    Other departments like legal services corporate services and special duties have also recorded noticeable achievements.

    Perhaps the area of her achievements which interests me most is the N345bn revenue that she reportedly made within one year in office; that is from January to December, 2024. This represented about 82 per cent increase over the previous year’s. 

    This, for sure, is something to crow about.

    But then, it should not be surprising, given her background as financial expert and especially, her tough posture against corruption, which usually constitutes a huge drain to the coffers of many government establishments. One area where this corruption manifests is in the award of contracts. Kuku has brought relative sanity to the process, sacking the about four companies that used to corner major contracts awarded by the authority. Today, the Procurement Act is the canon that determines who gets what contract, and it is scrupulously followed.

    Similarly, touting in and around the airports have been seriously reduced. Unlike before, only official protocol officers duly assigned can be seen moving freely around the airports. The main consequence of this is reduction in loss of travellers’ valuables.

    It is significant that many of Kuku’s achievements so far speak directly to some of the observed lapses by ICAO, in 2024. But the authority has to do more on perimeter fencing. 

    She cannot afford to rest on her oars until FAAN has substantially done its part to make our airports as customer-friendly, safe and secure, as possible.

    Born on August 25, 1972, Kuku had her early education in Nigeria before proceeding to the University of Illinois in 2000 where she obtained a degree in finance. She followed this up with a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) in International Finance and Strategic Management from DePaul University’s Kellstadt in Illinois, United States.

    She had served in different capacities at different times, including Visa, where she was vice president and head of Visa Consulting and Analytics for Sub-Saharan Africa; Ernst & Young (EY) where she was a partner in business consulting, before moving to the aviation sector where she has been in the last two decades or so, also in different capacities.

    She was at the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) where she served in advisory capacity on strategy and infrastructure development and general manager for business development and investment. So, she is not a complete stranger to the aviation sector. The experiences that she has gathered as a financial expert and those in the aviation sector are enough to see her through in a role that for over 47 years has been dominated by men.

    Mercifully, she is said to be an amiable team player, a thing that must have helped tremendously in achieving the much she has been able to achieve in so short a time.

    But she must do more for various reasons. First, she cannot disappoint the president who appointed her to the position, especially as the first female to occupy that office. Second, she needs to improve on the ICAO rating, even if it is good at 71 per cent. Third, next year would make it 50 years that FAAN was established. What she does within the time of her appointment and then will determine whether she really wants to celebrate, rather than merely mark, FAAN’s Golden Jubilee, next year.

    For now, of course, it is still work in progress at FAAN.

  • Tunji Bello, the cheerful donor

    Tunji Bello, the cheerful donor

    • It is only selfless service that could have made TB gift a 550-seater ultra-modern auditorium to LASU

    I had thought I would need speeches delivered by some of the eminent personalities at the formal handover of the state-of-the-art auditorium presented to the Lagos State University (LASU) by the donor, Mr Olatunji Bello (known as TB among his colleagues), the vice chairman/chief executive officer of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), to write this piece. But, I changed my mind after reading Bello’s own speech and his wife’s address at the occasion. What they said met every criterion I was looking for to write this column; from the philosophical to the scriptural, the moral, the philanthropic and what have you. You would see evidence of Bello’s journalistic expertise and experience all rolled into one, and his wife’s erudite address just adequate to serve as raw materials for a piece like this. 

    Intentionally or unintentionally, Bello’s speech answered the questions of what we call the ‘Five Ws’ in news writing: What? Where? When? Who and Why! Sometimes we may add the How?  You begin to see evidence of this right from the title of the speech:  ‘Why I built auditorium for LASU’.

    I was at the ceremony, so I could still remember some of the interesting things said by some of the people present, if necessary.

    Permit me, therefore, to begin from the beginning. And that is going to be straight from the horse’s mouth: ” Let it be recognised that we are not just commissioning a chamber to impact knowledge, but also witness, firsthand, the force of faith, the prophetic power of the tongue and what is possible when we all commit to the pursuit of public good.” That was Bello speaking.

    But the auditorium is not his first philanthropic duty to education. When he clocked 50 in 2011, he instituted an annual prize in five disciplines dedicated exclusively to brilliant but indigent students of Lagos State origin in the university, at least so they would not drop out of their academic pursuit simply on account of their parents’ inability to sponsor them. As his wife, Prof Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, who, incidentally is the vice-chancellor of the university noted in her speech at the ceremony, ”This donation compliments his annual N100,000 endowment for the best graduating students in the Faculty of Engineering, Social Sciences, Mass Communication, Law and MBBS Degree Examination at our Convocations.” This annual prize is running till date.

    It was in TB’s quest to do something bigger that the idea of the auditorium came into focus. When his amiable wife mooted the idea of the auditorium, little did she know she would be the vice-chancellor at the time it would be handed over to the university.  So, it is only fortuitous that she is not witnessing the handover as an observer or very important visitor, but as the donor’s spouse and vice-chancellor. 

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    But it is one thing to have an idea; it is another to bring it to fruition. Because nothing good comes easy, the cost implications initially scared Bello after it was presented to him by the architect. But, as they say, ‘where there is the will, there is a way’. But it is not all the time that even that will comes easy. In Bello’s case, it involved personal sacrifice, which was heavy, too. For TB, there was only one option if he was to reach his goal of delivering a befitting auditorium to LASU; that was to merely mark, (not celebrate) his 60th birthday the way a politician of his status would. Otherwise, he would have spent a fortune just as he would have reaped a fortune that he may decide to keep in his bank account, from the celebration, instead of investing it in humanity.   

    It was at this point that the Miracle Worker intervened and deposited the idea of what to do to raise money for the project in Bello’s mind. Again, listen to TB: ”But when God gives you a vision, God Almighty will also provide the means in miraculous ways. Of course, God’s miracle sometimes comes by having some brilliant ideas suddenly deposited in your mind. After days of wrestling with the architect’s budget in my head, it suddenly occurred to me I could ask those going to buy me gifts for the 60th birthday to monetise such and hand me the cash to do something really dear to my heart.”

    Bello is not done.

    ”It worked. A very wealthy friend and known businessman had wanted to surprise me with a brand new Toyota Land-cruiser Jeep. I appealed to him to convert it to cash. With donations from other able friends and well-wishers, we got started in 2021.”

    Things appeared to be going smoothly until late 2023 when fuel subsidy withdrawal and the merger of the foreign exchange markets inevitably led to price hikes. In government parlance, they would need to do cost variation. TB was faced with this problem as well. But he persevered, believing that God would never start a thing He cannot finish.

    ”The toughest moment being late 2023 and early 2024 when the Naira went down and inflation upset all previous calculations. It meant that the costs were almost tripled at the point of buying finishing materials. To continue, I had to sell my property at Magodo Estate to keep the workers on site in order that it may not become an abandoned project after three years of construction.”

    As he said, ” To God be the glory, the rest is history.”

    But the rest is not just history; the end-product is the N500 million 550-seater magnificent edifice that is sitting majestically beside the Faculty of Environmental Sciences on the Epe Campus of LASU: the Tunji Bello Auditorium: The reason for the gathering of dignitaries who had honoured Bello with their presence at the handover ceremony on August 20. These included Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, his deputy, his deputy, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, the Minister of Education, Mr. Tunji Alausa, former Governor of Ogun State, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, among others. 

    This piece cannot be complete without some mention of TB’s wife, Prof Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, for two reasons. One is the biblical injunction of ‘what God has joined together, let no man put asunder’. Beyond that is the axiom that ‘beside every successful man is a successful woman’. This is true of Tunji Bello.

    An elated Prof Olatunji-Bello could not but show her gratitude to her husband: ”this facility represents more than architectural beauty; it is a strategic investment in academic excellence and institutional identity. It reinforces the fundamental truth that when we invest in education, we invest in tomorrow’s leaders. Hon. Tunji Bello has, through words and deed, inscribed his name in the permanent record of LASU’s growth story.” She added: ”For a campus housing the Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, and School of Agriculture, this auditorium marks a significant milestone toward achieving Goal 3 of our administration: making infrastructural facilities available and accessible for seamless academic and administrative operations.”

    Expectedly, the vice-chancellor did a lot of advertisement for her university, among which is that today, it stands as Nigeria’s most preferred university, with a diverse student body of over 60,000, brilliant, and ambitious. Of course, she also seized the opportunity to mention some of the university’s needs, top of which is electricity supply. There cannot be a more auspicious occasion to mention all of those needs than when the governor, Sanwo-Olu, is physically around, the first of its kind to the university campus in his official capacity as Visitor.

    True, LASU has seen significant improvements all over since she came on board as vice-chancellor in September 2021. To go beyond these would attract passing a bill to the university to pay. But this is not the time for that.

    At this juncture, the question: who are TB’s models in philanthropy? Usually, people have role models that inspire them to go into the kind of philanthropy that Bello has done. These included his late father, Alhaji Azeez Olatunji Bello who donated a large parcel of land to accommodate what we now know as Ansar Ud Deen College at Isolo in Lagos, in the 1950s. Then, Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, who, according to TB ”on a single day in the late 80s, announced an endowment for universities across Nigeria.”

    We also have incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who, when he was Governor of Lagos State, donated his salaries and allowances to the cause of charities, including orphanages. About four years ago, he also announced an endowment fund of one billion naira to LASU.

    We have all of these people to thank for their impactful lifestyle on TB. But Prof Olatunji-Bello seems the person to thank most. Most women in her position would have gone for vanity when a crucial decision like the one that led to the donation of the Olatunji Bello Auditorium arose. Many women would have gone for the ‘owanbe’ party that people would long have forgotten about, even if they had served guests with elephants and human flesh. Like my father would always say, the greeting is usually the same: ‘e ku inawo ana’ (congratulations on the success of yesterday’s event), irrespective of what you served the guests! 

    As a matter of fact, a colleague of mine and I saw at least two examples of the vanity that life or excessive material accumulation could become, especially when the original owner dies, when we were returning from the handover event on Wednesday. We could not but help bemoan the plight of the deceased owners of those edifices, seeing all they laboured for becoming desolate only a few years after their passage. I want to become this; I want to build an empire on four football fields; it’s all vanity when death comes. That person would be taken out of the mansion when he dies and sometimes people who did not know how he made it would start struggling with the children for the mansions.

    But Olatunji Bello Auditorium will continue to speak long after TB would have gone because many generations are going to sip from the well that would dispense knowledge in the place for the benefit of the country and humanity at large. What he has done for LASU and people that have had cause to cross his path would be the legacies that he would leave behind.  

    Bello has benefitted so much from Lagos and it is good he realised the importance of giving back to Lagos and even beyond, part of what he benefitted. Nigeria would be a better place if our wealthy people invest in education rather than frivolities.

  • Reward for loyalty

    Reward for loyalty

    But Dayo Adeyeye’s resilience, patience, brilliance, etc. also count in his appointment as NPA chair

    It is only those who do not know Dayo Adeyeye that would be wondering what his mission was when on Tuesday, last week, he addressed the press on the achievements of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration in the last 26 months, at the Radisson Blu Hotel, G.R.A., Ikeja, Lagos. Those who know him know that he was only doing what he knows how to do best: put his imprimatur on anything Tinubu, especially as far as his performance so far as president is concerned. The press statement was appropriately titled: “You ain’t seen nothing yet! Swaga 2.0”.

    In listing a significant number of the achievements of the Tinubu administration in the last two years, and in his expression of optimism on the government’s direction, in spite of what some cynics say or feel about the administration, Adeyeye is only acting in line with his tradition. He came up with the South West Agenda for Asiwaju (SWAGA) at a time nobody gave the group a chance.

    Adeyeye is not a latter day Tinubu convert. The journey dates back to the days of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), when some prominent Nigerians teamed up to ensure that the military regimes in power before 1999 honoured their promise to quit the political scene on schedule.

    Adeyeye’s latest avowal of the faith in Tinubu presidency began with the founding of SWAGA that he leads, in 2020. That was three years before the 2023 General Election that eventually saw the emergence of Tinubu as the flag bearer of the All Progressive’s Congress (APC), and ultimately, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    Although Tinubu had many support groups, SWAGA was an early comer. It was not only an early comer, it is self-sustaining. Bosun Oladele, a former member of the House of Representatives and SWAGA’s national secretary, said: “Every money we have spent so far has been from our personal contributions without support from anyone, including Asiwaju himself. Till today, we have not gone to ask him for any financial support. It is a cause we believe in and are convinced about, and so our members have resolved to put in everything they can, both physical and material resources, to ensure it succeeds.” That was three years after founding the group.

    So, when Adeyeye was appointed chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) in July, last year, many saw it as an appointment well deserved. Not only from the angle of being compensated for believing so much in the man, Tinubu, but also because he is eminently qualified for the appointment. That his inauguration took so long in coming was the shocker.

    Opeyemi Bamidele, the Senate Leader noted this much at a reception in honour of Adeyeye last month, following his inauguration: “If anyone had told me it would take this long for Senator Adeyeye to be appointed, I would have said it’s impossible.” He was obviously referring to the one year interregnum within which Adeyeye was in limbo after his appointment as NPA chairman, as he was not inaugurated until about a year later.

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    “He (Adeyeye) was among the first to champion this movement and stuck with it through thick and thin. That’s why this moment is not just a personal victory for him—it’s symbolic of loyalty finally being rewarded,” Opeyemi said.

    Musiliu Obanikoro, former Minister of State for Defence and senator, also at the reception, praised Adeyeye’s political commitment, loyalty and early investment in Tinubu’s ambition.

    “You threw yourself into the SWAGA business when it wasn’t popular,” Obanikoro said. He added: “When Asiwaju was taken with reservations, you criss-crossed the entire south-west for him. The appointment you got is well deserved. I am happy you have been recognised. This is only the beginning.”

    Ayo Arise, a former Ekiti north senator, echoed similar sentiments when he noted that Adeyeye’s contributions to the Tinubu campaign and the APC in the south-west were both strategic and sacrificial. “The role Adeyeye played wasn’t just political—it was foundational. He took risks, built alliances, and never wavered,” Arise said.

    Ekiti State governor, Biodun Oyebanji, said the appointment was a significant honour not just for Adeyeye but for the entire state. “The president gave this position to Ekiti, and he could not have chosen better,” Oyebanji said.

    One significant thing at this reception was the presence of former governors Ayodele Fayose and Segun Oni at the event. Of course this also was not accidental. It tells a lot about Adeyeye’s personality as a bridge builder.

    Another important characteristic of Adeyeye is his resilience which manifested in his handling of his long delay in being inaugurated. He took things in their stride. In a situation where several other politicians would have lost their heads, he kept his cool.

    He said, in his remark at the reception: “He (the president) told me not to worry, that he had plans for me. And he kept that promise.”

    Of course this piece won’t be complete if I do not share part of my personal experiences about Adeyeye. Our paths crossed in 1985 when I went for an interview at The Punch. About 40-something of us had turned up for the interview and I remember the people in charge, including Adeyeye, who was then Features Editor of the newspaper, told us then they were after merit. Another person who played a prominent role during that process was Alhaji Nojeem Jimoh, the deputy to the then editor of the daily editor, Mr Nurudeen Alade Balogun, the one we popularly called ‘Uncle NAT’ (now of blessed memory).

    We had the tests in both newspaper production and feature article. I remember I based my feature article on Decree 4 promulgated by the Buhari/Idiagbon junta in 1984. I knew within me that I did very well in that article in which I relied substantially on a piece by the (then) Dr Olatunji Dare (now professor) in The Guardian which I read hours before the interview, as something kept telling me it was going to be useful to me.

    There is no doubt that Jimoh and Adeyeye kept to their promise to select based strictly on merit because if it had been based on ‘man know man’, I would have had no chance of being employed. Some of our colleagues that came for the interview happened to know Jimoh and may be ‘Uncle NAT’. They even went into their offices to take bottled water while those of us who knew nobody in the system were wondering if we were not just wasting our time coming for the interview.

    Surprisingly, they started releasing the results in batches of 10. One feature writer, Jide Kutelu (now of blessed memory too) was the one who came to announce the names of those that had been dropped in batches. In the end, only four of us that knew nobody in the place were the last men standing, and we eventually got the job. To the glory of God, I later became editor of the daily title of the newspaper, years later.

    For me, this is another plus for Adeyeye, a brilliant mind if you ask me. Fidelity. President Tinubu obviously took his eyes to the market in making him chairman of the NPA.

    Be that as it may, however, Adeyeye and I related again in 1998/1999) when he engaged me to do some media research job for Chief Olu Falae who was contesting for president, against General Olusegun Obasanjo in the 1999 General Election. Falae didn’t have the kind of war chest that Obasanjo had access to but this did not deter Adeyeye from sticking with him. So, when they say they funded SWAGA all by themselves without support, one should know where he is coming from.  

    Interestingly, while Alhaji Nojeem and I have never lost touch even though both of us left The Punch a long time ago, I think I only met Adeyeye at a function once when he was either senator or minister of state for works. Beyond wishing him well on both occasions, I never made any attempt to see him in either capacity again.

    But I got interested in his matter when he was appointed NPA chair and he was not inaugurated months after.

    Adeyeye is not only all about SWAGA. He is several things rolled into one. He has had a work experience spanning three major professional fields – teaching, journalism and legal practice. He is also a successful politician who has played major roles on Nigeria’s political stage for decades.

    Apart from being a member of NADECO, he was also Director of Publicity, Falae for President Campaign Organisation (1990-1992); Adviser on Policy and Press Matters, M.K.O. Abiola for President Campaign Organisation (1993).

    He was also the spokesperson for the Alliance for Democracy (AD) from 2004 to 2006; and a member of the South-West Delegation to the Nigerian leaders of Thought Conference, Abuja. Adeyeye was the youngest of the 21 leaders who represented the South Western zone of Nigeria at the Conference (2001). He was also the National Publicity Secretary of the Pan Yoruba Socio-political group, Afenifere, between 2001 and 2004.

    Adeyeye’s election as Senator for Ekiti South Senatorial District in 2019 was later upturned by the election tribunal in favour of his closest rival, Abiodun Olujimi, after the recalculation of the results. Since then, he has been playing one political role or the order, including national chairmanship of SWAGA ’23 since 2020.

    He contested twice as governorship aspirant in Ekiti State (2006 and 2018) and lost in controversial primaries. Adeyeye was also nominated twice for appointment as a minister; he lost the first under President Umaru Yar’Adua but was confirmed under Goodluck Jonathan as Minister of State for Works between 2014 and 2015.

    That is not all. Adeyeye is a former Executive Chairman of Ekiti State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), during which he recorded several achievements and won the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) award as the best chairman in the South-West of Nigeria in 2008. The award came along with a cash prize of N70million. He again won the same award in 2009. He used the funds derived from the awards to provide more infrastructures for schools across Ekiti State. That same year, Adeyeye was adjudged the most innovative SUBEB chairman in Nigeria by the Presidential Committee on Schools’ debate.

    Adeyeye, who was appointed Pro-Chancellor of Ekiti State University in June 2015, holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Ibadan (1978), and a master’s degree in political science (international relations) from the University of Lagos (1981). He also obtained a law degree from the University of Lagos in 1986 and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1987.

    I need to go to this extent to tell who the man, Dayo Adeyeye is; so as to justify that he is eminently qualified for the appointment as NPA chairman.

    An Ise-Ekiti prince, Adeyeye was born on April 4, 1957, in Ise-Ekiti to the royal family of Oba David Opeyemi Adeyeye, Agunsoye II, the Arinjale of Ise Ekiti (who reigned between 1932 and 1976), and Olori Mary Ojulege Adeyeye, a princess of Are, Ikere-Ekiti.

    But Adeyeye must remember his promise:  “The president promised a quality board, and he delivered. We are ready to work together as a family and move the port authority forward.”

    NPA deserves nothing less. So, Adeyeye must justify the confidence reposed in him by the president.