Tunji Adegboyega

With the commissioning, on August 11, of the Oshodi-Abule-Egba Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, commuters on that axis and their visitors are in for a new travel experience. Their journey time on the 13.65 km road is expected to be reduced at least by half, from over one hour to less than 30 minutes. Not only that, the governor also deployed an additional 550 high and medium capacity buses on the road, as well as launched the extended E-ticketing system.

Speaking during the inauguration of the infrastructure at the Dopemu bus shelter, Sanwo-Olu said the ceremony was a fulfilment of his administration’s pledge to improve traffic management and transportation system in the state. “Although our promise was to deliver this project in May, this year, it had to be shifted forward due to the disruption brought about by COVID-19”, the governor said. He added: “This new BRT corridor will bring great relief to over 60,000 commuters who will use this facility daily. Travel time, which is estimated at an average of two hours during peak periods, will be significantly reduced to an average of about thirty minutes. This will translate to improved health of our people, a safer environment, and increased value of socio economic activities in our state.” Lagosians should also be told that the fares on the buses are high for now due to the fact that the buses must still maintain social-distancing by carrying fewer passengers.

It is heartwarming that the governor acknowledged that the project was started by his predecessor, Akinwunmi Ambode. That is maturity, something the immediate past governor did not demonstrate when President Muhammadu Buhari came to Lagos to commission some projects started by Ambode’s predecessor, Babatunde Fashola, and commissioned during his (Ambode’s) administration.

This piece is neither to ‘bury’ Ambode nor to praise Sanwo-Olu. But to point out certain shortcomings that dogged the newly commissioned project so that some lessons can be learnt. Going forward, the state government has to be mindful of one major error of the Ambode administration: the neglect of many other important projects and sectors simply because the then governor took on many financially-guzzling projects simultaneously, including the Oshodi-Abule-Egba BRT corridor.

Many street lights never worked at least about two years to the end of the government’s tenure. Yet, it was the same government that launched the Light up Lagos Project in 2016, to complement security in the state. I recollect the campaign I did on this page for the street lights on Fatai Atere Way for months. I started the campaign about six months after noticing that the lights were not working and I sustained it for months without any significant attention from the state government. The best that happened was that at a point after my campaign, about 10 of the over 30 lights started working in fits and starts. But not at any time in the life of that administration was there light on more than 11 of the poles until the administration left office. Today, Fatai Atere Way is still in darkness.

I only used Fatai Atere Way as an example. Many other streets in Lagos suffered the same fate. The same applied to many inner roads that almost became impassable. I had cause to name some of the terrible roads I had the misfortune of passing through then, including the long stretch that links Ten Acres in Isheri-Oshun to the road from Jakande Estate in Isolo.

Needless to mention the crisis of the heaps of refuse which almost submerged Lagos.

Development should be progressive. Maintenance of the infrastructure already provided is also key. Developmental projects should be complimentary and not that already provided infrastructure should suffer on account of new ones being constructed. I remember vividly well asking some of the people in the government then if the concentration of heavy construction works in the Abule-Egba, Agege axis was well thought-out. If it was, it should have been clear to at least someone in government that such concentration of heavy construction works in one axis – the Abule-Egba Bridge, the Pen Cinema road as well as the Airport Road – would foreclose the opportunity of alternative routes when these projects are on. This was what exactly happened.

Indeed, those of us who must use that axis were in severe pains at those periods such that people started complaining aloud, especially with transport fares rising astronomically. I remember a day when it took me more than four hours to get home from work (usually about 40 minutes journey), despite leaving the office late in the night, thinking that the traffic would be light then. Alas, I was mistaken! It was (I think) some minutes to 12 in the midnight and the traffic was still hectic. A caller’s response to the soothing words that a Lagos Traffic Radio presenter offered conveyed the public angst at the development, which had become a daily occurrence. The presenter had used a Yoruba proverb that tribal marks, when being incised are painful but the pain soon gives way to beauty when they would have healed (tita riro lan ko ila, to ba jina tan, a di oge). In other words, people should be patient and bear with the government. Another caller responded that we did not have to die before we live.

Be that as it may, I have had cause to suggest that instead of having many bad roads that government does not have the resources to tar at the same time, it should be possible to work out an arrangement where the roads are classified according to their state, with the government identifying those that require being tarred immediately, while some others are graded in the meantime. In all cases, however, drainage should be provided. That way, complaints of bad roads would be reduced. Nigerians are minimalists. As they usually say, ‘at all at all na im bad’. They will still understand with government if their roads are such that they don’t have to dance ‘palongo’ on them.

So, there is need to strengthen and adequately fund the Lagos State Public Works Corporation to enable it perform its functions better. It should be working round-the-clock, ensuring that cracks on roads are patched as soon as they occur. It does not have to wait till potholes become craters. The fact is that the buses that are being deployed on the BRT routes now are too fragile to be punished with travelling on bad roads. This will increase their  maintenance cost as well as shorten their lifespan.

The truth of the matter is that even the middle-class Lagosians will patronise those buses if well maintained. I remember the experience of ‘Park and Ride’ here in Lagos in the ’70s. It was embraced by many people that could then be considered as executives even then because it saved them the hassles of the ‘odd and even’ number policy of the state government on the roads. It was even relatively cheaper and convenient. That was at a time when Nigerians were, literally speaking, being dashed petrol. More executives will embrace the BRT buses if the conditions are right, thereby taking off many vehicles off the roads.

One other area the state government has to go tough on is the issue of ‘okada’ riders and some motorists who seemed to have gotten used to the BRT lanes. They have more or less converted the Oshodi-Abule-Egba corridor to their road, especially since the renewed crackdown on restriction of ‘okada’ on the expressway. Apparently they see it as a haven for them since they cannot ply the main road again for fear of arrest. What baffles me is the fact that oftentimes at the Ikeja Bus Stop area where the Lagos State task force responsible for the enforcement of ‘okada’ ban impounds their motorcycles, these ‘okada’ riders still use the BRT lane and drop off their passengers a few metres to where the task force officials are. Given the rate at which these motorcycles continue to multiply in spite of the seizures, I often wonder whether these seized motorcycles are truly crushed as we are often made to understand, or they are given back to their owners after they would have bribed some of the task force officials?

Whatever, with the commissioning of the BRT corridor, those plying the lanes illegally – the ‘okada’ riders and motorists – must be made to understand that the ‘honeymoon’ is over and that the state government means business with regard to enforcement of its road traffic law. If this requires making some people scapegoats, so be it.

The state government has to move fast on this matter before those involved in the illegality begin to see the lanes as their birthright or natural entitlement; an impression they could derive from their long use of the lanes with little or no disturbance. Otherwise, there would be needless loss of lives as a result of avoidable collisions between these law breakers and the BRT vehicles. Moreover, the goal of reduced travel time on the corridor would be defeated because the law breakers would impede free flow of traffic that the BRT lanes are supposed to guarantee. And, if this advantage is lost, the billions that the project gulped would have been money down the drain.

I have also had cause to criticise the Oshodi and Ikeja interchanges as white elephant projects. I still believe so. The same way I think we do not need the glass houses bus stops that we have on that route. Given our environment, functional shelters would do. I hope to be proved wrong that we have not built free flats and duplexes for ‘area boys’ and girls who would, over time, begin to scramble for and partition the shelters in order to carve out fiefdoms for themselves. And, as we know, theirs is jungle life where might is right. I hope too that we have not provided free accommodation to rapists and other criminals.

Even before the commissioning of the facility last week, some of the barricades used to discourage people from crossing arbitrarily on the road had been pulled down. We should have learnt from our experiences with such barricades on Ikorodu Road. Iron bars that cannot easily be uprooted would have been better. They may not be as fanciful as the wires that people are just removing with little stress, but they would have served the deterrence purpose better.

The takeaways: We look forward to more developmental strides in Lagos but they should be done with minimal pain to Lagosians. Two, government does not have to stretch itself lean such that one major project would make it difficult or impossible for it to cater to other competing needs. Moreover, government should be guided by experience in the provision of amenities. We should not have a similar experience of a road having four lanes at some points only to collapse it to two at some other sections.

Nonetheless, kudos must still go to the Ambode government that began the project and the incumbent Governor Sanwo-Olu that saw it through. Governance is a continuum and since no human being or even government is perfect, we can all only learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others, so that we do not repeat those same mistakes.

By Tunji Adegboyega

Transport minister Rotimi Amaechi missed the point when he said only Nigerians who do not intend to repay loans would see something wrong with the conditions (or is it conditionalities?) attached to the $500m loan the country intends to take from China’s Export-Import Bank, which Nigeria is seeking for railway construction and other projects. While many Nigerians have complained about what they termed sovereignty clause in the agreement, the minister said the probe that the House of Representatives Committee on Treaties, Protocols and Agreements was conducting into Nigeria’s use of foreign loans to finance infrastructure projects could negatively affect how foreign lenders perceive the country and, in turn, affect infrastructure projects in the country. His defence that the clauses in the agreement were standard applicable clauses has not changed anything about the average Nigerian’s suspicion and fears about the loan. “I have said that these are standard clauses in international commercial agreements. We have been keeping to our repayment plans and we will repay our loans”, the minister was quoted by Channels Television to have said.”

The minister told the committee members to wait till December after the loan  must have been signed, sealed and delivered before probing it. In other words, we should assume that those who are taking the loan must have done the rightful to get a fair deal for Nigerians. But, suppose they did not? Won’t it be too late for us to complain and make amends? And Nigerians would now look like fools to be complaining after the fact because people would then start asking where they were when the loan agreements were being tidied up.

One thing that the minister lost sight of is the fact that Nigerians have more than the requisite experience when it comes to taking loans. They know that most of the loans taken on behalf of the country never went into any specific project. They also know that those who negotiated some contractual agreements on the country’s behalf either did so to benefit themselves, or were simply ignorant of the details of what they signed.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his days in government said what Nigeriansa had always known – that many of the sites for projects that loans were taken on behalf of Nigeria were never cleared, not to talk of the projects taking off. Unfortunately, Nigerians who never saw any dividend of the loans would be the ones to carry the burden long after those who contracted the loans would have left office or died.

Nigerians had been too trusting of public officials in the past. Because they had been beaten several times, they have now learnt to be cynical at best. For me, when many government officials tell me good morning, I want to pull my window blind to peep outside and be sure it’s not good night. I guess that is the way many Nigerians feel where our government officials are concerned. We cannot count the number of loans that many of them had shared among themselves, leaving the ever-impoverished masses with the headache of repayment.

That is what does not seem to be clear to Mr. Amaechi. Long after he would have ceased to be minister, we would still be repaying the loans. He himself put the repayment period at 20 years. It is true that we recycle public officials here, but then, in 20 years’ time, the minister would be 75 years old. It is doubtful if Nigerians would be willing to have people of such age as ministers or even president by that time, even if they (the gerontocrats) so wished.

Apparently, the minister was taken aback by the determination of the House committee to know the nitty-gritty of the loan, which is the right thing to do in a democracy. It has not always been so in the country, especially when the power in the centre also controls the national legislative house, as in the present case. May be the minister expected the committee to simply ask him to take a bow and leave, with the members clapping in tow.

Moreover, the minister’s submissions at the hearing seemed to suggest desperation for the loan and desperate people can do anything to get anything. The more reason why everything about this particular loan and indeed all other loans and agreements entered into by Nigeria must be scrutinised before approval is given by the National Assembly. Even beggars now have choice. Gone were those days when you just slipped a miserable N5 note into a beggar’s hand. He would look at you with one kind eye. Needless to say you don’t expect him to pray for you from the bottom of his heart!

Are we now on all fours to secure a $500m loan just because we have refused to translate our perpetually potential greatness into actual greatness these past decades? What a pity! This was an amount we could have dashed any of our neighbours in Nigeria’s lifetime without thinking twice. There was indeed a country!

Another critical point that Amaechi did not reckon with is that you can only take chances with the Chinese at your own risk and peril. Whereas they do not take nonsense when something concerns them, they do not care about serving others shit. Their laws are unsparing of crimes and criminals in their own country, with people getting the death penalty despite the growing global calls for its abrogation. The Chinese would take none of that. But that is in so far as their country is concerned. For other countries, anything goes. This is unlike the West. Despite whatever criticisms one may have against them, they still have ways of punishing their own companies which commit infractions even outside their countries.

And, to think that China and our country were both fellow backbenchers in the comity of nations about five decades ago! For me, this is what should pain us most as Nigerians. Kai Huang, a former data analyst described China in the 1970s as: “Poor, chaotic, and hope. The great cultural revolution ended in 1976, and the country’s door opened in 1979, which is called the “opening-up policy”. Many factories moved into China, people stoped quarrelling and started to make money. The GDP has increased fastly since then. It lays the foundation of the modern China.”

China’s is a leader in gold mining and other resources. The same way Nigeria is a major oil producer. What has made the difference in so short a time between Nigeria and China and some other Asian Tigers is leadership.

Leadership. Yes, that has been the bane of Nigeria and, from certain developments in the country, including the ongoing political realignments (prostitution, actually), there is little to cheer. Indeed, this is another strong reason we need to interrogate those signing agreements on our behalf. What is their pedigree? What side of the ideological divide can they be identified with, etc? Unstable characters cannot be expected to take ‘stable’ decisions for the country.

It is however soul-lifting that Nigerians appear to be showing more interest in a matter like this that is going to affect not only our lives but also those of our coming generations. But, beyond the noise, people should begin to insist that those who took loans on the country’s behalf in the past should be called to account for what they did with the loans. At least those of them that are unfortunate to still be alive. Despite its being blessed abundantly with human and material resources, Nigeria had taken so much foreign loans that it is difficult to remember all of them. The argument has always been that no nation can survive without borrowing, which, for me is bunkum. Or that we are under-borrowing. Nations are not all the same. A country with a working judicial system that promptly punishes crime is different from one like ours where many of its prominent lawyers engage in legal shenanigans to waste the time of our courts and  eventually get their corrupt but influential clients off the hook through legal technicalities. We have seen certified thieves being freed by the courts in several instances when it is obvious even to the blind that these highly influential criminals are guilty of the crimes for which they have been accused. Of course the lawyers can only be doing these things in collaboration with their ilk on the bench.

The truth of the matter is that in those saner climes, including even China, corrupt big people who cannot stand the shame of going to prison simply commit suicide. In Nigeria, they not only walk our streets free, they flaunt their ill-gotten wealth as private citizens in a manner that offends our sensibilities; with some of them taking cover in government with plum public positions, including ministerial appointments, to boot, as if that is the way to reward corruption.

Responsible parents leave good inheritance for their children. If we cannot do that, we should at least not leave a mountain of debts for them. There is a lot to worry about, for a country whose external debt is projected to breach a 15-year trigger at about $27bn by the end of 2020, from about $9.7bn in 2015. Please let no one repeat the cliche that we are still okay considering our debt to GDP ratio.

It is true that no country, including Nigeria, can ignore China today. But if we must do business with them, we must do so with our eyes wide open. These Chinese are smart; too smart for any analogue leadership in a digital era. It will be suicidal to be colonised by the Chinese. It is going to be colonialism without human face.

Tunji Adegboyega

Governor Babagana Umara Zulum of Borno State is one governor whose activities I have been following for some months now. I had wanted to write on him in May, when he clocked one year in office. I saw some of the projects he had executed within the period, particularly the model schools that he built, and some other projects that were inaugurated to mark his first anniversary. Somehow, some other developments pushed my decision to comment on his administration to some future date.

Somehow, that future date is here. The impetus this time was the attack on his convoy on July 29 by Boko Haram insurgents on Maiduguri-Damaturu highway. Five people, including three policemen, were reportedly killed during the incident.

Since his first appointment as Assistant Technical Officer in Borno State Civil Service in the state’s ministry of agriculture in 1989, Zulum’s profile has been rising. In 1990, he moved to the state’s Unified Local Government Service as Senior Field Overseer and later Principal Water Engineer.

He crossed over to the University of Maiduguri where he was engaged as assistant lecturer in 2000; he rose to the rank of Professor in the university. Zulum became Deputy Dean and Acting Dean, Faculty of Engineering in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

He was appointed Rector, Ramat Polytechnic in 2011. Meanwhile, he retained his teaching position in the University of Maiduguri. In 2015, the state governor, Kashim Shetima appointed him as Commissioner for Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, a position he held till 2018.

Apparently it was the way and manner he carried out his assignment as commissioner that endeared him to Gov Shetima and the people of the state. Borno State is the epicenter of the Boko Haram insurgency. This being the case, his ministry was central to the main issue affecting the state.

The courage and passion that he brought to bear on his job made it easy for him to clinch the gubernatorial ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on October 1, 2018. He was subsequently elected governor in the governorship election on March 9, 2019, under the party’s platform.

Somehow, since then, there is no stopping him. Zulum has continued to steer the affairs of the state in a way that would make not only his predecessor and boss, Shettima, but majority of the people of the state, proud of him.

Born on August 26, 1969 in Mafa Local Government Area of the state, Zulum had his elementary education at Mafa Primary School from 1975 to 1980 and secondary education at Government Secondary School, Monguno, from 1980 to 1985, and proceeded to the University of Maiduguri, where he obtained a degree in Agriculture Engineering.

He did his National Youth Service at Katsina State Polytechnic. He obtained a Master’s degree in Agriculture Engineering at the University of Ibadan from 1997 to 1998. He returned to the University of Maiduguri for his PhD in Soil and Water Engineering in 2005, and completed the programme in 2009.

Something told me it was time to write on this governor who has been working round the clock to rebuild the state that has suffered much devastation from the activities of Boko Haram terrorists, after the attack on his convoy by the insurgents, last week.

Indeed, Zulum would seem God-sent to the state at this point in time. Borno State needs someone who would run it as business unusual, not a governor who would sit in his air conditioned office drinking tea and only enjoying the perks of office, sparing little or no thought for the electorate.

As at June, that is barely a year after his swearing in, he had undertaken 326 capital projects and 49 policies and programmes, some of which were capital-intensive, according to the Secretary to the Borno State Government, Usman Jidda Shuwa. These included construction of 6,544 sub-urban and low-cost houses in 12 local government areas for re-settlement of internally displaced persons and refugees.

Zulum also undertook 38 capital projects on water supply including drilling of 213 new boreholes, 18 projects on electrification, eight on agriculture and seven on vocational skills and entrepreneurship development.

Zulum had in July 2019 launched a ‘cash for sanitation’ programme through which 2,862 registered members of political thugs called “ECOMOG” were being paid N30,000 each for a period of six months while they abandoned thuggery and clean the streets to earn pay. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has adopted this as a model. He is constructing the first flyover in the state.

In demonstration of his passion for his people, he had, early in the year, precisely in January, had cause to accuse soldiers manning a portion of the Damaturu-Maiduguri Road of extortion. The governor, who was travelling to Jakana where Boko Haram had just struck then made the allegation when he ran into a long queue of vehicles at one of the checkpoints. “I’m going to report all of you in this unit… nobody can tolerate this.

Boko Haram is attacking people and you are here collecting N1,000 per car,” the governor angrily told the soldiers. The army command was obviously unhappy that the governor made the allegation in public adding that such an allegation was capable of reversing the gains the military has made in the anti-terror war.

The Baga attack made the governor to express his frustration over the military’s capacity to flush out the insurgents from Baga town in Kukawa local government area of the state. This is justifiable anger given that Baga town is only about 196 km from Maiduguri, the state capital.

Moreover, there is a huge military presence in Mile 4, about four kilometers from Baga. Zulum, who made the disclosures while flagging off the reopening of  Monguno Baga highway after two years of closure said: “You have been here for over one year now; there are 1,181 soldiers here, if you cannot take over Baga which is less than 5 km from your base.

“Then should we forget about Baga?”, he asked. He threatened that he would “inform the Chief of Army Staff to redeploy these men to other places that they can be useful. You people said there’s no Boko Haram here, then who attacked us? adding rather rhetorically “I doubt if there is any Boko Haram in this town, I can go in and sleep here.”

Moreover, the governor had earlier been assured by the Sector 3 Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole Baga, Brig-Gen. Garba, that the place had been rid of Boko Haram insurgents.

The trip was supposed to be a memorable one as it was one of Zulum’s humanitarian tours during which he led hundreds of residents of Kukawa, Cross and Baga to their ancestral towns, two years after they were sacked from there by Boko Haram.

Although Governor Zulum had safely returned to Maiduguri, the state capital, the army authorities must carry out its promise to probe the circumstances that made the governor’s convoy so easily vulnerable to such attack.

When our military and security agents give intelligence reports, those for whom such are meant must be able to take the reports as the gospel truth. If the governor got go-ahead to visit an area and his convoy was attacked, then it most probably means something is wrong with such report.

One can only hope it is not this kind of attitude that has made the anti-terror war seemingly intractable. One can only hope too that the army would not treat the governor’s allegation with levity this time around.

There is no way the terrorists would like a governor like Zulum. They (terrorists) see western education as evil, which is a cardinal campaign of their senseless war. But, Gov. Zulum has not only been erecting edifices where such type of education can take place, he has just promised to remodel some primary schools in line with his dream of how schools should be. This means clashes with the terrorists would be inevitable.

They would want to do everything to get rid of him so as to truncate his dream for the state and also dissuade other governors who might want to be as daring as him in terms of their policies and programmes. As a matter of fact, that heightened my fears when I saw pictures of those magnificent schools that he showcased as part of his 326 projects in one year in May.

What came to my mind then was whether there is adequate security for those structures so that the destructive elements would not bring them down overnight and cause the state government to begin again from scratch, wasting a lot of resources in the

But it would be foolhardy to completely ignore the enemy within in the convoy attack. Although it would seem there is a consensus that the governor is doing well, this might not necessarily be good news to everyone in the state, including some of his aides. It is possible some people are envious of him, especially over the favours he received from the immediate past governor of the state that shot him to power. Yet this was earned in that the former governor saw his dedication to duty, honesty, passion for his assignment as commissioner, etc. which endeared him to his boss.

But, whatever the case,the soldiers in the state have a duty to ensure adequate security there. That is why the army authorities must probe  the Baga attack and make their findings public.

But the governor too must take personal responsibility for his security. It is true he had been traversing the state in the course of his assignment as commissioner without security details and sometimes unaided; the truth is that levels have changed. He is no more a commissioner but the number one citizen of the state.

His actions and inactions, policies and programmes, no matter how laudable, would be different strokes to the different folks in the state. People benefitting from the ancient regime in the state can never be happy with the innovations he is bringing into governance. Governor Zulum has to realise that life has no duplicate.

He has to be alive to deliver the people of the state from the shackles of illiteracy, poverty, ignorance, superstition, etc. that he once went through before extricating himself from their firm grip.

Tunji Adegboyega

Since the establishment of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration in 2003, the commission has had four chairmen: Nuhu Ribadu, the pioneer chair; Farida Waziri (June 6, 2008-Nov. 23, 2011); Ibrahim Lamorde (Nov. 23, 2011-Nov. 9, 2015) and Ibrahim Magu (Nov. 9, 2015- July 10, 2020).

Magu has however been suspended by President Muhammadu Buhari, pending completion of investigation into his activities as the commission’s chair by a presidential panel set up for that purpose. The commission’s head of operations, Mohamed Umar, is to take charge in acting capacity.

Instructively, none of the EFCC bosses had what could be called a hitch-free tenure. Ribadu was accused of haunting only people opposed to the Obasanjo administration; ran into stormy waters and was removed on June 6, 2008, only to be demoted down two ranks in the police force exactly two months later.

Waziri was dismissed by President Goodluck Jonathan on Nov. 23, 2011, while Lamorde was sacked by President Buhari on Nov. 9, 2015.

The agency’s primary responsibility is to investigate financial crimes, including advance fee fraud (419 fraud) and money laundering.

The musical chairs scenarios in the commission’s top echelon should be understood not only in the context of a country where people eat corruption as if it is food, but also in the context of the usual fight back by the corrupt in every society where attempts are being made to combat their crime.

The fact is; corruption is sweet, even if cancerously so. This reminds me of the pun we used to make of the name of the commission’s pioneer chairman, Ribadu, which some people changed to Riba dun literally meaning ‘bribery is sweet’ in Yoruba language.

And when efforts are being made to take something that is sweet from those eating it, they won’t let go without a fight.

The only good EFCC boss would therefore be the one that would close his or her eyes to corrupt practices and hobnob with those who live by the scourge.

Although successive EFCC chairmen have somehow had it rough, Magu’s case has been spectacularly so in that he is the only one whose appointment was never confirmed by the senate.

Indeed, twice did President Buhari send his name for confirmation to the Eighth Senate, and twice did the Bukola Saraki-led senate refuse to confirm his appointment, ostensibly based on security reports.

In fairness to President Buhari, Magu has remained his beloved appointee in whom he appears well pleased. That is why he has kept him on the job despite the senate’s refusal to confirm his appointment, and despite the powerful forces opposed to his continued stay in office.

So, what happened now? Did Magu’s traducers succeed in presenting more convincing evidence to sway the president to their side? I don’t think so.

At least there is nothing to so suggest in the public domain. It is the same so-called security report that the Department of State Services (DSS) has kept on regurgitating since 2016.

That Magu is living in a N40m mansion paid for by one Umar Mohammed, a retired air commodore; that the apartment was furnished with another N43m; that Magu was strongly reprimanded by the Police Service Commission, having been found guilty of official infractions; that the EFCC chairman was fond of embarking on official trips in a private jet owned by the same Mohammed.

That he is fond of travelling first class despite presidential directive forbidding such; that Magu is re-looting the loot realised from corrupt persons, etc.

Given Magu’s response to the query issued by the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation in December 2016, all of these would seem like storm in a tea cup if there isn’t more to it than meets the eye.

It seems Magu’s enemies moved against him again to deny him of benefitting from the existing rapprochement between the executive and the legislature, probably sensing that the president may want to represent his name again for confirmation.

The situation on ground is that today, Magu, the hunter, is now hunted and has been undergoing interrogation since last week Monday.

Worse still, his arrest and detention has been designed to humiliate him. Those who orchestrated it want to sufficiently embarrass him such that he would find no attraction to return to office even if, per adventure, the panel finds nothing incriminating against him.

On the face value, the Presidency’s position on the investigation might appear unassailable: no one is above the law. Magu himself must have realised this.

But the arrest and detention reeks of vendetta and bad faith. This, really, is my worry and I guess the worry of millions of Nigerians who are watching the developments with keen interest.

When a 22-count charge is slammed against someone, including insubordination, it would be difficult for that person to escape, especially in a place like the EFCC which has the Federal Ministry of Justice headed by the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation as its supervising ministry.

The implication is that the EFCC can only go as far as the supervising ministry wants it to go. There have been instances even before Magu when both the ministry and the commission were having running battles over some cases where the attorney-general would want to file nolle prosequi whereas the commission felt otherwise.

In our kind of country where everyone in power wants to rub it in because of the absence of structures, a situation where people running a crucial agency like the EFCC have diametrically opposed interests cannot augur well for the country.

The same attorney-general Abubakar Malami who is at the forefront of the ‘Magu must go’ unfolding drama has not written to the president to query the army authorities who are refusing to release their men involved in the killing of three police officers and subsequently aided the escape of suspected notorious kidnapper, Bala Hamisu, alias Wadume.

President Buhari must be sufficiently experienced to know that not all supervisors are more patriotic than their subordinates, that is when the bosses are even patriotic at all.

Magu’s achievements in the last five years are enough to speak for him. He deserves applause for getting 2,240 convictions, including those of highly exposed untouchables.

“We have recovered assets in excess of N980 billion and quite a large array of non-monetary assets like properties, estates, private jets, oil vessels, filling stations, schools; hotels; trucks and other automobiles; pieces of jewellery; plazas, shopping malls, electronics, among others,” he told newsmen just last month.

This is no mean feat given the snail’s pace at which justice travels in our clime and the delay tactics used by many of the big suspects to evade conviction.

His local record has commended him for appointment as chairman of the Regional Conference of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Commonwealth Africa. Nigeria’s stature has also improved internationally in the area of anti-corruption in Magu’s time.

But nothing here suggests that Magu should not be investigated if there is basis for that. What I am saying is that President Buhari has to be sure of the motive/s of those championing his unceremonious exit.

At the end of the day, it is his anti-corruption war that would suffer should Magu be humiliated out of office unjustly.

This is because Magu’s successors would not be committed to the job again. The corrupt elements in the country only have one word of advice to discourage them: remember Magu.

What I am saying is that President Buhari must know that it is not only his government’s integrity that is at stake with what is happening to Magu right now.

Nigeria’s commitment to the fight against corruption is also at stake. Even the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) people are calling for Magu’s head.

They will celebrate if he is eventually removed.  We all know why. So, the president must be guided by the fact too that EFCC was founded partly in response to pressures that Nigeria was one of 23 non-cooperative countries in the international community’s efforts to fight money laundering.

Magu’s efforts have led to the conviction of several very important personalities, including former governors and generals. These hitherto untouchables will be more than glad to see him disgraced out of office. To them he is bad market.

This is much more so with the next General Elections coming up in 2023. With many governors now finding the National Assembly as the next port of call after serving as chief executives of their respective states, they cannot be aloof about who heads a crucial commission like the EFCC. Magu is a threat to their ambition.

Since they would have lost their immunity which makes many of them act like emperors, they would be better off with a pliant EFCC boss.

Otherwise, they can now be called to question over the corpses they buried with the legs outside, which no one could ask them to account for in their days in government and in power.

The good news in this matter is that Justice Ayo Salami, former President of the Court of Appeal, (himself a victim of high wire politics) is chairman of the panel probing Magu.

He can therefore be hopeful of a fair trial. With a respected judge like him at the head of the panel to investigate Magu, I guess the EFCC boss is only down, but not out.

Above all, however, President Buhari should not play Pontius Pilate in this matter. Whatever happens to Magu will go a long way in defining how people perceive the EFCC chair’s job. And it would be a matter for regret if Magu’s successors see the job as a thankless job.

Let President Buhari shine his eyes. Riba dun o.

Tunji Adegboyega

HAUWA’U Sulaiman, the 34-year-old housewife of No. 70 Alfadarai Street in Zaria, Kaduna State, who gave birth to quadruplets on June 5, at the Gambo Sawaba General Hospital, Zaria, immediately reminded me of the case of a German woman, Annegret Raunigk, who also gave birth to quadruplets at a Berlin hospital in May, 2015. One common denominator between the two women is that they had both given birth to 13 children each, before the arrival of their quadruplets.

Annegret said her decision to have more babies was influenced by her youngest child, a nine-year-old girl who kept pestering her for a junior brother or sister.

I  sympathise with the Sulaiman family over the death of the only male among the quadruplets, as well as join other well-wishers to celebrate the arrival of their latest bundle of joy. Indeed, there is every cause to felicitate with them: we heard the voice of the mother as well as the newborns; the father too did not run away upon hearing that his wife had given birth to quadruplets. Alhamdulillah.

But beyond this are the obvious implications of this development for us all as Nigerians. We would be deceiving ourselves if we close our eyes to this because we are all going to pay for what today looks like something to celebrate. We are already paying dearly for such things that we merely dismissed as cultural beliefs in the past. It beggars belief that, in this age and times, some people still don’t know that you can make love without making babies.

This particular case calls for sober reflection, especially given the circumstances of the babies’ births and the boasting by those concerned that it is in their gene to give birth to twins, triplets and quadruplets. So, Hauwa’u has only done the expected. The husband and father of the 16 children is a driver. Please don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong in being a driver. It is a responsible means of livelihood. But when a driver now begins to boast that he has 16 children in our kind of economy, the rest of the society has to show concern because they are the ones that would bear the brunt in the future.

Mohammed eventually confirmed my worst fears as to how he has been coping with 13 children before the arrival of the quadruplets. He said it was his elder brother that has been assisting him with the children’s upkeep. It was clear someone or some people must have been saddled with the responsibility of catering to the needs of the children because, even if he is a driver in an oil company, his salary cannot sustain such a huge family. Now that he has told us his brother is the beast of burden for his own bundle of joy, how are we sure that the brother would be willing to continue carrying the load forever?

Has Mohamed asked himself the question of what happens in the event that something happens to his brother’s economy? Then he is doomed. Which ought not be so. Why should he catch cold just because his elder brother sneezes? As a matter of fact, this is the reason many outsiders weep louder than the bereaved when the unexpected happens.

All of these may be beyond Mohammed’s ken, though.

This is particularly so because he appears far gone in this conditioning cultural belief that children are gifts from God and people should go ahead to have as many as they are fecund to have. His elated mother, Saudatu Haruna, lends credence to this assertion when she said the birth of the quadruplets did not come as a surprise to them, and attributed it to inheritance. It is obvious this family does not think there is any need for family planning, even if they have heard about it. At the end of the day most of Mohammed’s children would end up becoming Almajiris. This is neither a prayer nor a wish. The result of similar carefree approach to birth control in the past is already reverberating in the northern part of the country, and is cascading down south, unfortunately.

But how far can we blame the people for this ignorance? More than anything else, it is the region’s political leaders that should carry the can. All over the world, culture is dynamic. When people stick to a particular idea in the name of culture, and are seemingly not ready to let go of such idea, and the political leaders too pretend such idea is good in so far as the people are not complaining about it, chances are the elites are profiteering from such an idea or belief. This is what is happening in the north today. The elites are now concerned because they and their own over-pampered children cannot sleep with their two eyes closed. It is the kind of result you get when, over time, what started as a good idea became bastardised and prostituted without even a whimper from those who should be concerned.

We are told Almajiri started as a good idea. But the northern political elite pretended not to know that   the ‘’new  Almajiri” (permit me to call it that) has deviated from the original concept, even as more and more of the children who should be under the care of imams started ending up on the streets begging for alms to keep body and soul together.

Fecundity is good, but that is when matched  by fecundity of the pocket. The truth of the matter is that no one is ready to play host to people without skills; indeed, the more such people begin to invade a place, the more the suspicion that they only want to export what they know best beyond their region – terrorism. Even in the northern states, it is to your tents, oh Almajiris. Northern states are beginning to repatriate Almajiris to their states of origin. If people who are supposed to understand the culture are themselves sending back to their respective states the Almajiris in their domains, how then can anyone question those who don’t understand what that culture is all about if they do that? Apparently, some of the northern political elites have now genuinely realised that the days of the obnoxious practice are numbered and they want to put an end to it. So, there is no way they can continue to tolerate Almajiris from states whose political leaders are still living in the past and are therefore not ready to make the necessary investment to solve the problem.

But the earlier these northern elites living in the past woke up to face reality, the better. In the southwestern part of the country, for instance, it is a settled truism that a child that you do not train (educate) today will end up destroying the legacy you built. People who are denied access to education can never know the value. They will continue to wallop in their blissful ignorance. The protests that we are witnessing today in several parts of the north had been foretold by some of us about three decades ago. The point is; a system that keeps such a vast majority of the people as in the north down is unsustainable; it is a time bomb that will explode at any time. How can the political elite in the north explain to the so-called Almajiris that there is any difference between their own (the elites’) children and the children of the talakawas? The Almajiris may be stark illiterate but they know that they and their elites’ children have only one head each, they all have two eyes, two ears, two hands, two legs each, and so forth. So, how come they should be perpetually satisfied picking the crumbs falling from the tables of the elite?

Former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the immediate past Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, said the obvious truth at the birthday party of Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna State. Sanusi at the occasion analysed the ineptitude of the Northern ruling elites. He lambasted, in a no-holds-barred indictment, the elites for failing to improve the welfare of their people. According to Sanusi, “If the north didn’t change, it will destroy itself. The country is moving on. If we don’t listen, there would be a day, when a Constitutional amendment that addresses these issues of quota system and federal character” will be made. It couldn’t have been better said. Coming from a northern aristocrat, a dynamic and progressive elite that is not impervious to change, or deaf to the calls of the present, obedient only to those of the past, would have listened. But, given the criticisms that trailed Sanusi’s honest advice to people of his own class, it is obvious that some of these elites still think this unsustainable arrangement in the country would continue forever.

Sanusi is well read; he is urbane and he is also a student of history. There is no way the rest of the country would continue to watch while the hard-earned resources that should have been used to better the lot of the entire country would be continually wasted trying to build and rebuild infrastructure destroyed (and would several times be dstroyed) by angry youths in a part of the country. The point is that these youths are beginning to see, despite their being illiterates, that their lives could have been better if successive leaders in their region had not squandered resources that should have been spent to make them the complete human beings that God created them to be.

Because of her kind of environment, Annegret may be correct to believe that everyone should be able to live the life they want to, and unperturbed about what other people thought about her decision to have more children after having 13, but not so Hauwa’u Sulaiman and her co-travellers here in Nigeria, because what they do today has implications for the rest of us tomorrow.

Tunji Adegboyega

When Derek Michael Chauvinn, the Minneapolis police officer knelt on the neck of George Floyd for about nine minutes last month, little did he know that the consequences of ignoring the black man’s ‘I can’t breathe’ cry would be as dire as he and his accomplices-in-crime have belatedly found it to be.

Similarly, those who raped the 100-level University of Benin student, Vera Uwaila Omozuwa, last month, in a church in Benin, underestimated what the public reaction to their insidious act would be. In like manner, the killer of Azeezat Shomuyiwa, a postgraduate student of the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, a few days later, would never have thought such an unknown student would attract the kind of public outrage against what he probably thought would pass for just another incident that would go with time. Although the police said Shomuyiwa was not raped, the people in the area believed she was raped and killed. Nigerians have since believed the version they want to believe.

Without doubt, many rape incidents had been reported this year. In Anambra State alone, no fewer than 80 cases of rape have been recorded since the lockdown occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic, some involving the victims’ fathers.

The exponential rise in rape cases informed this paper’s decision to make it the ‘Person of the Year’ in 2019. Like the amoeba, there is no discernible pattern to the rape stories. We’ve heard stories of men who would do it with anything in skirt; those who would try it with anything with a circular opening, etc. These days, rapists operate sans frontieres.  We now hear stories of septuagenarians having carnal knowledge of toddlers. There have been stories of young boys raping women old enough to be their grandmothers. These are aside the usual stories of rapists who take undue advantage of hawkers and so on.

Although rape cases, like most other crimes, have been on the increase in recent times, the killing of the two students seemed to have made the criminals to steal too much for the owner to notice. The incidents were greeted with outrage and protests, with many accusing governments at all levels of not doing enough to protect the girl-child.

Indeed, the protests over the Uwaila and Shomuyiwa incidents became so strident that those in high places in the country cannot claim not to hear. The National Assembly (NASS) has promised to do something about it following delegations to it. The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) has urged each state government to open ‘name and shame’ registers for rapists and perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence (GBV). This would be following the footsteps of Ekiti State where the incumbent NGF chair, Dr Kayode Fayemi, is also the governor.  Furthermore, the “Governors have agreed to declare a State of Emergency on Sexual and Gender-based Violence, and also urged state governments yet to domesticate relevant gender-based protection laws to do so, for speedy investigation and prosecution of perpetrators.

Even some male groups have had to organise their own anti-rape rallies to denounce the act. Real men, the protesters say, don’t rape. Which is true. Sex is something to be enjoyed, not endured by any of the parties that engages in it. Stricto sensu, sexual intercourse is meant for couples. But civilisation has made it an all-comers’ affair. In Yorubaland in those days, premarital sex was a taboo. As a matter of fact, ladies that had been disvirgined before marriage attracted opprobrium to their parents and extended families, generally. The ladies getting married had to pass the deflowering ‘exam’ that they must do on the night of their wedding.  The husbands had to confirm that they ‘met them at home’; in other words, that they have not had sexual intercourse before (by bringing out the cloth used in mopping the blood that would naturally flow during the first experience to show the relatives who would be waiting anxiously outside to hear the ‘result’ – whether their daughters passed or failed. The moment the cloth was thrown outside with the blood stains, they would erupt in celebration of their daughters that had demonstrated good home training and had not brought shame upon the families!

So, it is a different ballgame entirely when a female agrees to consensual sex with a man, provided she is of age. But, to have sex with a girl or even a woman against her wish is something that should worry right-thinking members of the society. It may not be a requirement that men religiously ask for these days, the fact is some ladies would still have preferred the men that would marry them to be the ones to deflower them. It is painful when such ladies have done all they could to a certain extent only to get pinned down to the ground by criminals who they have no feelings or affection for.

Imagine the pathetic story of a 17-year-old daughter of a pastor who was raped by her parents’ driver, one Francis Apai, in Lagos, in November 2014. She told the court that while she was cooking, the driver approached her with a knife and threatened to harm her if she refused his sexual advances. She resisted and the driver dragged her to a bedroom in her parents’ apartment where he punched her several times, strangled and then raped her. When the opportunity presented itself, she ran out stark naked to escape her attacker.

“I ran across the street to another neighbour, with blood streaming down my legs and they gave me a wrapper to cover myself up” she narrated. The medical report confirmed that she lost her virginity during the incident. The judge however did the appropriate thing by sentencing the rapist to 15 years in prison without an option of fine.

Sex is supposed to be a spiritual thing; it is beyond the ‘in and out’ that the act is seen by many these days to be. Something must connect those engaging in it beyond the physical realm. This is where consensus  is key. All of these explain  why many rape victims do not forget the trauma in a hurry. Indeed, many live with it for life; some even commit suicide when they can no longer bear the memory.

Unfortunately, some of our policemen treat rape reports with levity. Yet, such policemen would almost lose their senses when they merely see some men or boys around their daughters. We have even seen cases of policemen summarily asking those involved in rape matters reported to them to go and settle amicably. Some would sarcastically ask questions like whether the rape victim was groaning or moaning when she was being raped. All these discourage victims or their relations from reporting the incidents and they are unhelpful in efforts to check the menace.

While sleeping with members of the opposite sex without their consent is bad enough, what is now becoming the new normal, that is the idea of killing the victims after violating them, shows the bestiality in the rapist and it should attract the most severe punishment. The reason why rapists now kill their victims is because the victims know them very well. So, the rapists think eliminating such victims would aid in covering their tracks. In the usual tradition of criminals, they compound their situation by committing a bigger sin to cover up a seemingly lesser one.

Honestly, but for the fact that capital punishment is no longer fashionable, I would have voted for it as a deterrent to the rising incidence of rape. Some have suggested castration. For me, this won’t be a bad idea.  But then, the society would see it as another extreme. So, what to do? Now that there seems to be a reawakening to the fact that rapists should no longer be treated with kid gloves, it is important to have synergy on the part of those to work out the formula to tame the monsters. The governments, security agencies, non-governmental organisations, legal practitioners, etc. must come together to fashion out appropriate framework to address the scourge.

Even then, other segments of the society – parents, the schools, religious bodies, traditional institutions have to play their parts if the looming rape pandemic is to be averted. It may sound unpleasant, but the issue of appropriate dressing among children, particularly the females, is important. The truth is, decent dressing is part of our culture in several parts of the country. This does not in any way excuse rape, though. I still know many parents who would never allow their children dress anyhow when going out. We also need to know the company they keep, etc.

Installation of CCTVs in the areas where Omozuwa and Shomuyiwa were killed would have greatly reduced the stress in looking for their killers. Moreover, we need to give cover and encouragement to rape victims so that more victims can overcome the fear of stigmatisation  that hitherto prevented them from opening up. Perhaps long or life sentence would do as punishment for them. But the question of fine must be ruled out. We have nothing to lose if rapists rot in jail, with hard labour to boot!