Category: Tunji Adegboyega

Nigerians certainly have reasons to fret whenever any government in Nigeria talks about external borrowing. As the saying goes, “once beaten, twice shy.” Nigerians have been beaten more than twice by successive governments at all levels such that by now, they have learnt their lesson. I might have been too young to analyse issues during the General Yakubu Gowon years, but, from all indications, whatever the sins of that government, they are like snow compared with the kinds of sins succeeding governments have committed against Nigeria and Nigerians; and which they are still committing. This is the reason matters of foreign loans have always remained contentious, indeed usually preceded by heated debate.

Shortly after assuming power on August 27, 1985, the then Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, promised to break the deadlock in the stalled, two-year-old negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) over terms for a multibillion-dollar loan. At that time, he called for a public debate on whether the country should take the loan or not. There was a flood of opposition with many Nigerian newspapers saying a capital NO to the loan. “Don’t take the poison,” The Punch screamed. Yes, poison because of the conditionalities attached to the loan. Nigeria should devalue its currency; put an end to fuel subsidy, etc.

Yet, from 1964 when Nigeria took its first loan from the Paris Club of Creditor Nations from the Italian government to finance the Niger Dam till the end of that decade, the country’s external borrowing was relatively low.. However, the oil boom years (1971-1981) saw a whetting of the country’s appetite for foreign loans, with all tiers of government, private banks and parastatals going for all manner of unviable loans. But the bubble burst when oil prices crashed in 1982 and repaying the loans became difficult.

The country’s return to civil rule in 1999 saw it embarking on an aggressive debt forgiveness campaign. The campaign paid off on June 29, 2005, when the Paris Club and Nigeria agreed on US$18 billion debt relief package, out of the $36 billion the country was owing as at December 2004. While many Nigerians applauded the decision, some others saw it as economically unwise.
This is one of the reasons why it is so sad that a country which paid such a hefty price to exit the debt trap is about relapsing into it, barely 14 years after. The excuse is the usual excuse of the urgent need to fix our dilapidated infrastructure. All kinds of figures have been bandied as the amount needed for this. Mckinsey puts the amount at $31bn annually, over a 10-year period. Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Alex Okoh, in his own estimation puts the average required to turn the infrastructure tide at $100 billion per annum for the next six years.

Just last week, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Hajia Zainab Ahmed; her works counterpart, Babatunde Raji Fashola; Minister of State for Transport, Senator Gbemisola Saraki; and the Director-General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Ms Patience Oniha, told the House of Representatives’ Committee on Aids, Loans and Debt Management that we need about $22.7billion loan to fix our infrastructure.
It is instructive for President Buhari not to behave like the immediate past governor of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode, who put several things on fire at the same time without the capacity to see them all through. His government behaved as if it was going to be the last government before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, given the way and manner he started projects that was clear to the discerning that he could not successfully execute without some things giving way. So, as he was busy working on gigantic projects, little details of governance were abandoned and the result was the decay that attended his last months in office. His successor is still busy clearing the mess.

What I am saying is that President Buhari cannot fix all of our problems; so he should not pretend he can. Indeed, he would have helped this country a great deal if only he is able to stem the tide of corruption, that cankerworm that has made Nigeria its headquarters. Many Nigerians have said it loud enough that they did not vote for him because they expected any especial economic reform from him. The main issue in the country in 2015 when Nigerians gave Buhari their mandate was the need for change from the old, corrupt and inept order to something refreshingly different.

Nigerians have seen so much of bad governance that they only pretend to be comfortable with government and government officials simply because the world is yet to have alternative to them. I cannot remember when last any government told us that our sacrifice has been accepted by God. All the governments I have known in this country have always asked Nigerians to brace up for hard times. They are always calling on the people to make sacrifice or tighten their belts when those of them in government are loosening theirs. The same scenario is still playing itself out even under our change-mantra government. While lawmakers in the National Assembly have awarded themselves ungodly amounts for all manner of things, they are asking us to be ready to pay more Value Added Tax (VAT) and other taxes. While people who served for only four or at best eight years as governors have designed ways to pay themselves outrageous severance packages, civil servants who toiled for 30 years and above, rising through the ranks, die on pension verification queues.

The greed at that level of government is such that even when these people stop being governors, they plot their way into the National Assembly as senators and some of them get paid as senators even as they continue to draw pension for their previous office. I was writing this piece on Friday when the Alfa in one of the mosques opposite our office was talking about some of the country’s past presidents that we have now forgotten even though they are still alive. They are the ones now calling attention to themselves whereas in their days in power and in government, roads in Lagos would have been cleared hours before they woke up to come to the state from Abuja, with soldiers and policemen lining the routes. Such is the ephemeral nature of power; yet, Nigerian leaders hardly learn from the past. Present politicians do not seem to have learnt any lesson about the temporary nature of their positions. Otherwise, they would not be giving to themselves some people’s life earning as severance packages. One of them had the audacity to write from a non-existing ‘Office of the Former Governor’ asking that he be paid five months arrears of the obscene pay that he signed into law shortly before leaving office! We do not have any evidence that things have so significantly changed or that this is not what we would spend parts of the loan on.

Prof Soyinka once alluded to his generation as a wasted generation. That is largely true; even though as a Christian, I loathe such negativity about life. But, if the elders have wasted their own generation, then they should not eat up the future of unborn Nigerians, which, as far as I am concerned, is what President Buhari’s request for $29.9billion foreign loan represents. This is money that our children would still be paying long after the president is gone.

President Buhari and his team may be upbeat about the government spending the loan judiciously. They are alone. We’ve heard that several times before. The Buhari government inherited an external debt of about $10.32 billion in 2015. Sadly, this had more than doubled to $22.08 billion by 2018, about $4billion more than the amount the Obasanjo administration paid in 2005 to exit the debt trap. All this idea of we are still under-borrowed or debt-to GDP ratio thing, for me, is now becoming jaded. I think we have got to the stage when we can no longer continue to leave the country’s economy in the hands of Bretton Woods’s economists alone because what is at stake is our collective future. It is true that there is a universally acceptable percentage of budgets that should be spent on education, for instance; or the ratio of policemen to population, but some people have equally argued that these prescriptions are for developed countries or countries where there are reliable statistics and where institutions work, not our kind of environment. I think we should extend this school of thought to the debt-to-GDP ratio of a thing. What is suitable for the developed countries in terms of debt-to-GDP ratio may not be suitable for us, given our peculiar circumstances. What we sometimes refer to as the ‘Nigerian factor’.

One question those who have been arguing with me on the need to take the loan have not successfully answered is: suppose the Buhari government also mismanaged the $29.9billion loan? Are we not going back to square one? Won’t we be making the same case for the coming governments that they too need loans to fix infrastructure? So, at what point do we get to the stage of over-borrowing; or, better put, to a point where we can comfortably say government should not make any further loan request because they are likely to mismanage it? I don’t see the National Assembly rejecting the president’s proposal, but, the best I can say is that they be guided by national rather than personal or party interests. If we can’t leave good inheritance for our children, we should not make them pay for what we ate. I do not see how a government that has hardly made 50 per cent budget implementation in over four years would be able to handle $29.9 billion in barely 42 months. That is without making allowance for lame duck period in the remaining part of President Buhari’s second term.

It was a day of honour for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) registrar/chief executive, Prof Is-haq Oloyede, as he received the National Productivity Order of Merit Award alongside 24 other Nigerians, including the chairman of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Nigerian Customs Service Comptroller-General, Hameed Alli, Sam Omatseye, chairman, editorial board, The Nation, on Thursday. Occasion was the 18th National Productivity Day held in Abuja. Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, stood in for President Muhammadu Buhari at the occasion.

Prof Oloyede’s award particularly interests me for the innovations he has brought to the conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in barely three years of his assumption of office. Even for a nation with short memory, the memory is not too short not to remember the chaos that sitting for UTME, popularly referred to as ‘JAMB’, used to be before Oloyede’s era. Virtually everybody in the country knew when ‘JAMB’ was holding in those years gone by as a result of the many shortcomings inherent in the previous order. Candidates would be moving from pillar to post to locate their centres; the integrity of the examination could not be guaranteed due to the fact that it was very easy for cheats to help others sit for the examination. And, when the integrity of an examination is in doubt, it rubbishes the entire outcome.

Oloyede has done a lot to make things better in JAMB, leveraging on information technology (IT). Virtually all activities concerning the UTME or ‘JAMB’ are now done online, from the point of registration for the examination to the time results are released. While the higher institutions are at liberty to determine their cut-off marks which is done at a major stakeholders’ forum, they cannot offer admission to candidates with lower scores than the ones agreed at the forum. He has successfully waged a war against financial, administrative and examination malfeasance in a way none of his predecessors ever did. He is on record to be the first registrar to return billions to the Federal Government in three consecutive years even as he has reduced the fees for the examination.

But one thing that many public institutions fear is disclosing their financial details. Yet, JAMB does this as a matter of routine, even in its weekly bulletin, which is also circulated online to many stakeholders. This transparency in reporting of financial activities is laudable and it is probably because the organisation, under Prof Oloyede’s watch, has nothing to hide. As another professor of note noted in his congratulatory message to Prof Oloyede on the award, the registrar “should buy several big bags as many more of such and higher awards await him in the years ahead.” There is no doubt that this is the least that can be expected of the JAMB registrar if he continues at the rate he is taking the board to greater heights. My only fear is the negative impact that the Federal Government’s directive making the National Identify Numbe (NIN) a prerequisite for UTME as from next year would have on the organisation. This is something that successive governments have not been able to handle successfully. Unfortunately, failure in other areas where NIN is required might not be as pronounced as it would be in JAMB for obvious reasons. The middle class whose children are about being made guinea pigs with the directive would not see the thing as a problem created by government; they would descend on JAMB ferociously, and understandably, too. Most of the children of those prescribing the directive are abroad where the governments would not toy with the future of youths the way we do here.

If there is any Nigerian that should keep featuring in awards for excellence, productivity, etc., it is 62 years old Aliko Dangote. The man is many things rolled into one:  businessman, investor, as well as owner of the ubiquitous Dangote Group. The man’s name has become a household name all over the country and even beyond. He is into virtually everything imaginable: rice, cement, sugar, salt, flour, noodles, freight services, etc. Indeed, he is the dominant supplier of sugar to many breweries, soft drinks manufacturers and confectioners in the country. Today, we are eagerly awaiting the take-off of Dangote Refinery, hopefully next year. It would be the largest single-train refinery in the world. So, from a modest small trading firm in 1977, Dangote Group has today metamorphosed into a multi-trillion-naira conglomerate with operations in Benin, Ghana and Togo. He has an estimated net worth of $8.9billion as of this month.

The young Aliko knew what he wanted right from his childhood and he went for it: “I can remember when I was in primary school, I would go and buy cartons of sweets [candy] and I would start selling them just to make money. I was so interested in business, even at that time.”

According to Wikipedia, “Dangote is ranked by Forbes magazine as the 136th-richest person in the world and the richest man in Africa and peaked on the list as the 23rd-richest person in the world in 2014. He surpassed Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi in 2013 by over $2.6 billion to become the world’s richest person of African descent.” In this wise, he is simply being a chip off the old block, so to say. His great grandfather, Alhaji Alhassan Dantata, was also the richest West African at the time of his death in 1955. No matter what anyone may have against him, Dangote has provided means of livelihood for thousands of Nigerians and is still opening frontiers of jobs of all shades.

Col Alli’s award may not excite some people, especially coming at this point in time when the country’s borders are closed. Those whose economic livelihoods depend on the continued opening of the borders are not smiling now that the borders have been closed since August. It is not that the government itself wants the situation the way it is, but then, it is a painful decision that must be taken, especially when confronted with the kind of neighbours that we have who do not want to realise that we have to be economically alive for them too to continue to be in business. Even God did not admonish us to love our neighbours more than ourselves. Rather, He says we should love our neighbours as ourselves. If we allow business to continue as usual with these neighbours, then it is a matter of time for our economy to pack up. And, when that happens, where do we run to? We have made significant gains since the borders were shut. We must acknowledge that we have recorded an increase in inflationary level too. But that is expected because something must give in such situation. When our neighbours are ready to play according to the rules, we can only then reconsider our stand on the border closure.

Meanwhile, it’s kudos to the customs boss for ensuring that the border closure is effective as it should be. Apart from this, his officers and men too have done a lot, raking in so much revenue for the government even before the border closure. For the customs service, this must be a season of honour, especially with the presentation of integrity award to two public servants, Bashir Abubakar and Mrs. Josephine Ugwu of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria on November 19, for exhibiting integrity in the performance of their official duties. Abubakar, the Assistant Comptroller-General of Customs rejected 412,000 dollars (N150 million) bribe offered to him by drug traffickers to import 40 containers laden with Tramadol, a controlled and highly addictive drug. Irrespective of what we might say, the service still has officers and men of proven integrity. The kind of seizures they made in the past, and even since the border closure are sometimes outstanding.

Omatseye’s award too deserves a mention. In the media, we hardly celebrate ourselves. Rather, we exalt politicians and others whose contributions to national development are dubious and even negative. As he noted, there is honour in being recognised by one’s own country. This is instructive when we realise that ‘only in his home town and in his own house is a prophet without honour’. All said, many of those who got this productivity award deserve it. The selection would appear a departure from the past when all manner of people made the list and the question we begin to ask ourselves is: if the country is so blessed, how come we are like this 59 years after political independence?

While I congratulate the awardees, they should remember that what is expected of them is more work. They should not rest on their oars. Those who felt left out should also not lose hope. Tomorrow might be theirs.

EVEN the most optimistic observer knew before the November 16 governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states that the polls would be bloody and rambunctious. The police anticipated the looming catastrophe. That was why they deployed about 35,000 policemen of all shades for the poll. Another 31,000 were sent to Bayelsa State. Not even sniffer dogs were left out. If they did not foresee danger, why would they have sent such a large number of policemen to two states just because governorship elections were approaching? Is that the way it is in other countries, even African countries? Obviously not. After all, some of our political leaders who have had cause to visit some African countries as election observers have come back to tell us stories of how voting would take place till late in the night in some of these countries, with electoral officers sometimes keeping vigil and voters coming to cast their votes at their convenience without any evil befalling either the electoral officers or the election materials. But here, we usually conduct elections in broad daylight, yet, it does not stop people from snatching ballot boxes, buying votes openly, shooting to scare voters on election days, or falsifying election figures, among other electoral crimes. Eminent and not-so-eminent Nigerians had been caught on camera running away with ballot boxes. Nothing happened to them. Which, really, is the reason why electoral crimes appear to be thriving in the country.

One point that usually makes me sick is the ferocious manner many of our politicians fight for political offices only to get there and mess up people’s lives. People who really intend to serve do not seek political power the way many of our politicians do. If only these politicians devote 50 percent of the energy they expend fighting for power to good governance, the country would not be in this sorry pass.  It is bad, that bad that even incumbents who should only make election time a time to showcase their achievements in the last four years start jumping from pillar to post and looking for distractions because they have little or nothing to point at as their achievements. People who should naturally have walkover at election time start getting jittery at the approach of the polls.

That bitter struggle for power played itself out again in the Kogi and Bayelsa elections. Indeed, what passed for elections in the two states should really worry us as a people about what to expect in 2023 and in the other elections before then. Democracy is a game of numbers; at least in other places. It has no room for reason or rationale. It is supposed to depend on the electorate. In their wisdom they could vote in the best person for any office, just as they could also make the most foolish contender carry the day. The choice is theirs. But in the end they also should not complain about the choice they made or did not make because it is garbage in, garbage out. People get the kind of leadership they deserve.

Unfortunately, our politicians do not think voters are wise enough to decide for themselves, or that they even have a right to vote foolishly. The politicians therefore resort to self-help on Election Day. Unfortunately, too, the self-help is hardly peaceful. All manner of strong arm tactics come into play. They hire and arm thugs to the teeth to disrupt the process; ballot-box snatching is the order of the day, where the thugs are confronted by countervailing forces, they test their strengths, leaving in their trail gory tales. The least result is the maiming of innocent citizens or destruction of properties. Often, lives are lost in the process. Yet, politician after politician keeps saying their victory at the polls is not worth losing a single life over. Yet, the more they say this, the more blood we see flowing needlessly on the streets.

We saw a lot of violence in the build-up to the elections in the two states but Kogi presented a case study in electoral violence. This was particularly so with what appeared to be the premeditated murder of Mrs Acheju Abuh, the Women Leader of Wada Aro Campaign Council, Ochadamu Ward, who was also the Women Leader for the campaign organisation of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) governorship candidate, Musa Wada, on November 18, barely two days after the governorship election.

It is inconceivable that people with blood flowing in their veins would kill a fellow human being, and a woman for that matter, the way Mrs Abuh was killed. Over what? Politics? Incredible! The woman was in her house, resting, apparently after the long weeks of campaign that culminated in the November 16 election. According to media reports, thugs arrived at her residence at about 2.00 p.m., blocked every exit from the house to ensure that none of the occupants could escape  the evil intention they harboured in their minds. They then doused the house in petrol, set it ablaze amidst the booming of guns to scare terrified villagers away.

A source said that “The blood-thirsty thugs waited, shooting and watching with relish while Mrs. Abuh cried from inside the inferno until her voice died out. They left when the entire house had been burnt to ashes, with Abuh in it.” The state police command’s spokesperson, William Aya, said in a statement that there was a misunderstanding between one Awolu Zekeri, a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC); and one Gowon Simeon, a member of the PDP, both of Ochadamu ward. He said, “Gowon Simeon stabbed Zekeri with a knife and he died on his way to hospital.

“As a result, angry youths in the area mobilised to the house of one Simeon Abuh of same address, who is an uncle to the suspect, set it ablaze (and) thereby burnt one Salome Abuh, aged 60 years. Three other houses were also burnt. The corpse has been moved to the University Teaching Hospital Mortuary Anyigba, for autopsy.”

Without doubt, Mrs Abuh was not the only person killed, whether in the course of the election or the run-up to it. Her murder, however, was too gory to behold. Only sadists who are not fit to live among human beings could have done such without batting an eyelid. Although reports said it was the very burglar proof that she had at home to keep away unwanted guests, like the hoodlums that eventually set her ablaze, and other criminals, that prevented her from escaping, the point is that given the determination of her killers, she still would have been killed if she had no such burglar proof.  If she had managed to escape from the inferno, her assailants would still have caught up with her somehow because they were bent on killing her. So, head or tail, she would have died.

But her death must be avenged. Those who killed her must not go scot-free. Otherwise, it would mean that the country has lost its moral compass; indeed, its soul. The culprits must be apprehended and made to have their day in court. In the same vein, Simeon who allegedly stabbed Zekeri must be arrested to also account for his action just as every other act that would pass for electoral malfeasance or electoral violence should be punished, whether in Kogi or Bayelsa, or any other part of the country. These acts keep recurring because culprits are hardly punished.

Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu’s claim that fake policemen were responsible for the electoral violence in Kogi and Bayelsa states speaks volume. But how many fake policemen could have overpowered 66,241 genuine and seemingly well trained policemen, leaves much to be desired. And if the police inspector-general could say that some politicians were planning to sew police uniforms for thugs to wear on the day of election, what did he do to forestall such? Many people saw video recordings of guns booming freely as if they were bangers, with people in police uniform snatching ballot boxes in Kogi. We should not be satisfied with IGP Adamu’s claim. He should tell us more.

Without doubt, we saw bloodier electoral violence in Rivers State in 2015, in which case it could be said that the incumbent Governor Nyesom Wike literally danced on electoral victims’ graves to the state house in Port Harcourt.

But, honestly, President Muhammadu Buhari has a lot of work to do to bequeath a better electoral legacy to his successors. The election that brought him in in 2015 was by far better than what we witnessed in Bayelsa and Kogi states.  His anti-corruption war has not made a dent on political corruption as yet. Yet, corruption is not about money or financial issues alone. When people cannot decide their leaders through the ballot box in a democracy because some people have decided to bastardise the process, it is a graver form of corruption. Indeed, there would be less dissipation of energy on fighting economic corruption when elections reflect the will of the people because political leaders would mind their actions, knowing full well that they would return to the people for revalidation of their tenure.

Whether or not the social network platforms need to be regulated is not in doubt.  What is in doubt is whether beheading is the solution to headache. This is the picture painted by the proposed National Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speech (Estb., etc) Bill 2019. The bill, sponsored by a former Senate spokesperson, now the Deputy Senate Whip, Sabi Abdullahi, passed first reading on the floor of the red chamber on Tuesday. It seeks the establishment of a Federal Government agency to check hate speech and prescribed death by hanging as the maximum punishment for certain categories of offenders. Other offenders are either liable to 10 years jail term, payment of N10m fine. Why Abdullahi, who had sponsored a similar bill in the 8th Senate, but it could not survive the second reading due to overwhelming opposition and criticisms exhumed the bill is something he alone can explain. The virulent criticisms that trailed the first reading of the bill in the senate were understandable.

As a matter of fact, it is difficult not to see the fear of people who think the Muhammadu Buhari government is behind the proposed bill, given the president’s antecedents as a military head of state, and even now that he is president in a democratic dispensation. Even though the government has not associated with the bill, it had itself given notice of its intention to regulate the social media space. But one issue that has to be addressed is what constitutes hate speech? The fear that the Buhari government would most likely abuse executive powers if the hate speech bill becomes law would appear real. This is a man who exhibited an uncommon phobia for the traditional media in his first coming to power on December 31, 1983 via the Decree Four that he promulgated, which was for all intents and purposes a media gag law. Buhari, then a young military officer never hid his fears for the press. One nauseating aspect of Decree Four was the fact that it was not necessarily about media report being truthful. It was more of whether the report was capable of embarrassing the government of the day. At least two journalists, Messrs. Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor were jailed under the obnoxious, vexatious and discriminatory decree.  No one is sure whether about 35 years down the line, the man has changed significantly. Indeed, not many Nigerians will agree he has. At best, even now, Buhari can only be said to be comfortable with a press that is not totally free.

Again, if, 35 years after Decree Four, a senator is now coming up with the idea of death penalty for hate speech, under the same Buhari government, then one can begin to guess where the idea could be coming from. Indeed, for me, it is a case of the voice of Senator Abdullahi but the hand of Buhari. Death penalty in the 21st Century! But we should not forget that Buhari had three Nigerians, Bernard Ogedegbe (29), Bathlomew Owoh (26) and Lawal Ojuolape (30) executed for dealing in drugs in his first coming. The case of Owoh drew global attention because at the time the offence was committed, the maximum punishment in the country’s legal code was six months imprisonment. But the Buhari government enacted Decree 20, which had a retroactive effect and carried the death penalty.  The fact of the matter is that Buhari, even though 35 years older than he was in 1984, has not changed in terms of his world outlook. His governance style has not changed significantly either. The military style in him is still very much intact. If you doubt this, how else do you explain the continued incarceration of former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) , El-Zakzaky and now Omoyele Sowore, despite court orders that they be released? In spite of the cries by many Nigerians that the rule of law be followed, the man has remained unperturbed; it is as if nothing is happening. Even in the days of Ibrahim Babangida, they hid under the cover of ouster clauses to commit all kinds of hara-kiri. Buhari has since discovered that that was a bloody waste of time. “Let the courts say whatever they want to say, I will always do whatever I want to do. I do not have to waste government money on stationery and other materials needed to do ouster clauses,” seems Buhari’s unspoken words on these issues. As a matter of fact, as recently as 2015, Buhari still defended his actions as military head of state adding that they accepted responsibilities for the actions. No remorse, not even on the retroactive nature of the decree. As far as he was concerned, there was a big problem of drug peddling which had to be dealt with sternly and the government dealt with it that way.

Now, because the president and commander-in-chief does not seem concerned about the flagrant violations of the law by the Department of State Service (DSS), the department has turned the Sowore issue into a wall clock joke by saying those who should come to pick him home have not come. They are also saying that Dasuki and El-Zakzaky feel comfortable in their custody!

Hear the DSS: “”There has been outcry about alleged illegal detention of some notable persons undergoing trials at the courts and disobedience to court orders by the Service. To put the records straight, the Service wishes to avert public attention to the circumstances that warranted the custody of Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd.) and Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky in its facility.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the duo had appealed to the courts to be left in the custody of the Service instead of being taken to the Correctional Centres. Well-meaning Nigerians are equally witnesses to the case of Omoyele Sowore, who, on a similar order of the court, was to be remanded at the Kuje or Suleja Centre, but preferred to be kept at the DSS…” The service said the three people made the choice on their own volition. It added that the three of them are being given the best services ever and that “there could not have been better treatments than these.” Now, does this not qualify for hate speech? How on earth can any sane man opt to have his freedom of movement curtailed? Is the DSS facility such a five-star hotel where people are spoilt with virtually anything they need and which money can buy?

If the punishment for insult is death, what then would be the punishment for the humongous amounts of money that our lawmakers take home every month? If hate speech could lead to death, thus making it imperative for the person who commits the offence liable to death by hanging, is the consequence of the lawmakers’ pay not worse than the criminalisation of insult? When just one man goes home with millions of naira monthly in a country where minimum wage has just been pushed up to N30,000 per month (which some state governments are finding difficult to pay), is that not worse than hate speech? The billions that the lawmakers appropriate to themselves will go a long way in providing infrastructure for millions of Nigerians. When such a huge amount is frittered as it were, it denies countless people the opportunity of good schools, well-staffed and stocked hospitals, good roads, housing, etc. It denies millions of jobs, thus indirectly leading to social dislocations and death in many cases. These days, we see all manner of people committing suicide. It is the result of the frustrations that the vast majority of Nigerians are subjected to daily. Yet, the lawmakers are the very ones now making passing of insult a crime punishable by hanging. There’s God o!

Now, what was it in the long months that the Federal Government looked the other way when herdsmen were killing other innocent Nigerians on their ancestral lands in the name of rearing cattle? And when it eventually found its voice, it came up with the RUGA idea?

Please this senate should get more serious. There are many pressing issues to deal with than to begin dreaming of death penalty at a time the civilised world is eliminating the capital punishment from their statute books. People will not have time to engage in hate speech when they are otherwise productively engaged. It is because people don’t have jobs that the devil is keeping them busy with the social media. What has the senate done about giving Nigerians power, for example? See the state of our hospitals, our roads, our schools, etc.

What do we charge those of them responsible for all these national crises with? Let the Federal Government and the senate concentrate on more serious issues. When the country normalises, far less people will not engage in hate speech. The crimes committed by many of our leaders are worse, deadlier than hate speech. Finally, Mr President, what do we charge you with for saying  “the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood?” Love speech? What if the law takes retroactive effect?

THAT efforts by the Muhammadu Buhari administration to tackle unemployment have not yielded much fruits was signposted by the report that over 1.4 million job seekers have applied to fill a mere 5,000 vacancies in the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). NSCDC had on August 9 opened its online portal (www.cdfipb.careers) for interested candidates to file in their applications. The corps spokesman, Emmanuel Okeh, who confirmed the large turnout rightly attributed the development to the high unemployment level in the country. This is not just starting, though. In November 2016, the federal tax agency received 700,000 applications for 500 advertised positions. In May 2016, about a million people applied for 10,000 positions in the Nigerian Police Force. Lest we forget, about 16 persons were killed in April 2014 stampedes when a half-million people were invited to apply for fewer than 5,000 government jobs.

The latest report of vacancies in the civil defence merely confirms statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of the worsening unemployment situation. It shows that government’s efforts have not made much of dent on unemployment as demand for jobs continues to outstrip supply.

Yet, the fact that the slots have been advertised does not necessarily mean that the jobs will go to the best candidates. As a matter of fact, many of those who applied may not go far, not necessarily because they are not qualified but because their colleagues who know somebody that knows somebody that is connected to the top would have secured the jobs while the corps might have merely advertised the vacancies to fulfill all righteousness. Of course, like most such advertisements, there are rules guiding the conduct of such recruitments. These include those beyond the age limits, those who engaged in multiple registration as well as candidates with inconsistent academic qualifications, who would all be weeded out before the actual test commences. The impression that the jobs are competitive might therefore be a facade.

We saw that success in such exercises may not necessarily be merit-based in the secret recruitment done by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) where some 100 job slots were reserved for our senators. The matter blew open not because of the immorality of the allotment of the slots but because some senators were left out. As a matter of fact, those senators accused their principal officers of allocating the slots only to themselves. The sad part of it is that should there be a crisis, like the April 2014 incident cited above, these privileged candidates are not likely to be affected. As a matter of fact, they would only call their benefactors on phone to report on the situation of things and they would be properly advised to stay safe and keep themselves away from harm’s way. Anyone who knew any of the applicants who came from the top and died in the job stampede should tell me. It bears restating that the stampede itself was the result of the fears that the jobs would not go round. People who have too many kids than they can cater for will testify that they always have cause to settle quarrels when the children are served rations that cannot go round them.

When we realise the social implications of such a huge unemployment rate, we would realise that the country is sitting on a keg of gunpowder. The activities of Boko Haram, kidnappers, armed robbers, cultists and ritualists of all shades are harbingers of the imminent danger awaiting us as a nation if our governments do not tackle unemployment with all the seriousness it deserves.

The Federal Government has to redouble its efforts in job-creation. Trader money and similar initiatives by the government are good as stop-gap measures; they cannot end poverty. Even some of the so-called jobs created by some state governments cannot put an end to want.

Provision of stable and reliable electricity is very vital to job creation. The truth is, many people, including even artisans cannot work because of epileptic power supply. Industries and other manufacturing concerns too are affected by the poor power supply. As a matter of fact, there are companies that run on generators once they begin production because they do not want losses that may occasion power failure in the process. We must give kudos to the government for efforts to improve power supply, but it has to do more because not much can be achieved with regard to job creation, without power supply. At least efforts are being intensified to ensure that electricity consumers pay only for the power they consume. This is about the first time in decades that this is happening. There are also efforts geared toward rejuvenating the transmission and distribution aspects of the power sector to ensure that power that is produced gets to the consumer with minimal losses. Before now, efforts had been concentrated on generation alone. It is good that government has realised that without an overhaul and upgrading of the transmission and distribution lines, efforts at generation will only come to naught.

But, the civil defence is not an organisation to joke with. In a country where the ratio  of persons per policeman falls far short of acceptable requirement, the civil defence has filled some gap and the corps is trying its best. The officers and men may not be perfect, at least they are complementing the efforts of the police. So, we need people who fit the bill concerning their suitability for the job and not necessarily people who are well connected. I hear federal character principle would be applied. Since this appears a part and parcel of our lives already, it can be tolerated. But, to now add the factor of slots allocated to lawmakers or other prominent Nigerians that will only forward names of their own people irrespective of whether they are fit for the job or not will only worsen matters. Merit should be the watchword. This may be a tall order though because even police recruitment, important as it is, has become politicised, with the quarrel between the Police Service Commission and the Nigeria Police Force itself. Regrettably, President  Buhari has not been able to put his foot down to insist on what is right.

With three terse sentences, Supreme Court dismisses his appeal against Buhari’s election

Politicians are incurable optimists. This is the only thing that could have made the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to still be keeping hope alive that his challenge of the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the election, President Muhammadu Buhari,  would bear any fruit. The truth of the matter is that many of those who may have been urging him on, particularly the lawyers, only wanted to corner a chunk of Atiku’s war chest. They know the man is stinking rich and would want a piece of the action which they also know they would get because Atiku himself is a generous man, generous to a fault when the issue is Nigeria’s presidency.

Really, one cannot deny the former vice president of his right to aspire to the country’s topmost position. After all, he has more than the rock bottom basic qualification for the office. If we would remember, Atiku was only elected governor of his native Adamawa State when the then presidential hopeful of the PDP in the 1999 presidential election, Chief Aremu Okikiola Olusegun Obasanjo routed for him to be his running mate. Atiku graciously accepted the offer (who would have rejected such, especially knowing that the PDP would most likely win that year’s presidential election?) Atiku was vice president in the Obasanjo administration, even though they later fell apart before the then president completed his first term. The two of them maintained a frosty relationship until the 2003 General Elections when Chief Obasanjo was said to have prostrated for Atiku in the dying minutes to secure his reelection. Although Atiku accepted Obasanjo’s idobale (prostration) and the latter was able to win following his victory at the party’s primary, thus paving the way for his reelection.

Because there is no permanent friend or permanent foe in politics, but permanent interest, Obasanjo and Atiku are now friends again, while President Buhari remains their common enemy.

I said it right from the time the 2019 elections were approaching and Atiku was picked to fly the PDP’s presidential ticket, that only a few people in PDP then would want to risk contesting because they knew their party was so loathed and that defeat loomed for whoever dared to contest for president under the former ruling party’s banner. So, when Atiku presented himself, the party accepted because there was no harm in trying, especially since Atiku had the means and was also ready to gamble with his resources. Many others who would have challenged him were not prepared to go that far; they thought it wise to keep whatever they had made legitimately, or stolen, for more productive and less risky endeavours.

With Atiku’s incurable optimism, and may be on some lawyers’ advice, the former vice president decided to challenge Buhari’s victory. Of course the lawyers knew they would make a kill from the endeavour. Even when he lost at the presidential election petitions tribunal, where he should have rested the matter, they still urged him on. Now, they have got to the end of the road. While Atiku may be ruing his fate and financial loss from the litigation, the lawyers are smiling whenever they check their bank balances. Only God knows how many life-transforming alerts they must have received in the course of the trial. Anyway, as I have always said whenever I write on Atiku’s odyssey to the presidency, I hope my constituency; the journalism profession, was also able to ‘obtain’ substantially from the enterprise.

As a newspaper put it, the former vice president’s appeal was thrown out in three sentences by the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, on Wednesday. Of course, reactions to the judgment have been as expected. While the ruling APC sees it as a revalidation of Buhari’s victory in the 2019 presidential election, the PDP says it is part of the country’s democratic challenges. The PDP even went further to say that final judgment comes from God. The question is; which final judgment again? What seems to be final judgment is not for the election but for all of mankind on the Day of Judgment. As for the 2019 presidential election, the file has been closed. The verdict has been written, signed, sealed and delivered. It has become God’s case, in which case there is no more appeal. As lawyers themselves say, there must be an end to litigation. But when a former ruling party that ruled without remembering God in its days in power and in government suddenly remembers there is God somewhere, then we should know it has been badly hit; it is a case of a man who is already down. So, I would not want to compound their sorrow.

Be that as it may, the APC may be savouring the court victory now because it favours it; it is the party’s responsibility to fix our political processes such that electoral victory would no longer come from the courts but from the polling booths. It is just that man is yet to design an alternative to courts’ resolving political logjams just like any other dispute; otherwise, it does not make sense for millions of voters to cast their votes only for a few judges to have the final say on the election. Why then do we waste billions to conduct elections? Why don’t we just tell the Chief Justice of Nigeria to constitute a panel of judges to pick the country’s political leaders?

If Atiku and the PDP are angry, depressed or demoralised as a result of the judgment, even though the former vice president said he would refuse to allow his spirit to be broken by it,  we should empathise with the members. It is only natural. The truth of the matter is that one would naturally be when after spending hugely on a matter, the deciding authority only dismissed the months of legal fireworks with three simple sentences: “Hear the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, who led six other judges of the apex court in deciding the matter: “We have examined all the briefs and the exhibits for over two weeks and we agree that there is no merit in this appeal. The appeal is dismissed. (Our) Reasons to be given on a date to be announced.” Other members of the panel who agreed with the lead judgment delivered by the CJN were Justices Bode Rhodes-Vivour, Kayode Ariwoola, John Okoro, Amiru Sanusi, Ejembi Eko and Uwani Aba-Aji. There was no dissenting judgment.

With the three terse sentences, the castle that Atiku and his legal team had been building in the air in the last few months simply crumbled like a pack of cards. The law is truly an ass! I thought only journalists try to be economical with words. There was no circumlocution in the three sentences. Despite the judgment being brief, there is no mistaking the fact that it was also unambiguous. Moreover, it was written in simple English, So, neither Atiku nor his lawyers could misinterpret the judgment however. This is why I wonder why some judges speak from the two sides of their mouth when they say they are delivering judgments. Their judgments are two-handed: on the one hand, and on the other. So, you find confusion all over the place, with parties to the matter both claiming that they won. The judges who sealed Atiku’s fate would seem to have done a good job of editing. It could not have been more concise. Although the CJN said reasons for the decision of the court would be disclosed on a date to be communicated to the parties involved in the case, the question now is: does that really matter? Can it change anything? The answer is no.

To that extent, it is now pertinent to ask: what next for the former vice president? Will Atiku still run in 2023? Having been born on November 25, 1946, he is close to 73 years as at today. By 2023 when Nigerians would be looking for Buhari’s successor, he would be 76, going to 77. Would Nigerians still be interested in having a septuagenarian succeed Buhari? Would Atiku himself see the need to retire so that the young/er may run? These are questions with their answers still in the wombs of time. But, if I may advise Atiku, he should just retire now and thank God for how far He has led him. He is not the richest Nigerian; he is not even the most qualified candidate for the office of vice president that he became on a platter. The former vice president has every reason to thank God.

However, should Atiku still succumb to temptations to run in 2023, and if the temptation is coming from lawyers, he should tell them to be ready to accept their legal fees only after he would have won the case should the election still become a subject of litigation. If he started the meeting with 50 lawyers, he would find out that the number would drop to 20 the second day after the terms have been spelt out. By the third and fourth days, he would be lucky if he still has five lawyers around him. That way, he would be able to know whether the matter is worth pursuing or not.

By Tunji Adegboyegba

It is incredible that the officials will kill over bribe

I have been waiting to see if someone would tell me it is not true. And that is in spite of the fact that the names of those allegedly involved in the crime were mentioned. With me, unease has been the word since early last week when the news broke that four Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) officials beat a man, Odion Omafo Samuel, 36, and buried his corpse in a shallow grave. The four officials, Francis Igboh, Sunday Ogi, Samson Alolade and Joseph Onolade, are now said to be in custody of the Edo State Police Command, after reportedly beating Samuel to death following the resistance he put up when the FRSC officials were allegedly trying to extort money from the driver of the vehicle he boarded. According to media reports, Samuel was said to have boarded an Audi 80 car on October 14 at Okhuaihe Hill along Benin-Agbor Road. The driver fled when he saw that Samuel had been beaten to stupor.

However, he was arrested for kidnapping when Samuel did not return home. It was after he narrated what happened to the police that two of the FRSC officials were arrested. The duo, reports said, eventually led detectives to the bush where Samuel was buried after rushing him to the hospital where he was confirmed dead. Edo State police spokesperson DSP Chidi Nwabuzor said it was a case of murder. “Our operatives in the homicide section of the State Criminal and Intelligence Investigation Department (SCIID), police headquarters, Benin City, are investigating the case. It is a case of murder”. DSP Nwabuzor added.

Although on the face of it, it looks like a murder case; an incontrovertible one at that. But then, “the law”, as they say, “is an ass”. Moreover, in our clime, no matter how seemingly clear a crime is, the suspect cannot be called a criminal until a court of competent jurisdiction so pronounced. So, DSP Nwabuzor is on his own for declaring what has happened as murder case.

But, beyond the legalism of whether the matter can be called a crime at this point or not, I must confess I am yet to recover from the shock I fell into when the story broke. FRSC officials killed an innocent Nigerian over bribe! It just refused to sink. I had waited in the hope that someone or even the FRSC would deny the story or disown the men. That this has not happened till now has made me to more or less believe that the story is most likely true.

It is not that I am not aware that some FRSC officials collect bribe on the road. I had personal encounters with some of them. Like the police, they will ask for your vehicle particulars; they ask for your driver’s licence. They ask you to produce the fire extinguisher in your car, your spare tyre, C-Caution, etc. after fulfilling all righteousness, some of them get perplexed when they see you have more than the law says you should have. Then they begin to look for extraneous things until they find other faults that are not known to the Highway Code. It is just the way some policemen behave on the road. When they later find out that you are a journalist with correct particulars, some of them will then jocularly tell you that you should have told them you are a journalist, a thing they say, should have ensured your not being rigorously searched or searched at all.

At this stage, I tell them that I could not have told them I am a journalist because I do not know of any law that says journalists should not have complete vehicle particulars or driver’s licence. In many instances, it is not that they really love you for being a journalist; what some of them are saying is that you should not have let them waste time asking for particulars since you are not likely to drop something, yet they too would not want to be as daring as to collect whatever bribe they want to collect from others for as long as you are still around. So, they simply ask you to go. I am used to some of these antics, especially on our highways. So, I won’t lose sleep if you say some FRSC officials collect bribe on the road.

But I could almost swear that they would know when to apply the brake when they see people like Samuel who are either stubborn or know their rights. To beat someone to the point of death is one of the very last things I would expect an FRSC official to do. To find the courage to bury him secretly compounds the astonishment.

The driver of the vehicle that Samuel boarded was only lucky. I guess his luck was that the FRSC officials were not armed. Otherwise, one of them might have shot him not necessarily out of wickedness but because of the desperation to cover their tracks. It is the kind of thing that happens when people commit ‘small sin’, they follow it up with serial worse sins just to make sure they are not caught. In many instances, they end up being caught. The most surprising thing is that the fact that they are eventually apprehended does not deter others from toeing the same path.

Let me feel free to continue luxuriating in self-denial by still thinking that such crimes are beyond FRSC officials. But then, I would plead for a thorough handling of the case by the police and other persons involved. When we talk of the police committing such crimes, we do not shudder. It’s like we know they are capable of such. And it’s not our fault; several policemen had committed very terrible crimes, including murder. I still remember the particular one in Kogi State where policemen at a checkpoint stopped a vehicle for routine search and killed most of the occupants when they realised that they were traders with a lot of money on them which they were taking to the market in another place to buy things that they were selling. What gave them up was the fact that some of them managed to escape. They were the ones that blew the lid off the crime. As a matter of fact, the policemen not only stopped at killing the occupants of the commercial vehicle, they also set the bus ablaze to conceal the crime.

Some military men have also been involved in similar and sundry other crimes. Name it; our other security agencies also harbour all manner of criminals. May be I should not be surprised at the case of the FRSC officials because they are also Nigerians. After all, nobody would go to outer space to recruit people for these jobs. But then, it does not seem to be rampant among the FRSC yet. This is the reason I would want the matter professionally handled so that the men involved would be used as examples to their colleagues who might want to follow the same path, if eventually they are found guilty. This is important before this kind of thing becomes routine among the FRSC officials.

What comes into my mind when things like this occur are my friends in the organisation/s involved. I always ask myself if these friends of mine could ever be involved in this kind of crime. Mercifully, not one of them has been caught or linked with such criminals in their respective agencies. Because I do not know how to handle such case.

Road safety commission was set up to ensure sanity on our highways, to reduce the rate of accidents and ensure that vehicles on the highways are worthy and that the owners have the requisite particulars and tools that can be called upon during emergencies, among other responsibilities. A situation where we have to carry our hearts in our mouths when we see them on the highways is not the best. Even the founding fathers of the commission or corps, as it were, would be sorely disappointed when they hear that the men in the organisation are no longer different from the pack. It was not so in the beginning. FRSC men were well respected on the highways when they started because all the ills associated with the police and other security agents on the roads were absent in the FRSC then. So, what has suddenly gone wrong, after all the commission was manned by Nigerians too in those glorious days?

I am still waiting for someone to tell me it’s not true; that there is a mix-up somewhere.

Buhari’s directive can only make sense if it is not to service the new minimum wage

President Muhammadu Buhari’s’ order to ministers, permanent secretaries, chairmen of extra-ministerial departments, chief executive officers and directors of Federal Government agencies, not to embark on more than two official trips abroad in a quarter should be well received by Nigerians who are truly desirous of seeing a reduction in public overheads, which usually account for the chunk of spending  year in, year out. This means each of them is entitled to one trip in six weeks. The statement from the  Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, which made the directive public on Wednesday said: “Except with the express approval of Mr President, ministers, permanent secretaries, chairmen of extra-ministerial departments, chief executive officers and directors are restricted to not more than two foreign travels in a quarter.” If you ask me, this is even too much per public official. Before now, it has been suggested that our public officials are some of the most travelled in the world.

Virtually everybody who is somebody in government always finds a reason to want to travel out of the country. Since 1999, some local government councillors and chairmen have also found cause to travel abroad to enhance the performance of their duties! As a matter of fact, the ones in Osun State would have travelled out at the tail-end of the immediate past government in the state but for public uproar. A state that says it does not have funds for developmental projects would have spent millions to keep a few people who are enjoying on behalf of the people they are supposed t be serving, happy. For God’s sake, what do local government officials want to learn abroad about governance? What do they want to learn about how to clear drainage and other petty roles assigned to them under the constitution that they cannot learn in the country? The most annoying part of it all is that these foreign travels do not reflect in the quality of service delivery by the public officials. If these foreign travels are of any value, it is to the beneficiaries, not the people that they purport to represent.

Does anyone need to be told or lectured on what we are now seeing as presidential directives on foreign travels? Does any reasonable person not know that foreign travels must be for essential statutory engagements that are beneficial to the country? Does anyone need to be told that the number of his aides should not be more than three when ministers are leading any government team abroad and that others cannot have more than two such aides? Does anyone mindful of cost need to be reminded or directed to travel in business class or economy class when on official engagements abroad? How many of these public officials would go with the kind of retinue of aides they normally take along during their foreign trips if they were to spend their own money?

The truth of the matter is that we see government’s money as no one’s money; it is like the leg of a mad man that we think we can treat anyhow. It is not our fault, though. I have said it and it begs repeating, that it is the kind of thing that happens when people do not work for the money they earn. Our palm kernel has been cracked for us by God who provided crude oil in the Niger Delta that we are all enjoying the money. If we are to run the country with our taxes, perhaps we would know how to call our public officials to order when they squander our money.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo of blessed memory once said that he would not want to get used to what he cannot afford in private life even as a public officer. This is the source of the problems of many ex- these, ex-that in the country. After spoiling themselves with public funds in office, they are like fish out of water when the inevitability of their leaving such office stares them in the face.

Perhaps this leads us to another point the president made in the directive; that is; the respective public officials must not exceed the number of days for the events for which they travelled out before returning home. “Also, travel days will no longer attract payment of estacode allowances as the duration of official trips shall be limited to only the number of days of the event as contained in the supporting documents to qualify for public funding,” the statement stated. Before now, what obtained was a situation where the officials stayed behind after the events for shopping, on the taxpayers’ account. We have had many examples, particularly in the sports ministry where officials travel with all manner of people at government expense, sometimes the entourage, including their girlfriends outnumber the number of footballers or athletes that are representing the country at international events. It is because they travel out for different reasons beyond representing the country that the sport officials sometimes forget to take along the jerseys and other important items that would be required at the events. They thereafter end up with excess luggage when returning home!

President Buhari appears poised to cut the cost of governance with these directives. As a matter of fact, he should have embarked on this a long time ago; probably as soon as he assumed office in 2015. This is because he is not a novice in government. He had been Federal Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural Resources, he had been Chairman of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) and, to top it all, he is also a former head of state. He has seen it all, as they say. All of these positions should have afforded him the opportunity of knowing how public officials shortchange this country through estacode and sundry allowances that they pay themselves illegally. It is not only our lawmakers in the National Assembly that take what does not belong to them financially. One of the anti-corruption agencies only about two weeks ago said even their aides had been treated to all kinds of allowances that they were not entitled to. It is now that the searchlight is being beamed on such that they are complaining. But their bosses, the lawmakers, cannot check such practices because they too are neck deep in it. They first have to remove the logs in their own eyes before attempting to remove the specks in their aides’. But, willy-nilly, sometime, someday, the President has to do something about the take home pay of our NASS members. He must do this if really he wants to leave a legacy in public finance. Tampering with the excessive pays of chief executives of the executive arm should only be a precursor of what to expect. After all, the NASS members themselves have often told us that we look the other way with regards to what these other categories of Nigerians (Public officials in the executive arm) take home while only focusing the searchlight on theirs. What the NASS members take as pay in whatever guise is corruption by some other means which a government that came on the mantra of change must tackle headlong.

All said, it is important for the Federal Government to tell us how much it is able to save at the end of the financial year, as a result of these measures. It is not enough for government to issue directives such as these, it is more important for the people to see whether the end justifies the means. What I am saying is that at the end of the day, we must see the difference as a result of the presidential directives. Whether these would be significant or amount to much is a different matter entirely. Even if we see these developments as tokenism, we should still support it. As they say, it is better late than never. Little drops of water make the mighty ocean. When we plug loopholes here and there, we definitely will make some savings that can be spent on more beneficial things.

But, whatever it is, these cost-saving measures must not be the Federal Government’s answer to the question posed by the new minimum wage because we can only return to square one if that is the case. It means the government would still continue to groan under huge overheads that do not leave space or funds for development. And this would be tragic indeed.