Category: Tunji Adegboyega

Nigerians’ anger against SA is good, but don’t we need more protests at home to make our governments responsible?

Without doubt, the South Africans have been at it for so long. It just happened that this time around, they had stolen enough for the owner to notice. The latest xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in South Africa on February 5 and 18 were not the first; and may not be the last unless steps are taken by the South African authorities and the Nigerian government to stop the ugly trend. Alternatively, Nigerians will be forced to take their destiny in their own hands and fight back. This, apparently, is what is playing out with the invasion by some Nigerian youths of MTN premises in Abuja. Other South African businesses, including Shoprite and Multichoice have also been given an ultimatum to leave the country.

It is the failure of leadership on both sides that led to the resort to self-help by the angry Nigerians. Kadiri Aruna, President, National Association of Nigerian Students which staged a demonstration in Abuja on Thursday over the incident and gave South African companies in Nigeria 48 hours to leave the country recounted that the last time the xenophobic attack happened, nothing was done and that that was why the South Africans repeated the attacks.

Apparently, the South Africans have forgotten their history and the role that Nigeria played in their liberation struggle in the apartheid era. When in the mid-70s Nigeria said Africa was the centre-piece of its foreign policy, apartheid South Africa constituted the chunk of that portion of the continent that the Murtala/Obasanjo government was referring to. Aruna said it all: “Nigeria contributed 80 per cent of the freedom the South Africans are enjoying today because we saved them from the jaws of apartheid. Who is South Africa to humiliate Nigeria? So they forget things so soon, let them go back to history and records to see how much financial assistance and what the country (Nigeria) did to save them’’.

Again, that there has been a recrudescence of such attacks targetted principally against Nigerians in South Africa also shows the contempt the South Africans have for Nigeria, which in turn is a reflection of the country’s diminishing status in the international political arena. Perhaps this is what Aruna seemed to have forgotten.

But the South Africans should be taught the simple lesson that no country is an island unto itself. Countries right from time immemorial have had cause to depend on one another for one thing or the other. The matter is all the more serious when it seems the South African police and other law enforcement agencies are complicit in the anti-Nigerian attacks.

At the heart of the attacks is the lack of jobs in South Africa which reportedly made the young South Africans to target Nigerians that they believe are taking over jobs meant for them. This, no doubt, is a serious matter. It can be compared to the situation in a home where the man has bitten off more than he can chew (i.e. have more children than he could cater for). When the children are served their meals, especially in the traditional Nigerian fashion where the meals are served in one big bowl that the children sit round, the tendency is for them to fight and sometimes dip their fingers into one another’s eyes. As a matter of fact, they could even throw away much of the food unintentionally in the process. That is, when they realise that what they have before them is the full and final portion; that nothing would come by way of extra even if they complain till thy kingdom come about the insufficiency of the ration. But it cannot be so if the children are from relatively comfortable homes where they know they will always have more food if they request for it.

The South African youths would appear misguided in their approach to the issue. They are entitled to jobs in their country, no doubt. But what is important is to see, especially in these days of nations’ interdependency, whether the Nigerians they are angry with have broken any law. Unfortunately, it was after the attacks that the South African authorities started combing their industries in search of illegal immigrants working there, and threatening sanctions against owners of the businesses that engaged them. If the existing rules and regulations are still skewed in favour of the foreigners against the nationals, these can be tinkered with. But even at that, South Africa has to be guided by the principle of reciprocity as Nigeria or any other country that finds such policies detrimental to its own interest has the right to do likewise against South Africans in its territory.

Having said all that, we must return home to put the blame where it appropriately belongs. It is the Nigerian government that should still do something to make Nigerians say ‘no’ to humiliation from all over the world in their search for greener pasture. The point is that Nigeria as it is is choking. There are no jobs for our teeming youths who are leaving schools. Artisans are not finding things funny either, as those of them who rely on electricity cannot find the power to run their businesses. Some people made the countries to which able bodied Nigerians run to what they are today. Rather than strive to make our own country regain its lost glory, our leaders prefer to jet out at the slightest opportunity to attend to their needs. Instead of developing our schools, they send their children abroad in search of the Golden Fleece. Instead of equipping our hospitals with the necessary tools and personnel, they run abroad to treat themselves. We lack security, yet we want investors. We don’t have constant power supply, yet we are clamouring for investment. There is no cheap access to funds to run businesses. Nothing. Even our churches are not helping matters. Instead of praying that this country be great again, they launch prayer sessions for Nigerians who want visa to travel out and even pray that those abroad should not be visited with sudden deportation. You cannot go and choke people in their own countries the way you have done in your own country and expect them to smile with you.

The only way to restore respectability to Nigerians and our nation is by making it great again.

Driver’s licence: A refreshing experience

When in 2013 I went to the Ikeja office, Lagos, of the authorities issuing driver’s licence, what I saw could easily be described as bedlam. And I so said on this page then. The whole place was in disarray and everyone seemed to be doing his own thing. There are three government agencies involved in the process, making it cumbersome and prone to abuses and corrupt practices. But, as far as many Nigerians are concerned, it is only the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) that they know. So, FRSC alone carries the can.
However, things appear to be looking up at the office these days. The first thing that put one off there in 2013 was the unusually large crowd of intending applicants who wanted to obtain or renew their driver’s licence. This has substantially disappeared. Of course there was no way all manner of complications would not have arisen with the old order. When you have too many people waiting for a particular service, it is like when demand exceeds supply; high price follows. There was all manner of irregularities – favouritism, underhand deals, unruly officials who did not know that the customer is king, etc.
But the first thing to notice there these days is that the crowd has disappeared. Thus, the officials have a manageable size of people to attend to, often. Then, unlike the old order, prospective applicants for driver’s licence are now treated like human beings – they have seats provided for them even as there is a canopy to protect them from rain or the scorching sun. I was told credit for this reduction in the crowd goes to the new FRSC boss, Olayemi Boboye, who personally visited the place on assumption of office and, on seeing how disorganised it was, vowed to turn things around.
Thus, in place of the (I think) six such centres in the whole of Lagos then, despite its high population, the number has been increased to about 20. Boboye also effected changes in the personnel structure of his own arm of the agency responsible for driver’s licence, leading to the relative calm and efficiency noticeable there now. Although this could not have been totally achieved without the cooperation of the other arms, the fact is, someone has to drive the process. If what I saw about two weeks ago is sustained, there is no doubt that prospective applicants would find the Ikeja centre an attractive place to go for their driver’s licence.

With friends like Yakubu’s, this Andrew ain’t ‘checking out’ to nowhere!

Two posts that I received on WhatsApp last week inspired this write-up. I crave your indulgence to reproduce them. They look so similar but there is still a noticeable difference in the wordings and messages: The first: “Are we really friends at all? I’m just wondering about the kind of friendship I have with you. Particularly when you see that friends of Andrew Yakubu (former Group Managing Director of the NNPC recently caught by EFCC) gave him $9.8m and 74,000 pounds sterling as gifts. Dame Patience Jonathan too had earlier claimed that the money found in an account traced to her was just gift from her friends. Excuse me, what kind of friendship are we really having? Please let’s improve on this relationship. Feel free to ask for my account details. I am waiting.”

And the second: “Serioously, Mmmmmmm … If Dame Patience Jonathan said the money found in her bank accounts were gifts to her by her friends, and now Andrew Yakubu, former GMD of NNPC also said that the money found in his house were gifts from friends, I think it’s high time I changed my present circle of friends and be with those friends who will be willing to give me cash gifts in dollars, pound sterling and Euros. So, if you don’t hear from me anymore, know that you can’t afford to give me what true friends give to their friends: dollars, pound sterling, Euros and Japanese yen.”

I am not addicted to the social media; but I must confess I have discovered that Nigerians have an infinite capacity for wittiness. That much is reflected on their comments in the social media.

Needless to say that the two posts were reactions to the $9,772,800 and 74,000 pounds sterling (about N5bilion) found in a building in Sabon Tasha, a remote part of Kaduna, Kaduna State, belonging to Mr Andrew Yakubu, a former Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). No one with deep knowledge of how our people react to such things will blame Mr Yakubu for quickly singing loud that the money represented gifts from his friends who must have been well pleased with him. The average Nigerian thinks no human being can pass through Nigeria’s public service without stealing. And as far as they are concerned, even if an angel becomes GMD of NNPC, he would be caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

No doubt, our people will find such discovery salacious, especially against the backdrop of the legendary stench they have always associated the oil behemoth with. But why are many Nigerians so daft not to know that NNPC would have known if such money had been stolen from its vaults? Anyway, can we even say the money is too much to belong to a man who had served as GMD in NNPC, knowing that the corporation is richer than many state governments combined, and its accounts are hardly open to anybody?

A Yoruba adage says that someone who does not know how his mates made it will only run to his death. Unfortunately, even now that Mr Yakubu has given us a priceless piece of information, to wit:: that the money is mere gifts from his friends, for which we should be eternally grateful, many people are still not satisfied. Yet, if he had written a book titled “How to hit a jackpot: good and appreciative friends”, many of us would have rushed to get copies. What he gave us for free is the kind of secret some people will clad as consultancy and charge a fortune for before giving out. If it is this easy to be rich, why have many of us been labouring to be rich? Please let us retrace our steps, pocket the bile in us and thank Mr Yakubu for availing us generously the secret of his wealth.

After all, what would it have profited us as Nigerians if some armed robbers who must have been passing through Yakubu’s house of fortune without knowing that their ‘miracle’ was there (to quote someone)  have had access to that stupendous fortune? Now, all of us know that good friends with deep pockets, not necessarily hard work, is all that is required to make it in life.

However, rather than pray their way out of recession and frustration, and ask God for good friends like Mr Yakubu, many Nigerians, apparently out of envy, are saying all kinds of nonsense. Some say he is stingy. Many of those who had been sleeping with the money in the area without the spiritual eyes to see that such a thing was there say he should have used the money to establish companies where Nigerians would be working. One wondered why criminals in the area went about disturbing people who are struggling to make ends meet instead of going to Yakubu’s place for the kill. Indeed, a lady could not restrain her disgust for the embattled former boss of NNPC: “The man is wicked”. Some even said he has no milk of human kindness in him while many others are wondering how he can have such money and still be able to sleep with his two eyes closed!

These are the kinds of questions that poor people ask. They have forgotten that everybody cannot be Justice Victor Ovie-Whiskey, who said he would faint if he saw just a million naira! Why should Yakubu fear any foe or even faint, when he knows the source of his money is clean? Someone even prayed that nemesis will continue to catch up with his like,” snapping her fingers. I’m afraid the way we are going about it, Mr Yakubu would not be favourably disposed to telling us the details of these generous gifters, which is not good for us.

The man has even helped us by keeping the money secure, away from the prying eyes of criminals. Those who might be asking that if he knew the money was genuinely his, why did he not keep it in the bank should be guided by the fact that he kept foreign currencies in his house and we met them there. A few months ago, we were told that some people who had foreign currencies in their bank accounts were told they should get the naira equivalent because the foreign currencies had disappeared! Moreover, having been used to such forex gifts, Mr Yakubu knows their worth; he knows that American dollars, British pound sterling and even Euros cannot survive the kind of heat that our Naira will merely shrug off. So, he provided the minimum comfort that air conditioners could give for them. What else do we want him to do?

Definitely, this Andrew cannot be in a hurry to ‘check out’ of Nigeria. His fate is different from that of the ‘Andrew’ that we knew in the ‘80s, who wanted to ‘check out’ in search of greener pasture. Andrew Yakubu cannot harbour such unpatriotic thought. Check out? To where? Not after this blessing that he may never have the opportunity of finishing, no matter how long Jesus tarries in coming. Where else could Mother Luck have connected him to such generous friends that took his reproach away?

But the EFCC should have uncovered this wonder gift late last year so it could have been part of the input for my New Year resolution. Anyway, I cannot even remember if I made any resolution in 2016. Recession had recessed me such that I was incapable of rational thinking necessary for making such. Thank God the government has said recession is receding; but I hope it is not only on paper; because by the time recession begins to recede proper, it is not the government that would tell us. Nigerians themselves would herald the good news; otherwise, it becomes another rebasing wonder.

All said, let this piece serve as yellow card to all those who call themselves my friends. If within two weeks I do not begin to experience dollar and pound sterling ‘rain’, prompting alerts from my bank, then I will serve them red card. I will thereafter proceed to the markets to mop up all the whistles available. If my friends cannot transform my life, I’ll try whistle- blowing. By the time I blow half of the whistles that I procured, my miracle must come, with alert jamming alert on my phone. If I am able to get five per cent or even 2.5 percent of one billion naira, definitely, my life will never be the same again. I will then be able to bless my friends who refused to bless me. I promise I won’t repay evil with evil.

 Meanwhile, I wonder what our kidnappers are still waiting for. I wonder why they are yet to key into the latest business in town: whistle blowing. You don’t need any especial brain or logistic. No risks either. Just get some whistles and begin to blow. Our referees who might be thinking they have some advantage over the rest of us because they have been blowing whistle all their lives should watch it: the race is not for the swiftest. That is why I am keying into the project right now. It is boon from the government. And it is legit.

But the EFCC boss, Ibrahim Magu, has to be careful. It is not everything that he sees that he should squeal about. That is why they don’t want him. Indeed, if those that Magu is supposed to catch have two options: magun (don’t climb, lest you summersault) and Magu, I have no doubt they will feel more comfortable with the former, lethal as it is.

It is good to let our rich pay for their conspicuous consumption, but will the money be well spent?

In his reaction to the World Bank report which placed Nigeria among the five poorest countries in the world, then President Goodluck Jonathan said “the nation is not poor.’’ His reason? “I visited Kenya recently on a state visit and there was a programme for Nigerian and Kenyan business men to interact and the number of private jets that landed in Nairobi that day was a subject of discussion in Kenyan media for over a week.” He was not done: “If you talk about ownership of private jets, Nigeria will be among the first 10 countries, yet they are saying that Nigeria is among the five poorest countries,” the president told workers at the May Day rally held at the Eagle Square, Abuja on May 1, 2014. He then promised to redistribute income, which, to him, was the issue and not the poverty that the World Bank ascribed to be Nigeria’s lot.

Dr Jonathan’s conclusion was that “our problem is not poverty, our problem is redistribution of wealth,’’ and he promised that his government would ensure that wealth was equitably redistributed even as he read political undertones into the World Bank rating. Well, may be his way of redistributing the income was the liberalisation of treasury looting and the massive bribing of voters, sometimes with scarce foreign exchange, in the twilight of his administration. The number of Nigerians with private jets may also have been his idea of what prosperity is all about.

But that is not my destination today.

My focus is on a newspaper report which claims that “Only 40 super rich Nigerians pay correct tax”. This must be shocking, even though the report said nothing new. We have always known that as a notorious fact. A government report commissioned by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Joint Tax Board which made this known hinted that the government would soon go after super-rich Nigerians whose lavish lifestyles do not correlate with the peanut they pay as tax annually.

Here, we need to work on two concepts: ‘super rich’ and ‘correct tax’. The report tried to help by defining ‘super rich’ as  “ High Net-Worth Individuals (HNIs) and correct tax as such persons “who must have paid direct assessment tax of at least N10m in 2016 and, thus, were assumed to have made at least N40m and above in income in the same year.” So, we have only about 40 Nigerians who earned about N40m last year? Come off it! We know how to deceive ourselves in this country. As the newspaper quoted a source to have asked: “Where are all the big names that make hundreds of millions and billions every year?”

As if this was not enough, all the 40 individuals who paid at least N10m tax in 2016, paid a total of N1,028,715,362 and they all paid in Lagos. So, we have nobody in the remaining 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) who had an income of N40m and above in 2016? In a country where ownership of private jets was said to have risen from 20 to about 150 in recent years, with a jet going for about $50 million on the average, this cannot be correct.

But it is difficult to blame the rich for this because nobody anywhere wants to pay tax. Put differently, nobody wants to part with money. Even in the developed countries, many of those who pay, particularly the rich, know there would be consequences if they default; they know that the long arms of the law are not too short to get them. A good reason many people also pay tax willingly in other climes is because they know it would be judiciously spent.

So, in essence, it is the government that is to blame for our rich evading tax or even not wanting to pay appropriate tax. Meanwhile, while the government looks the other way as the rich (is there a difference?) evade tax or pay an insignificant fraction of what they should pay, the ordinary people are being harassed by all manner of tax officials from the local government to state government, not to talk of the Federal Government, to pay their taxes.

Apparently one reason why we don’t care about how money is spent or stolen by public officials is because it is not our tax they are stealing or misappropriating. In countries where tax forms a significant portion of their public revenue, people are likely to be angry when they hear that their money has been misappropriated. But here, nothing shocks us again; we merely pretend not to see or hear when told that someone has bolted with  billions of public funds, we shrug it off as if “well, that is his own share of the national cake.” Indeed, it is no longer fashionable to steal in millions because many Nigerians would wonder how you can get a good senior advocate to waste the court’s time and in the end, render the matter interminable. Anyway, why would we bother when tax accounts for only about six per cent of our gross domestic product (GDP)? In many developed countries, it is about 30 per cent and even in many other African countries, it is far higher than six per cent. The bulk of government revenue comes from crude oil which we do not know how it got to the soil and have not even mastered the art of knowing how much of it is pumped out daily; we still rely on foreigners to do this for us about 61 years after crude oil was discovered in Oloibiri, Bayelsa State. So, where is the motivation to care about what happens to the proceeds?

Government itself does not appear keen on collecting as much tax because if it is, some of its time-wasting policies inhibiting productivity would not have been introduced. Take driver’s license for example. After making the necessary payment and going through the entire gamut of the test, capturing and all (all of which are rituals in their own right because the system has made a fetish of them) you keep going back and forth to check if the license is ready. The question you ask yourself is: how come the system that can produce a temporary driver’s license to you cannot issue the original once-and-for-all instead of asking you to keep checking at intervals if the original is ready? Without doubt, the government itself would be more worried and be wary of policies that make people repeat visits to its establishment just to get driver’s license if tax forms the bulk of its revenue.

It is good news that the government intends to widen the tax net to bring in more eligible taxpayers. Chairman of the Joint Tax Board (JTB), Mr. Tunde Fowler, said about 13.4 million Nigerians were paying tax as at last year  and that it intended to raise it to 20 million by December last year. In a situation where within six months, Fowler said about 3,414,496 new taxpayers were added to the national tax register, attaining the 20 million might be realistic; especially with the huge drop in crude oil revenues which has compelled the government to look more in the direction of tax and other sources of revenue that had been neglected in the past. The only challenge to this ambitious plan is the economic recession that has led to many Nigerians losing their jobs.

It is also important to point out that the government is mapping out strategies to shore up the revenue from tax. These reportedly include “The Nigerian National Tax Amnesty Programme’ under which defaulters would be allowed to regularise their transactions and get tax clearance for all the relevant years without fear of criminal prosecution and with the benefit of forgiveness of interest and penalties. The government is also said to be collaborating with some other countries for the purpose of determining the property of Nigerians in those countries to enable it assess them properly for tax.

Without doubt, these measures would yield much more money to the government’s coffers. What cannot be guaranteed is whether the money would be judiciously spent. Nigeria has made billions of dollars from crude oil, but where has that led us? The best is to hope that in line with the theory that people are much more sensitive if their sweat (tax) is stolen, Nigerians would also not treat public officials with itchy fingers with kid gloves when tax becomes the main source of government revenue.

But it would be the dawn of a new day when our rich are made to pay appropriate tax.

Upper chamber will do well to reverse itself  

After a long lull, the issue of  confirmation of the appointment of the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu by the senate resurfaced again last week, when President Muhammadu Buhari  represented his name to the upper chamber. Magu was appointed in acting capacity on November  9, 2015. Ipso facto, he was supposed to have been confirmed in May last year. However, when it was time to confirm him, the senate came up with an impediment: an alleged damning report by the Department of State Services (DSS) indicting him of corrupt practices. Thai is why Magu has remained in  acting capacity since November 2015.

So, what is the nature of the allegations? The secret service says: “Magu is currently occupying a residence rented for N40 million at N20 million per annum. This accommodation was not paid for from the commission’s finances.” Moreover, according to the DSS, “investigations show that Magu regularly embarks on official and private trips through a private carrier, EasyJet,  In one of such trips, Magu flew to Maiduguri alongside the managing director of a bank, who was being investigated by the commission over complicity in funds allegedly stolen by the immediate past Minister of  Petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke.

It added, “The EFCC boss so far maintained a hog pigs profile life style. This is exemplified by his preference for first class air travel. On June 24, 2016, he flew Emirates Airlines first class to Saudi Arabia to perform the lesser Hajj at the cost of N2,990,196.00. This was in spite of Mr. President’s directives to all public servants to fly economic class.” It also accused him of being in possession of the commission’s documents which he had no business with. The DSS then concluded that, “in the light of the foregoing, Magu has failed the integrity test and will eventually constitute a liability to the anti-corruption drive of the present administration.”

Without doubt, some of these allegations are damning. But, one would have expected an impartial senate to ask Magu to defend himself rather than excitedly throwing his file back at the president as if to confirm that the DSS report was premeditated. Human rights activist, Mr Femi Falana, hit the nail on the head in defending Magu’s re-nomination: “With respect, the Senate did not consider the nomination the first time. The Senate is required to conduct a confirmation hearing whereby the nominee is afforded an opportunity to react to allegations made against him or her. That was the procedure adopted in the screening of all ministerial nominees. I am sure that the senate will adopt the same procedure in the case of Magu.”

But legislators who would have preferred a pliable chairman at the EFCC cannot afford the luxury of fair hearing for Magu. All they needed was the wuruwuru to the answer that they had done. Who even knows at whose behest the so-called DSS security report was made!

No one should have expected Magu to have a smooth sail at the senate, and, indeed, surprise would have been the word if that happened. The truth of the matter is that the EFCC boss, at least given what is in the public domain, has discharged his responsibility creditably so far. I would have agreed with one of our senators that the president had conducted the funeral of the anti-corruption war if Magu had not encountered the hurdles he is having in the senate. Not a few people have said that the senate, as constituted, does not hide its disdain for the EFCC boss, given the tendentious manner he has been doing his job. A senate whose number one citizen is having issues bordering on corruption cannot like a man like Magu. That many senators are with their president in this is enough indication of the quality and moral standing of many of the people in what is supposed to be a hallowed chamber. It would seem they have studied Magu’s modus operandi and have discovered that he is like the king that has come who does not know Joseph.

This is the reason why many Nigerians feel strongly about the confirmation of Magu’s appointment. He has restored credibility to the EFCC and brought life back into the organisation. In fact, Prof Itse Sagay, chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Corruption, pooh-poohed insinuations that non-confirmation would remove Magu from his position. In an interview with The Interview monthly magazine, Sagay said “whether they like it or not, he (Magu) will be there. His chairmanship will keep on being renewed.” Any rational human being who has no skeleton in his cupboard would feel as strongly as Prof Sagay in this matter, even if some could accuse him of having gone too far.

Second Vice President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Mr. Monday Ubani, sums it up thus: ‘’I am not surprised that he was not confirmed because of the level of seriousness he has exhibited in the fight against corruption. There is an elite gang-up against his confirmation, and it cuts across all parties because Magu is serious about the fight against graft in the country.”  What I would have expected the executive to do was to engage in lobbying. The lobbying I am talking about is not financial but by reaching out to the lawmakers and telling them why Magu should be confirmed.”  I agree with Ubani up to the point where he said there is an elite gang-up against Magu and that the man has done reasonably well; but I disagree that even if President Buhari had attempted to lobby (and without money as Ubani suggested), he would have succeeded in seeing Magu’s confirmation through, for the same reason that Ubani cited. For the elite in question, Magu’s confirmation or non-confirmation is a matter of life and death. They won’t open their eyes wide and put their testicles in the hands of a man like Magu at the helm of affairs in the EFCC.

But, for God’s sake, who needs an angel for an anti-corruption czar? What we want is someone who is, according to Caesar, ‘above board’. Let Magu defend himself against the allegations levelled against him. Otherwise, the upper chamber should save its face by confirming his appointment. This is what to do if truly, they are the people’s representatives.

“Looking at a king’s mouth” wrote Chinua Achebe, “one would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast”. In the same vein, one would never have imagined that Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer Worldwide, of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) once upon a time coveted jollof rice with chicken. But the man of God revealed at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, when he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity, DD by the university on Tuesday that he developed interest in the university when he went there with his fellow students on an excursion in 1962 and saw students eating jollof rice with half a chicken. Carried away by what he saw, Adeboye said: “I took a pebble from the ground and asked God to make me come to the university. The following year, 1963, God answered my prayers.”

Those of us who went to universities many years after thought we were the only ones fascinated by the jollof rice and chicken that were served on many campuses at the time. At the University of Lagos too, at least until the mid-80s, we were served jollof rice complete with half chicken on Sundays, and the queues at the cafeterias were usually unusually long, with many students inviting their siblings, girlfriends, boyfriends, friends, etc. to campus to partake of the weekly cuisine. Those of us who were fortunate to attend the federal schools also remember that we had the same experience on Sundays. Indeed, whether at the university or the federal school, the authorities always had some explaining to do if for one reason or the other they could not get chicken to go round or if it would be substituted with fish or beef. It was enough ground for unrest.

But all that is no more; gone with the winds! When we recount such experiences today, it is like one is telling tales by moonlight. It is difficult for our students today to believe that a time there was when such good things happened in our citadels of learning. We pray for an early return of such good old days.

Meanwhile, it’s nice having a great Nigerian like Pastor Adeboye as one of the fellows of those of us who also got attracted to university partly because of the allure of jollof rice and chicken! It was a wonderful experience!

So, Jammeh was only grandstanding?

Watchers of the political developments in The Gambia, since the last December 1 general elections in that country would have known that the country was headed for a needless crisis the moment the (then) incumbent president, Yahya Jammeh, rejected the result, after initially accepting defeat. Adama Barrow won the election which was adjudged worldwide as credible and fair. “I hereby reject the results in totality,” said Mr. Jammeh, who had been in office for 22 years. I will not accept the results,” he added, rather emphatically and called for fresh elections to be organised by a “God-fearing electoral commission. A man who had vowed to spend one billion years in power if Allah permitted him, and had spent only 22, must still be at the preliminary stages of his presidency. So, quitting was out of the question.

By this action, Jammeh had merely confirmed the saying that it is needless putting someone destined to sleep on the bare floor on a water bed; because he would still roll to the ground where he belongs, from the bed. Jammeh had every opportunity to etch his name in gold by surrendering power after his defeat by Barrow and his iniquities throughout his 22-year stay in power would have been forgiven, perhaps forgotten. Indeed, he was headed in that direction when he accepted defeat only to change his mind when he was bitten by the bug that had bitten his ilk on the continent in the past.

 Two things might have led to the volte-face. One, it is possible the man suddenly could not imagine his new life as ex-president, with all the allures of power in Africa, and especially in his country. The pictures of his palace that we saw on television and even in the newspapers were enough to show how much the man loved power.

As a matter of fact, the way he sat while addressing the West African leaders who earlier visited him to see if they could make him see reason readily gave him away as a man who coveted the office. This was what made many Nigerians remember, with nostalgia, former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Seeing our own President Muhammadu Buhari looking so clueless before a small mortal like Jammeh at the parley, they wished Obasanjo had been in Buhari’s shoes. The Owu chief would have summoned Jammeh to Abuja to come and explain what he saw in the pot of soup that made him pack locust beans in his hands.

Perhaps Jammeh was reluctant to leave office due to guilty conscience; he could have been troubled by the consequence, out of power, of his dark deeds as president.

But the lust for power could be more like it because if it was a question of his iniquities as president, those could have been taken care of during the many negotiations by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and others that had long intervened, apparently to secure soft-landing for him. But rather than see reason, he saw ECOWAS as anti-Jammeh or at best, a meddlesome interloper. My proof? To Jammeh, the Gambian presidency was his birth-right. That was why he told his people on state television on December 20, 2016, that:”I am not a coward. My right cannot be intimidated and violated. This is my position. Nobody can deprive me of that victory except the Almighty Allah. Already, the ECOWAS meeting was a formality. Before they came, they had already said Jammeh must step down. I will not step down”.

That was why he continued to ignore the warnings from the group which gave a deadline of January 19 (when his tenure officially ended) to step down or he would be ousted militarily. This deadline was corroborated by the Senegalese government that also gave him till midnight of January 18 to leave office. To show how terribly bad Jammeh’s case was, even the United Nations (UN) supported his removal by force of arms. However, despite all these signs on the wall that it was all over, Jammeh stayed put.

And, like a drowning man who would not mind clinging to a serpent for help, he began clinging to anything imaginable when he saw that the world was closing in on him. Jammeh used all the subterfuge known in the books to his ilk: his hope to use the country’s Supreme Court to upturn Barrow’s election met a brick wall after the court postponed the hearing of the case for months. The court said it could not rule on Jammeh’s challenge against his electoral defeat due to a lack of judges. “We can only hear this matter when we have a full bench of the Supreme Court,” Emmanuel Fagbenle, the court’s chief justice said on January 10. The Nigerian judge said the extra judges needed to hear the case were not available. Jammeh even declared a state of emergency a few days to the end of his tenure, in his mad desperation for power.

Rather than step down honourably, he continued to invoke the sovereignty of his country to denounce ECOWAs’ intervention as if that sovereignty meant anything to him too. He had apparently forgotten that in today’s world, such a claim is as tenuous as it is archaic.

Seeing that he was not ready to see reason, some of his cabinet members began to desert him. Indeed, almost everyone else who had been in the saddle with him saw the handwriting on the wall; almost everyone else, except Jammeh. More than five of his ministers resigned ahead of the ultimatum. Then his vice president, Isatou Njie Saidy, threw in the towel last week, amid rising political tension. Saidy, the highest level official to abandon Jammeh’s camp had been in the role since 1997. Some accounts even said his wife and children had fled Banjul, leaving him to face his comeuppance all alone.

Perhaps the last straw that broke the camel’s back was the country’s military that said it would not fight a “stupid fight.” Chief of Defence Staff Ousman Badjie said, after eating dinner in a tourist district close to the capital, Banjul:”We are not going to involve ourselves militarily. This is a political dispute…I am not going to involve my soldiers in a stupid fight. I love my men. If they (Senegalese) come in, we are here like this,” Badjie said, making a hands up to surrender gesture.” On Thursday, the Gambian Navy led by Rear Admiral Sarjo Fofana, also abandoned Jammeh and pledged to pass allegiance to Barrow after his swearing-in in Senegal.

This is the wise thing to do and the military chiefs deserve to be commended for being realistic. Only a foolish military leader would order his men out against the formidable ECOWAS military fire power, especially when there was no justifiable reason for such suicide. Innocent people do not need to shed their blood or tears for a foolish tyrant.

But no one ever thought Jammeh would hold on till last Friday before stepping down from the throne of his forefathers. Our elders say that someone who does not have the drug for nausea should not eat raw cockroaches. If Jammeh had considered the totality of everything around him –  his coming from a minority ethnic population, his military strength, their will power to defend him, the seriousness of the world to get him out, etc, he would have known that staying put was just not an option. It was clear, even to the greatest fool, that once his military commanders abandoned him, it was all over.

But, why are African leaders like this? Has Jammeh forgotten how Laurent Gbagbo was smoked out of his room in the presidential palace in Ivory Coast like a common criminal in 2011? Why would any sane human being risk his all just to stay put in power? What new things did Jammeh have to offer after 22 years in government and in power (to paraphrase our own self-styled ex-president, General Ibrahim Babangida)?

Anyway, it is good that the leaders of the region eventually rose to the occasion, rather unusually. “ECOWAS has stood up, and they don’t always do that. It’s an important message to Jammeh, both from the people of The Gambia, the people of Africa, and from neighbouring states, that it’s not business as usual anymore,” Amnesty International’s chief Salil Shetty said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

But we could go to bed with our eyes closed and be rest assured that Jammeh had no choice but to leave given the weapons and men amassed against him because tiny Gambia is involved. Could ECOWAS have taken the same stance, say, against a country like Nigeria if such an electoral impasse had occurred here? Will our military have reacted as a single entity to the election result? If we cannot answer these questions in the affirmative, then Africa is not yet out of the woods. We still need a working framework to remove cavemen thrust into power by some benevolent spirits who would want to bring down the roof on everybody’s head rather than leave honourably when their term ends.

But it is good that we have seen the exit of a man who was described as ‘capable of anything’ and had instilled so much fear in his people.

FRC Act is a clarion call to church leaders for introspection

Pastor Enoch Adeboye’s resignation as General Overseer (G.O.) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) on January 7 has raised dust that has refused to settle. Pastor Adeboye, who announced his stepping down as G.O. of the Nigerian arm of the church at the Annual Ministers Thanksgiving held at the Redemption Camp, Ogun State, also named Pastor Joseph Obayemi as the G.O. of the Nigerian branch while he assumes duty as the Spiritual Head and Global Missioner of the church. Adeboye said his stepping down was in response to the new legal requirements by the Financial Regulations Council (FRC) guiding all registered churches, mosques and civil society organisations (CSOs).

Although it is only Pastor Adeboye that has so far complied with the FRC law (now suspended), which stipulates that heads of nonprofit organisations like churches now have a maximum period of 20 years to lead their organisations, and in retirement are not permitted to hand over to their relations; the fact is, more churches would have followed suit but for the suspension of the law by the Federal Government and the promise by the House of Representatives to take another look at the provisions of the law.

Expectedly, the law has generated controversies, with Nigerians seeing it from different perspectives, depending on which side of the divide they are. I knew we have not heard the last of the matter the day Pastor Adeboye made the announcement, but what would happen specifically was what I could not tell. How would Vice President Yemi Osinbajo feel that such a thing happened to his church’s G.O. at a time he is the country’s number two man? (Remember he is also a pastor in the church). I tried to put myself in his shoes. Somehow, Jim Obazee, the FRC boss has had to be sacrificed for implementing the law. It is impossible to catch such a big fish in our kind of country without the net tearing.

Whilst one is pained by the fact that government – the National Assembly and all-  which are also sick and in need of deliverance, are now the ones trying to regulate the activities of churches (that should set the moral tone and be an exemplar of everything Christ-like), the fact is, the churches brought this situation of the man with a log in his eyes trying to remove the speck in the eye of the other, upon itself. Today, it is impossible to know the difference between the church and the town, or the town and the cassock. Many of our churches have exalted those things they ought not to have done at all and have left undone those things they are supposed to exalt. Poverty stares one in the face on seeing members of some of these churches, including those where they worship prosperity. But the opulence surrounding the leadership is a sharp contrast to this.

For example, what do churches need private jets for? Even as a country, we complain about the astronomical costs of running presidential jets. If the idea is to propagate the gospel, this can be more economically done by those concerned using commercial flights. But what obtains in some of our influential churches is the rat race of my jet is bigger than yours! This being the case, they should be able to pay some money into government’s coffers. Do they also tell those collecting parking and other fees for the jets that they should not pay because they are churches?

The point is; the mouths of some of the church leaders have now become so wide that offerings, tithes and other incomes realised in the church can no longer sustain them. So, they have delved into business ventures, including schools, universities, hospitals, etc., in some cases with turnovers in billions. With such stupendous wealth made through business activities, you cannot be on your own. Somebody must look into your books. As they say, if you don’t want to get wet, don’t go near the brook. The spiritual head should not double as the head of administration, accounts and even audit; in which case they report to no one but themselves. Even Jesus Christ was not everything; he appointed a treasurer!

At any rate, the churches cannot take not wanting government to look into some of their activities too far because most of them would not be operating in the country if they were not registered. Registering with government is admission that they accept the supremacy of government and is indication of their readiness to submit to the law (government).

Moreover, we have had incidents of church buildings collapsing because some pastors would want to sidetrack the law. Investigations into the last one in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, last month, revealed that the founder was in a hurry to get his ordination conducted in the new edifice that he could not wait for the necessary government approvals. In the end, more than 50 people perished when the building collapsed. There is so much impunity on the part of some church leaders that government cannot but be interested in.

It is necessary to see what amendments the lawmakers want to make to the FRC law. Were the churches not consulted before the law was made? Were there no stakeholders’ meetings where the issues were thrashed out? Why did the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) wait till now before crying wolf? Whatever it is, the country would do better with the spiritual aspects only left for the churches. That is what the Bible asks them to do. Not business. Christians know that God can call anyone at any time. While He could call some early in life; He also could decide to call some in old age. So, what happens to such latter day men of God? This, for me, is where we should leave the spiritual matter completely in the hands of the churches. But not with church money; particularly proceeds from business ventures that the churches engage in. Such money cannot be left to the whims and caprices of one individual in the hope that he would act rationally simply because he is a man of God. These days, we know there are men of God and there are men of God. We also know what money, as the root of all evils, can cause.

The truth of the matter is that no matter the amendments the lawmakers and the government make to the law, it would be useless if they do not make the churches, mosques, etc. accountable for the people’s money that they collect. It is not a sin that some of these organisations are extremely rich, some richer than some nations; but it is sinful that the people who contributed the money do not have a say in how it is spent. It is the leadership that takes that decision solely, and when we talk of the leadership, we are not talking about any committee or board but one or two persons, perhaps from the same family. This is wrong.

Unless where there is incontrovertible evidence that the business ventures established by the churches are being subsidised by the church, they should be treated as the business concerns that they are. As of now, many of their members’ children cannot attend the schools established with the church’s money because of the astronomical fees. The implication of what I am saying is this; the organisations, churches, mosques, etc. must be compelled to send their annual returns to the appropriate quarters. Some churches have been doing this for years; even long before the FRC came up with the law. Indeed, for me, this basically, is the reason behind the brouhaha that has attended the issue since Pastor Adeboye’s resignation.

We must give it to some of the pastors who seem concerned about the tenure proviso though because they really toiled to grow their churches. It was Pastor Adeboye that took RCCG to its present enviable height just as credit also should go to Bishop David Oyedepo for his untiring efforts that have made the Winners Chapel witness its meteoric growth. But, if the spiritual life of these churches has not outgrown the founders; the financial life has. To the extent that they threw their coffers open for public money, there is need to ensure that such monies are not abused.

The import of what has just happened is that our churches have to brace up for the inevitable; this is the simple truth. Let no one jubilate over Obazee’s removal. It would only amount to a well deserved sack if he had ulterior motives for doing what he did. Otherwise, the entire incident should be seen as a clarion call to our church leaders for introspection. They should use the incident to search their conscience to see where they missed it. We as church members may lack the capacity to touch them or do them any harm; but they will do well to retrace their steps before what will do more than harm to them comes.

And, on their own part, if our leaders truly fear God as they do some of our church leaders, they would know that good governance is what is needed to make the country a better place. Lawmakers who want pension for their leaders that spent a few years in government do not have the moral right to sit in judgement over tenure of people who spent decades building their institutions.